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  1. Crowd Data Center
  2. CWD-3697

Crowd token storage in database causing Crowd to hang

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    • Icon: Bug Bug
    • Resolution: Duplicate
    • Icon: High High
    • None
    • 2.7
    • None
    • None

      Problem Report

      Support has had an influx of cases since Crowd release 2.7 regarding 'hung' instances effectively causing any application using Crowd for authentication down the line to be unable to authenticate.

      In first case, we reviewed the db connection pool live and found that threads are waiting on a query to execute in the database, but the query ran for over 15 minutes before we killed the application, truncated the cwd_token table, and restarted. Upon restart we can watch the connections get used and increase to the limit at which point the application becomes unresponsive again. This can take seconds, minutes, or an hour or more, just depends on the number of applications and users hitting the systems.

      The query identified in a postgres env:

      postgres=# select * from pg_stat_activity where current_query like 'update%';
      datid | datname | procpid | usesysid | usename | current_query waiting	| xact_start |	 query_start |	 backend_start | client_addr | client_port 
      17618 |	 crowd	| 4253	| 17617	 | crowduser	| update cwd_token set directory_id=$1, entity_name=$2, random_number=$3, identifier_hash=$4, random_hash=$5, created_date=$6,
      last_accessed_date=$7, last_accessed_time=$8, duration=$9 where id=$10	| t	 2013-10-23 11:15:19.802626-04	| 2013-10-23 11:15:19.806601-04	| 2013-10-23 11:15:11.270126-04	| 127.0.0.1	| 45819
      (1 row)

      Using visualvm and mbeans plugin we were able to modify the c3p0 connection pool limits in real time and watch the connections climb from 30 to 100 where the system effectively hung again. Changing the connections back to 30 dropped all connections at which point they were picked up again and not released - all waiting on the long running query against the cwd_token table to finish.

      WORKAROUND

      At this point the workaround is to switch the session storage to in-memory from database storage:
      Session Configuration

      The in-memory storage is explained in more detail on the page linked above.

      If you cannot keep crowd up long enough to access the Administration console, or crowd will simply not finish starting up, follow these steps to modify the value directly in the database:

      1. Shutdown crowd - ensure the pid is stopped
      2. Perform a database backup
      3. Connect to the database
      4. Execute this sql:
        update cwd_property 
        set property_value='false'
        where property_name='database.token.storage.enabled';
      5. Restart Crowd
      6. Validate the session storage is now in-memory by Navigating to Administration > Session Config

              Unassigned Unassigned
              rgoodwin Ryan Goodwin (Inactive)
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                Created:
                Updated:
                Resolved: