Fedia.io instability

Hi all. I've been having some problems keeping fedia.io running - at the moment, either the message workers or the php web server processes are dying after an hour or so and I have to restart everything. I have been working with the mbin team and installed some updates that we hoped would fix the problems, but no luck. I am going to work on a cron job to automatically restart things once an hour. The down side, is that you'll likely see some error 500's if you happen to hit it when the processes are restarting, but it should happen quickly and refreshing the page should make it work again.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

ok - I took a bit different approach. Since I know what error in rabbitmq's log file is associated with things coming to a stop on fedia.io, I installed swatchdog and set it up to look for that word (which is, btw, "timeout"). I created a script that stops all the messengers, then stops php-fpm, keydb, and rabbitmq. Then it start rabbit, keydb, and php-fpm in order. Finally, it restarts the messengers.

I will be surprised if it works first time, so it may still crash again but I'll be watching

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

OK. That rules out one thing.. What is your password then?

tiredofsametab,

I've noticed recently that I'm getting errors trying to vote on any posts in a discussion I've had open for more than maybe a minute (I haven't actually timed it). I don't remember it from before these issues, but I also switched to this instance just before. Might it be related?

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

It is possible. I will investigate and work on a fix

tiredofsametab,

Thanks. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Let me know if I can help too.

tiredofsametab,

It might only be with certain instances. I just noticed it wasn't happening on a lemmy.world post I'd had open for a while. It could also have been something temporary. I'll try to sport/report any patterns.

tiredofsametab,

This always fails for me: https://fedia.io/ecf/7236913?choice=1

Normally, if I refresh a page once and immediately vote, it works. In this case, it has never worked.

This happens periodically and it does not seem to be specific to any instance (I've seen across posts from several both in terms of the OP or the instance of the commenter).

My gut says potentially issues with timezone somewhere and my offset (UTC+9) is potentially far enough out that it's an issue. I have no evidence for that. Looking at the request and response in dev tools hasn't yielded anything particularly useful so far as I can tell.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

We need server error logs. So when such a problem happens. And you can fully replicate the issue. I hope you can test it with @jerry and see if there is some error log at the server side happening as well.

That allows us (developers) to find hopefully the root-cause of this issue. If it's still present.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

I moved fedia.io away from fastly. I have a nagging feeling it has something to do with fastly. Can you let me know if you continue to see this?

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

I found:

[2024-09-12T20:42:54.414611+02:00] request.ERROR: Uncaught PHP Exception SymfonyComponentHttpKernelExceptionBadRequestHttpException: "Invalid CSRF token" at AbstractController.php line 39 {"exception":"[object] (Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\BadRequestHttpException(code: 0): Invalid CSRF token at /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/src/Controller/AbstractController.php:39)
[stacktrace]
#0 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/src/Controller/FavouriteController.php(24): App\Controller\AbstractController->validateCsrf()
#1 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/vendor/symfony/http-kernel/HttpKernel.php(183): App\Controller\FavouriteController->__invoke()
#2 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/vendor/symfony/http-kernel/HttpKernel.php(76): Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handleRaw()
#3 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/vendor/symfony/http-kernel/Kernel.php(182): Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handle()
#4 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/vendor/symfony/runtime/Runner/Symfony/HttpKernelRunner.php(35): Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Kernel->handle()
#5 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/vendor/autoload_runtime.php(29): Symfony\Component\Runtime\Runner\Symfony\HttpKernelRunner->run()
#6 /var/www/kbin.melroy.org/html/public/index.php(7): require_once('...')
#7 {main}
"} []

And you found:

{"message":"Uncaught PHP Exception Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\BadRequestHttpException: "Invalid CSRF token" at AbstractController.php line 39","context":{"exception":{"class":"Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\BadRequestHttpException","message":"Invalid CSRF token","code":0,"file":"/var/www/mbin/src/Controller/AbstractController.php:39"}},"level":400,"level_name":"ERROR","channel":"request","datetime":"2024-09-12T18:54:45.620576+00:00","extra":{}}
{"message":"Uncaught PHP Exception Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\BadRequestHttpException: "Invalid CSRF token" at AbstractController.php line 39","context":{"exception":{"class":"Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\BadRequestHttpException","message":"Invalid CSRF token","code":0,"file":"/var/www/mbin/src/Controller/AbstractController.php:39"}},"level":400,"level_name":"ERROR","channel":"request","datetime":"2024-09-12T18:54:45.803347+00:00","extra":{}}

Not sure yet what the root-cause is. But it's on our radar now.

tiredofsametab,

Y'all are great. Feel free to ask if you need me to try anything. I haven't touched PHP in years, but I am a software engineer, so feel free to be as technical as you'd like.

melroy, (edited )
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

We can definitively use more developers. We are currently with only two: me and bentigorlich (recently debounced left as well as e-five). I also didn't use Symfony (the PHP framework behind it), but I now also got those skills in place.. So no worries, we are happy to help you. You can join us at Matrix, so it's easier to chat and discuss: Mbin Matrix space. I hope to see you there!

EDIT: GitHub repo is at: https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Sorry you also went through this: -> kbin.social (died) -> kbin.run (died) -> fedia. Kbin.run was the instance of debounced, mentioned earlier..

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

This annoys me about the fediverse - people take a chance on coming here and then repeatedly get left in the dark when their instance is shut down. That's why I was so very happy when you and others helped me get fedia.io back to healthy.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Agreed. This is also why I didn't (yet) rename kbin.melroy.org to mbin.melroy.org. And also created: https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/issues/1126

tiredofsametab,

Still getting it very frequently. Sometimes no amount of refreshing will allow me to vote on something. Here's the latest URL: https://fedia.io/ef/1184232?choice=1

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

For now try Firefox or a fork: Floorp, LibreWolf, etc. I heard that works better.. I know this isn't the solution, but that is the best workaround atm.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

Most interesting: the problem had only been happening on MS Edge on my laptop. I have been using safari on my phone without issue. Just a bit ago, i refreshed the page and now every time I revisit the site, I have to log back in, just like on Edge. It’s like the old session expired and the new ones aren’t sticking. I’ll try FF on my phone.

Note: even in the time I started typing this reply to when I hit the “add comment” button, I got logged out

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Note: even in the time I started typing this reply to when I hit the “add comment” button, I got logged out

That is really bad indeed. And the only error you see on the server side is only "Invalid CSRF token"?

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

I have so many errors in prod.log that it's hard to tell for certain, but when I try to filter out those that are associated with failed federation events, that seems to be when I'm left with. I am trying again to see if I can confirm

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Do you have 2FA enabled?

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

I do not have 2fa active at the moment

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

I do not have 2fa turned on right now.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

OK, that rules out at least the 2FA code. Thanks for letting me know. So what is your password ;P?

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

Indeed. I am trying to get it to happen again now that I’ve got the logs filtered down to a manageable level.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

If you want to know.. We did try to clean-up all those errors/warnings from the log and fix some of the issues in the main branch: https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/commits/main/.. We are not there yet obviously. But 1.7.x is now focusing on making Mbin more stable. @BentiGorlich is helping out as well here.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

ok - I just had it happen again while looking at logs. interestingly, there was NOT a CSRF log when that happened. There were a bunch of other errors, but enough that I could look through all of them and see that they were all related to activitypub issues - signaturevalidator and the like

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

I really hope it's not a session issue with Valkey or something (I don't think so..). We are now just going deep into this issue I think. Both sessions & csrf. Since I notice already some weird config issues with csrf forms

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

FYI. Reading: https://symfony.com/doc/7.2/security/csrf.html#installation

The tokens used for CSRF protection are meant to be different for every user and they are stored in the session. That's why a session is started automatically as soon as you render a form with CSRF protection.

Moreover, this means that you cannot fully cache pages that include CSRF protected forms. As an alternative, you can:

  • Embed the form inside an uncached ESI fragment and cache the rest of the page contents;
  • Cache the entire page and load the form via an uncached AJAX request;
  • Cache the entire page and use hinclude.js to load the CSRF token with an uncached AJAX request and replace the form field value with it.
melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

So we might cache too much in Mbin.. Including the comments (vote forms)... oopsy?

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Or remove.. CSRF protection and keep the cache.. It's a trade-off.. @jerry How much protection does CSRF on these forms really gives the user? I'm "just" the software engineer, you are the SecOps expert here... I mean how likely is it really that sites are doing a Cross-Site Request Forgery ...

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

it's hard to make a blanket statement, because it depends on the details of the application. CSRF attacks are definitely real and common, but using csrf tokens isn't critical in every application. For example, I think we have CORS headers enabled, I don't think we have functionality that allows embedded iframes, but we do allow links - if we have administrative functions that can be triggered solely with GET parameters, then someone could trick an administrator into doing something that caused damage by clicking on a link in a post. The only one that would obviously work that I can see is "logout", which would be annoying, but not world ending, and would work for everyone, not just administrators.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Thanks. I see. I do see the importance for login & logout forms having CSRF. But it does seems a bit overkill to have it on upvotes, boost and alike.. I could be wrong.

tiredofsametab,

I only use Firefox at this time, so that shouldn't be it.

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Could you join the conversation here? https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/pull/1130. We really are trying hard to debug this issue. Both CSRF form issue as well as log out issue.

tiredofsametab,

Will do. This morning I have work to do outside.

I will also note that there are three patterns when I post a comment that may or may not be related:

  • it just publishes when I hit the button
  • I hit the button, it thinks for a second, and then the button is intractable again. Pushing it again works so far in every case (i.e. it seems something goes wrong but no UI error. I haven't had dev tools open to see what happens there. This feels like it took to long for me to reply in some cases, but not all).
  • I hit post and get moved to a new page which is just my post with a preview. I'm not sure if this is just how it works with certain sites or something or also related.
japan,

What is better FEDIA or MBIN or CATSWEAT?

originalucifer,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

mbin is the platform that both sites utilize. fedia.io is the most popular, and i would argue the flagship mbin installation.

i am building moist.catsweat.com as a stable counterpart to distribute the load, maybe add a little irreverence to the fediverse.

ciferecaNinjo,

I noticed that when I visit my profile page (https://fedia.io/u/ciferecaNinjo) while logged out, I get a 504 gateway error, but if I login then my profile page renders fine. It has been this way the past few days. If I view my profile from a logged-out browser while logged in in another browser, the logged out browser sees the profile fine. So to reproduce it would be interesting to visit anyone’s profile who is logged out.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

That sounds like a recently introduced bug. I’ll report it.

ciferecaNinjo,

Thanks!

Apparently it’s not as reproduceable as I thought. I was just now able to render my profile before logging in.

jerry,
@jerry@fedia.io avatar

Fedia is still having some stability issues. I set up some automation to detect the problem and then restart the services. If you were to look at that page while the services were restarting, you will see that error

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