Mike Says Meh The blog of Mike Kauspedas | Hosting by www.gearhost.com

Get rid of 500 errors for WordPress in IIS

Tired of getting these errors in IIS for WordPress? This is the 500 error normally displayed when there is a website problem. But behind it is the real error, that you need to see, without logging into the web server and running it locally.

Here is one of the many wordpress errors that may be behind the infamous IIS 500 error.

How do you get to see the real error? it's actually really simple, just login to IIS and edit the feature settings for error pages. First open IIS and go to your site. Then double click on error pages. 

On the right hand side click on edit feature settings.

Then choose detailed errors and click ok.

Oh, you don't have access to IIS because you're on a shared hosting provider? Just edit your web.config file and add this line near the very bottom, just above /system.webserver.

<httpErrors errorMode="Detailed" />

IIS 7 Url Rewrite with WordPress

I just switched my site over to yet another web server. This one is running the latest and greatest, IIS 7.5, Windows 2008 R2 x64. Plus I want to do some more testing and playing around with WebSitePanel (WSP). WSP used to be DotNetPanel, then they went open source and now it's a free control panel for Windows servers. But more on that later.

Since this new server is IIS 7.5 and URL Rewrite 2.0 is installed, I thought I would switch from ISAPI_Rewrite and give it a try. I looked really quick for some guides, and made some rules. The best part is, WordPress after version 2.8 is completely compatible with URL rewrite, AND will even update the web.config for you. How cool is that? Here's the guide on how to do it from iis.net.

http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2009/05/16/iis-7-url-rewrite-module-support-in-wordpress-2-8.aspx

It's very simple, just make sure to give write access to your web.config.

I've always had my domain name rewrite to www, so I added that as well. Another simple rule and the code is below.

                <rule name="Add www" patternSyntax="Wildcard" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="*" />
                    <conditions>
                        <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="www.mikesaysmeh.com" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Redirect" url="http://www.mikesaysmeh.com/{R:1}" />
                </rule>

Just change www.mikesaysmeh.com to your website address.

Last, I found this guide and used a couple.

http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2009/04/08/10-url-rewriting-tips-and-tricks.aspx

I removed the trailing slash from my URL and enforced lower case. There are a myriad of other rules out there as well, and being that all you need to do is add them to your web.config file, it's too easy to pass up.

If you need a host to support this all, look no further than the one I work for, www.gearhost.com.

Framerate drop when casting in WoW

I just ran into this problem on my home PC. (Lots of WoW posts, just got around to trying patch 4.0.1). I have a 3 core AMD proc and a Radon 4870. Plenty of power to run WoW at highest settings on my "tiny" 22" LCD. (1680x1050) And so it does, when I'm running around. But the minute I cast something, the FPS goes from 80 to under 20. I could not figure it out for the life of me. I tried turning off and on every setting in WoW for video, and even lowering everything to low. (Of course latest drivers and all that too.) Then I even tried turning off ATI overdrive, then turning it back on but setting the fan high so the GPU was cooler. Still notta. So I turned to the internet. Low and behold, a blue post on exactly what I needed to do.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27187856635&sid=1

Setting multisampling to 1 fixed my issue. BUT, I had to restart the game, that was the key. I tried that before bu never actually restarted. Now my FPS stays between 70-80 and runs super smooth. Yay!

How to keep the Macbook Pro cool while playing WoW

Almost a year ago I bought a Macbook Pro for school, and then I found it can play World of Warcraft, and decently. However, the Macbook Pro is a notebook and it gets hot. Really hot actually. So hot I can't touch parts of it, like above the function keys. This worried me, but Apple said it's normal, and when playing games I should elevate it, yada yada. Common sense stuff I know from working on PC's for the last decade. Elevated it was, but it was still very hot. I decided to start measuring the temperatures so I installed an application called iStat. iStat is a free program that gives you all sorts of valuable information, and temperatures. As I played WoW I would occasionally hold the command key and hit M to switch WoW into window mode. Then I'd pop into dashboard and check out iStat. The CPU would normally be in the 190F range. Way hotter than I had seen before, but according to Apple perfectly normal and fine. After all, the CPU is rated to 220F according to them. I found other people with similar issues and the same concern I had; reading through forums and blogs. But I paid a decent amount of money for this laptop, a lot more than a comparable Windows laptop, and I only had a year warranty. Heat will destroy components, I don't care what they rate as normal. It may be ok now, but it's going to eventually break something.

So I did some more research. I already had a laptop stand/cooling pad and the Macbook sits on that any time I am using it like a desktop. That's one way of keeping it cool, buy a stand for it. With or without fans, both will help but with fans is better (but noisier).

The next solution I found was to use software to control the fan speed. I installed SMCfancontrol. 3000rpm is a good base value while playing WoW, this should keep the temp down significantly. I actually ran mine at max and got temps in the 130F range. Huge improvement! But max is really noisy and will probably cut down on the life of the fan.

Another solution is an in game feature of WoW. In the latest version of WoW with patch 4 you can set the max fps (frame rates per second). I set mine for 35 and the game runs smooth and the temps stay low. Go to your video settings and click on advanced, then move the slider to the about the x in "max" and I got 35. hit control + r to get a display of your current fps in WoW. I just played with the slider until it hit a steady 35. It will help to have your character look at the ground. Your fps go up and down depending on the environment and how much of it you view. Indoors you get much higher fps (good), outdoors it goes down (bad) because the video card has to render so much more. 35 is great middle ground of smooth game play and performance.

Another in game solution is to lower your graphics settings. I have mine set to low and the game looks ok and is playable. I also have a nice gaming PC that I can turn to max when I want things to look pretty. But for normal leveling and instances on my low level character, low graphics settings is fine for me.

I combine all the solutions into one, but it wasn't enough for me, or it was too late. Now when I play WoW I get artifacts, little screw ups in the rendering of WoW. Like instead of the texture of the ground, I get a little color square.

Those little brown dots are artifacts.

See the rectangles above the spells? More artifacts

In the end I will have to bring my Macbook into the Apple store and see what they can do. I still have the one year warranty until December, so at least there's that. However, the solutions I put in this article can help prevent your Macbook from receiving the same fate. If you're playing WoW or any games for that matter, take heed! Cool your Macbook, or you'll end up with a Macbrick.

UPDATE!!

I switched some of the graphics in WoW to "fair" and the artifacts went away. So far they haven't returned after about an hour of playing.

Some other helpful links:

http://www.eightbits.org/?p=174

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11506936

http://www.dailytechnobabble.com/mac-tips-tricks/how-tos/how-to-keep-your-macbook-pro-running-cool/

microsoft.ace.oledb.12.0 provider is not registered on the local machine

Sorry, I really don't post this stuff enough and it's probably helpful to the few people who run into these weird issues. Working for a web host, I run into weird issues all the time. We deal with a plethora of different customers using different technologies, software, applications, configurations, etc. Here's something a customer just ran into, and fortunately resolved themselves.

They are using an Excel ODBC driver on Windows 2008 R2 x64 to import some data into MSSQL 2008 R2. When trying this through their site in IIS 7 they got the following error.

microsoft.ace.oledb.12.0 provider is not registered on the local machine

The fix is simple, just set your application pool to allow 32bit applications. If you don't, only x64 DLL's will run. To do this, open IIS, navigate to application pools, right click on the one for your site in IIS, and then click on advanced settings. Change "Enable 32-bit Applications" to true and click ok. For good measure, stop the application pool and let it sit for 30 seconds, then start it back up.