Earlier today I flipped from using suPHP/PHP-CGI to using the Apache SAPI Module for performance purposes. An odd thing occured which I had never seen before.
Immediately after switching back to the SAPI module - a quick config change - I refreshed the page in FireFox and Internet Explorer to verify that the page was still working. I was presented with a file download box on both browsers. Sigh. I opened both files, and they were both sourcecode from the scripts. Odd. I restarted Apache one more time just to be sure. No change in the results after that.
I got a phone call in the meantime, which interrupted my attempts to fix the problem. In that short time I had closed both browsers (both set to clear cache/cookies upon closure). After the call, I went back to start working on the problem again - and the page loaded.
What the hell?!
In my haste to switch back to the SAPI module, I had refreshed the page while apache was still reloading. I must have caught in that single microsecond when it wasn’t quite ready to parse requests. Both browsers had decided that caching that request would be a good idea and not release the cache until the browser had been completely restarted.
Well, at least everything is working now.
I’m moving GeekLAN.com to WordPress since I don’t have any more time to dedicate to my own little blog app. For now, it’s just far to feature incomplete for me to continue using.
I decided to go with WordPress simply because the community is large, fairly friendly and it has a lot of nice utilities I can abuse to make things work better. A lot of people will tell you WordPress can’t handle a high-load, heavy-traffic site. I will disagree.
Two blogs that I host have been dugg and didn’t even flinch during heavy traffic times. This isn’t amazing, this is just simple WordPress configuration and proper plugin use.
In any case, this is how it’s going to be for now until I have more time to dedicate to my own blogging application.