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GoDaddy.com’s spokesbabe Danica Patrick failed to open her stream due to too many open files.
This post is a slight deviation from the normal crap you find here.
This post is meant to help GoDaddy.com customers keep their sanity if they ever suddenly find the dreaded “failed to open stream: Too many open files” error message on any blog, website, or other web application they might be working on.
I used GoDaddy as my webhost because, well, generally they work and they’re relatively cheap. But you get what you pay for in the tech support department.
About two weeks ago I noticed that certain parts of one of my blogs started getting the aforemention “failed to open stream, blah blah blah” message on certain functions. I hadn’t changed anything, I hadn’t updated anything, I hadn’t even paid much attention to the blog in mention. It just started happening one day.
So I did what any nerd does when he or she has a problem: I Googled the phrase and found that it occurred kinda of randomly all over the web and it was often (but not always) on GoDaddy sites. It appeared to be some sort of problem with the way PHP (a programming language) interacted with the OS of the webserver it was on. In other words: it was totally out of my realm of knowledge or ability to fix.
Throughout the course of a week or so about a dozen emails went back and forth between GoDaddy technical representatives (always a new person each time) and myself. Here’s a summary of the exchange:
Me: Hi! I think something’s wrong on the server. I’m getting this strange “failed to open stream: Too many open files” error. Could you look into it? Thanks!
GoDaddy: Sure! We’re always here to help a great customer like you! We love you! Golly, that is a strange error! Could you send us a screen shot? We’ve never heard of that error before. What have you changed lately? We love you!
Me: Okay, here’s your screenshot. I haven’t changed anything. I’ve been doing some research. I think its something on the server. Go ahead and try using Google.com and look up this error message. You’ll see some possible solutions and even find other GoDaddy customers with this problem.
GoDaddy: Wow, great screenshot! We’ve never seen this error before. Are you sure you didn’t change something? It looks like a coding error on your side. We like you a lot!
Me: Umm, no, I haven’t changed anything. Just for a test I took the files that are giving me a problem and put them on another GoDaddy hosted server. They worked fine. Then I took some good files and put them on the problem server. The error was there. This is definitely a server issue.
GoDaddy: Golly, this really has us stumped. We value your patronage. Sort of. We’ve never heard of such a thing before. Ever! Are you sure you didn’t change anything? We may have to troubleshoot your programming code. Could you give us your credit card number so we can bill you just in case?
Me: What? No, you can’t have my credit card number. Curious how you didn’t actually tell me how much you charge per hour. Don’t you guys know what Google is? I have a degree in ENGLISH and I’ve found 10 possible solutions to this problem. Why can’t you?
And then… silence. Three days go by with no snappy comebacks and accusatory emails before I notice that suddenly everything works perfectly again.
I have yet to receive any sort of email from any of the Tech Support guys (always guys) with any sort of explanation, apology, or even acknowledgement that the problem was solved. After some searching around I found that I’m not the only person who has had this problem and not the only person to suddenly have the problem solved suddenly with no word from GoDaddy Tech Support.
Moral of the Story: If you get this error keep plugging away at Tech Support. Eventually they’ll fix it… They just won’t tell you about it.
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