Overall Text limit for all fields ?

I'm not quite sure how to describe this, but

Joomla! 3.4.1
CB 2.0.7 (will be updating soon)
CB Profile Pro addon (latest version)

When I have a user edit his profile, it appears that the sum of all of the chars in all of the fields has reached an upper limit. One particular user has more text in text fields (such as biography) and when he saves his profile it gives a session expired/cookies" error. This doesn't happen at login though - only when saving too much in a users' profile.



Other people that have less text in their fields are able to save their profile fine, and if words are cut down in each of the fields, this user too can save his information. Is there an absolute limit on how much data can be stored for each user? I have about 50 fields, about 10 of which are text type. They are split into several tabs which the user can go through after logging in and updating his/her profile.

I've tried clearing the cache, disabling the cache (both system and plugin) turning off sessions, checking the server time and I've unchecked the spoof check in CB. Now all that happens is the user gets a blank page and nothing gets saved. Only users with too much text in their fields has this problem. I've been fiddling for the past few hours trying to figure out what is going on, but I'm ready to defer to the experts. If needed, a login can be provided.

Thanks.

Depends on how many fields you have. Database row size limits are a real issue to be away of. If you've a dozen textarea fields and all allow paragraphs of information you'll hit this issue. It's recommended to limit textareas to a reasonable maximum length. If you want to store a large amount of text in 1 field you'll have to have less fields or you'll hit database row size limits pretty quickly.

Further information as to what is going on as well as possible solutions can be found in the below topic.

www.joomlapolis.com/forum/153-professional-member-support/228975-update-cb-problems?limitstart=0

In short changing the file format of InnoDB to Barracuda can improve this issue, but not all hosts will allow this change. The default file format Antelope has pretty large data pointers so the row size limit of text column types is pretty limiting.

Thanks Kyle. I just did a quick list and I have
46 text areas
143 text fields
29 Custom HTML
and some checkboxes and other smaller fields (284 fields in total).

I also checked - I am using the InnoDB engine - I'm not sure if my host allows the Barracuda engine. Is there anything else that can be done? I can probably remove the custom HTML fields now too - that was from before when I wasn't using Community Builder Profile Pro to format my tabs.

Thanks.

Thanks Kyle. I just did a quick list and I have
46 text areas
143 text fields
29 Custom HTML
and some checkboxes and other smaller fields (284 fields in total).

That'll be a problem then. There's not enough bytes left for text type pointers with large amount of text in them. You need to remove some fields or change the InnoDB file format.

I also checked - I am using the InnoDB engine - I'm not sure if my host allows the Barracuda engine.

It's not a new engine or anything, but a different file format. Databases are stored into files and the Barracuda format stores much much smaller pointers than Antelope allowing for significantly more data per row.

Is there anything else that can be done?

Remove fields or limit the amount of text that can be put into the textarea fields.

I can probably remove the custom HTML fields now too - that was from before when I wasn't using Community Builder Profile Pro to format my tabs.

Custom HTML fields don't have storage so that's not an issue. Only fields with storage will cause this. Check your _comprofiler table to see how many database columns are being used. If you're up in the 150+ columns range it's going to start becoming a problem.

Ok - I just looked at my SQL database and noticed that a number of the fields are text in nature. Would changing these to VARCHAR(100)for some of the smaller fields work? If so, do I do that from within CB or within phpMyAdmin? I don't want to lose the information, but if a field that says "occupation" only needs 50 chars and is allocated a text field then I'd like to "save the space" to be used elsewhere. I'm still in the process of contacting my host to inquire about the more efficient database.

Changing them to varchar won't really help. The pointer size is based off the data size. If it's just a few characters, 1 word, etc.. it barely takes any space. The issue is when paragraphs of text are trying to be stored into a field. You need to find what fields a user is trying to supply a large amount of information to; these are generally textarea fields that have no max length set (edit them within CB > Field Management to set a max length).