Avoiding 'too many client tasks'. Help please 1

[Kendo]

Hi y'all,

About 6 months ago I was a hosting a site that started to pick up a fair amount of traffic...not too hot, maybe 500 visitors / day.

However, the Access database I'm using seemed to randomly 'lock up' giving the error (I'm paraphrasing from memory):

"too many client tasks"

The database would then *stay locked* for 1-3 hours, which needless to say, was no good at all.

Has anyone else had this? Does anyone actually know what it means?

From my research I've found that it happens to ASP and PHP users when they fail to close the database connection properly (since they have to close it manually, I can see how this error can occur).

The reason I'm asking is that I'm going to start this site up again and I'm worried that this is going to continue.

Would anyone suggest that CFTRANSACTION might be a good way around it? If I can single thread all database transactions (or at least manage them somehow), perhaps that will avoid the error.

Lastly, does anyone know whether this is a peril of being on a host with multiple websites? Is this lock 'database oriented' or ODBC oriented? If the latter, then perhaps it is an issue with having lots of people using ODBC on the same server.

Anyway, it was a cause of continual frustration and will, I suspect, continue to be, unless the greater minds at Tek-Tips can possibly help.

Thanks in advance,

Kendo.

PS. I'm a fairly experienced coldfusion and web programmer. The database itself and the code is sound - I'm reasonably confident of that. It does seem to be an error caused by increased thru-put.

PPS. I cannot afford hosting with SQL Server backend.

 

[SidianConsulting]

Kendo,

Hello there! I am new to these forums but not to ColdFusion, and I think I can help you out.

Since Microsoft Access is a desktop database and not given to simultaneous connections, one thing you can do is in your CF Administrator, uncheck "Maintain Database Connections" for the appropriate ODBC datasource. You'll find this option (and a plethora of other goodies) under ODBC Data Sources, [click your data source name], CF SETTINGS button. For Access, this is the most efficient way to use your database in a web environment. Connections will be destroyed at the end of every ColdFusion request, and locks will not be maintained.

Number 2, if you can't afford MS SQL Server 2000, look into MSDE, which is Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/development/2000/MSDE2000.asp

We've had great results with it, and portability to a full version of MS SQL Server (you could call MSDE SQL Server "Lite&quot is seamless.

Hope this helps!

-Tek