I keep getting Varnish Guru Mediation 503 errors despite setting timeouts

Question

have a static links which is feeded with data from js function.

<div class="link">
     <a id="pdfdocument" class="button" target="_blank" href="#">Download starten</a>
     <a id="xlsdocument" class="button" target="_blank" href="#">Download starten</a>
</div>

JS

if (contentElement.name.indexOf(".xls") != -1) {
    "<a id='" + $("#xlsdocument").attr("href", "/dcontent?element=" + contentElement.id + "&handle=" + openBi.handle) + "</a>";
    $('#pubExcel').html(contentElement.filename);
} else {
    $("#pdfdocument").attr("href", "/dcontent?element=" + contentElement.id + "&handle=" + openBi.handle);
    $('#pubPdf').html(contentElement.filename);
}

my question is, how to create generic link if i have loaded more than one document. for example 4 documents = 4 links for pdf and 4 excel in html, 40 documents = 40 links for pdf and 40 excel in html.. struggeling on such a easy step

Solution

A 503 error from Varnish usually means either:

• You have configured backend health checks and the health check has failed, or
• Varnish is simply unable to contact your backend server (e.g., the connection has taken more than connect_timeout seconds, or was refused, etc).

Since (a) doesn't apply to your configuration, I'm guessing (b). What does the output of varnishlog look like? Have you verified that you can correctly connect to http://seanesopenko.ca:8080/ from your Varnish server? For example:

curl http://seanesopenko.ca:8080/

In any case, varnishlog should shed some light on the situation.

Comments

[Marvin]

What does that 'contentElement' object contain? Your question is difficult to understand.

[Katana314]

I'm already not following your second line. "Take a string (<a id='), add the result of changing the href of #xlsdocument, add another string, and then throw it away."

[Scott Ross]

Varnishlog is your best friend, if you can watch when the error is happening though varnishlog you'll have a much better idea of what's going wrong.