Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE's questions

When I upload a large (>245 Mb) file to my MediaWiki wiki (using Upload file, same as for images), I see:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

This is a .avi file. I have set this as a permissible file type in LocalSettings.php.

How can I solve this? Is there a time out for uploading files (though this takes less than 10 seconds)?

Increasing the memory to 1024M did not work:

ini_set( 'memory_limit', '1024M' );

We recently upgraded MediaWiki from 1.13.2 to 1.15.4. One of the side effects is that people's signatures are automatically deleted. That is, a signature added under MY PREFERENCES gets changed to match the Real Name field after a couple of minutes.

We set $wgCleanSignatures = false in LocalSettings.php but this does not change the behaviour.

Does anyone know how to prevent this?

Update: it might help to add some more details.

In MY PREFERENCES I write:

[[User:MyName|<span style="color:lightseagreen">My Name</span>]] ([[User talk:MyName|<span style="color:lightseagreen">Talk</span>]])

My signature on a talk page is therefore:

--[[User:MyName|<span style="color:lightseagreen">My Name</span>]] ([[User talk:MyName|<span style="color:lightseagreen">Talk</span>]]) <time date stamp>

After one hour, the preference reverts to:

My Name

And my signature becomes:

--My Name <time date stamp>

On a MediaWiki wiki, we've set $wgAllowExternalImages which enables us to display inline images from another source without uploading it to the wiki (we just specify the URL).

However, this only works for http images. I'd like to display an https image (from our company intranet, to which the users of wiki also have access).

Is there any way to do this?

Setting up a new wiki server for MediaWiki, I see that I am getting email notification messages for emails (on my watchlist) when I edit the page. This should not happen - it should only happen when someone else edits the page.

Furthermore, I get an email each time they edit the page. This is also incorrect: it should only happen after their first edit and then I should not receive any emails until I view the changed page.

Does anyone know what is happening? I don't see anything about this in the manual.

Update: this directly contradicts the documentation. (Note: this link is documentation for an extension but the text is correct: this is core functionality.)

Update 2: the MediaWiki version is 1.15.4. And it seems only to be happening to administrators.

Solved: my mistake; I was using CategoryWatch. Blush.

We have a MediaWiki wiki on a MySQL database. However, other applications are also accessing MySQL. Currently we have a maximum of 100 maximum connections to the database, of which MediaWiki is allowed 10.

However, at peak times more than 10 users attempt to access the wiki simultaneously which means they can get a MySQL connection error.

Specifically, the message says:

"database name" has a problem

Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.

Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.

(Can't contact the database server: Unknown error ("mysql database name"))

My thought is to limit within MediaWiki (e.g. in LocalSettings.php) the number of connections attempting to access the database. Then people won't get an error message - they will just have to wait longer.

Is there a way to do that? Or is there a better solution?

We have a MediaWiki installation and are getting complaints that it is becoming slower. How can we increase the speed / performance?

I have one tip (which I'll add below) but I'm really interested in hearing more. Preferably one tip per answer.

I know of three ways to enhance MediaWiki functionality:

1. Using extensions.
2. Using templates.
3. Changing MediaWiki:Common.css & MediaWiki:Common.js

My question is, when I can choose which to do, which is best for performance? Obviously, templates only affect the pages on which they are included, but are they then faster than .css & .js changes? And which will slow down MediaWiki most - .css / .js changes or new extensions?

Specific example (following jscott's comment). A user wants to hide the numbers in the table of contents:

1. I can use an extension: PSINoTocNum
2. I can use a template (including this code: .tocnumber { display: none !important; } which I can include only on the required pages).
3. I can change MediaWiki:Common.css.

Which has most / least performance hit?

Note - this is just an example. I want to know generally which approach is best and why.

Apparently, redirects in categories are always meant to appear in italics. In our MediaWiki (1.13.2) this is almost always not the case. This is not a problem, but sometimes they suddenly appear in italics and then after a few minutes go back to non-italic font!

This is not a browser issue - when it occurred I checked it in Firefox & Chrome and saw the same results (and saw it resolved in both a few minutes later).

Is this a skin issue? I'm just puzzled why it occurs infrequently (about once every few weeks) and then only for a few minutes...

We have a wiki which is used by over half our company. Generally it has been very positively received. However, there is a concern over security - not letting confidential information fall into the wrong hands (i.e. competitors).

The default answer is to create a complicated security matrix defining who can read what document (wiki page) based on who created it. Personally I think this mainly solves the wrong problem because it creates barriers within the company instead of a barrier to the external world. But some are concerned that people at a customer site might share information with a customer which then goes to the competitor.

The administration of such a matrix is a nightmare because (1) the matrix is based on department and not projects (this is a matrix organisation), and (2) because in a wiki all pages are by definition dynamic so what is confidential today might not be confidential tomorrow (but the history is always readable!).

Apart from the security matrix, we've considered restricting content on the wiki to non super secret stuff, but of course that needs to be monitored.

Another solution (the current) is to monitor views and report anything suspicious (e.g. one person at a customer site having 2000 views in two days was reported). Again - this is not ideal because this does not directly imply a wrong motive.

Does anyone have a better solution? How can a company wide wiki be made secure and yet keep its low threshold USP?

BTW we use MediaWiki with Lockdown to exclude some administrative staff.