strange server lags

Hey guys...

Since yesterday I got a strange problem.
My server freezes sporadically for some seconds (4s-12s).
I have tried to fix it for the last 4 hours, but I havent got it.

Using RB1063, Spout, Towny, Heroes, LogBlock, Essentials, many more..

The freeze lasts for 4-12secs, the cpu load goes down to ca. 0.1%-1% from the normal load (10%).
After the freeze the server log writes quickly all actions happened in the lag and the load goes to normal load (10%) again.

I tried already to disable all plugins and enable one by one...cant get it..

Hope anyone can help me.

kind regards

 

CraftBukkit #1063 isn't RB, maybe try downgrading to 1060?

 

I completely agree with @Maxorq about not using non-recommended builds. Try 1060. Also, does the problem happen when you are running no plugins at all?

 

@Supersam654

I think he did.

 

Sorry, I also tried 1060. (but the changes to 1063 arent that different)
Used "core" plugins only, disable 20 others, only Heroes, Spout, Logblock, Essentials left.
Tried also not all stable build of these plugins...

Without plugins -> no lag. Also used Chunkster today.
By enabling one by one I cant find out, when it starts (I think it is like a combination of enabled plugins)

As said, it is very strange, cpu load goes down to 0,1%-0,2% within the lag and grows after it directly to 50%...

 

For starters I really don't think that using any developmental build of anything is really a good idea. It's in a dev state for a reason . As far as your problem goes, I have never heard of plugins causing it, which can only make me believe that this is a Spout issue. Try disabling Spout but using most/all of your other plugins and see if the problem comes back.

Also, @Maxorq although I read the statement that you quoted, the OP never mentioned if running with no plugins fixed the problem or not.

 

If the cpu drops real low, it could be being blocked by something else. Do any of these plugins use a database, like MySQL or do you have anything like a virus-scanner on your machine? Something that accesses the network, or harddisk is what I'm thinking. It would then have to be that one of your plugins tries to access the same resource, creating some kind of I/O bottleneck.

 

Spout should be executing very little runtime code on your server - if it's causing a slowdown, 9/10 times its from some plugin that is just using the SpoutAPI, not Spout itself.

The problem the OP describes reeks of a I/O bottleneck.

 

Yes, I completely agree with you. However, I have been given a limited list of plugins that includes Spout (but not any of the plugins that require Spout to function) so starting with removing Spout and seeing if the situation improves really is my only course of action for now.

 

I thought it could be a disk problem, so I put the whole server data (3,5gb) to ramdisk...
Still the same problems...

Testing without Spout: Some developers dont follow the guidelines -> AutoDownload of Spout...
Need to test everything manually again today..

More info:
CPU i7 930
24GB DDR3
Server in Ramdisk now (same lags)

watched cpu load with top login in root (no other processes have cpu load)
the whole server is for minecraft only.

I am using a mix of flatfiles and mysql..
(towny, permissions, essentials,...) flatfiles
(logblock, iconomy, lwc,...) mysql

 

You seem to have a lot of server data. I can say that a giant world would be up to 300 MB and you could easily have 5 worlds, and a few other files, but I just can't come to terms with your 3.5 GBs of data. With that said,I thought your problem was I/O related, however the RAMdisk part proves this wrong. I guess the only conclusion I can come to is that your server is overheating. I once had a mini-laptop (between regular laptop and before netbooks came out) with a dual-core processor and a pretty wimpy fan. Unless I supplied it with additional cooling, the laptop would start freezing on me because it was getting too hot internally. Although I understand that this is a nice server, not an underpowered laptop, you could be having the same problem, just on a totally different scale.

Also,how often do the freezes occur.

 

I just checked it today again.
My regions are 1,6GB. The rest stacks up to 1,8GB for the whole server data.
I switched back to world only in ramdisk.

The freezes: 1-2 per minute for some seconds.
alle the other time no lag, little delay for 100-200ms.

 

When this happens do you get spammed by heroes in the console? I get that same issue (lag) because heroes seems to think all my NPCs are players and creates accounts for them, this happens when I add new players to a group.

Might be totaly unrelated but I wanted to give it a shot.