[Zope] crashes, viability, etc

[Iago]

  I have to restart my zope server every 1-3 days; no clear reason for
  it, as it dies silently, simply failing to respond on port 8080. I'm
  running pretty vanilla, with a virtual host monster, very little
  content, and ZUBB installed with a grand total of one discussion area.
  I'm on solaris 2.8, if that matters at all.

  This kind of behavior isn't making a great case to me to recommend the
  use of zope commercially -- the only time I've come across zope
  commercially, so far, has been with a customer who (anecdotally, as a
  coworker is the one who deals with them) has regular problems with
  zope threads and so forth.

  That, I can chalk up to bad code... but in my case, with very little
  code in place, I can't see a good reason for the crashes (or dropping
  port 8080's, at least, which amounts to the same thing ... I haven't
  had much time to diagnose, as I'm often in a rush to get the server
  back running again) to be happening with that kind of frequency.

  I've seen it happen under pretty variable circumstances, too -- using
  the /manage interface to upload a file, for example, ended up with an
  non-running zope (nevermind that the file appeared to upload fine
  first, before the crashing, as it was there on restart). There's also
  been some that seemed to simply result from loading a page, or posting
  a message to the one zubb topic I've got (though I recognize that may
  be a subset of the file upload situation).

  This is disappointing, because I really like Zope's architectural
  notions. The philosophy is great, especially when I compare it with
  the more "procedural" mindset of coding in Cold Fusion, which is what
  I _do_ do, professionally.

  At this point, though, I'd rate CF as more robust -- sure, it crashes
  on Solaris occasionally (in fact, I'm running zope and cf side-by-side
  for comparison right now), but that I _have_ tracked down to bad code
  usually, and when it does, it often has the courtesy (out of the box)
  to restart itself.

  But I'd really prefer a more zope-style object-orientedism.

  That said, I'm looking for a few things, here:

    1. Pointers as to how to diagnose an intermittent problem like
       mystery crashes;

    2. Pointers as to whether or not someone has developed a similar
       auto-restart feature (see what I say about CF, above) for
       zope;

    3. Anecdotes to counter the ones I'm getting from the workplace,
       and my own experience, on the subject of stability.

  Anything folks can offer on any or all of the above topics will be
  met with pleased interest by me; I'm here to learn.

Thanks

-- 
Fred Hicks <iago@iago.net>