I have a Python bot running on an Apache server hosted on DigitalOcean VPS. During testing, the bot suddenly became unresponsive to all requests. When I checked the Apache error logs, I found no relevant error messages or warnings that could explain the issue.
The strange part is that after I removed the webhook and set it up again, the bot started working normally. This unexpected behavior has me concerned about the overall reliability of my setup.
Has anyone experienced similar issues where bots stop responding without generating any error logs? What could cause this type of silent failure, and how can I prevent it from happening again?
Had the exact same issue with a webhook bot last year. Turned out Apache’s worker processes were getting stuck and wouldn’t recover. They’d look like they’re running but completely stop handling new requests. For me, it was long-running requests that wouldn’t timeout properly, plus hitting Apache’s MaxRequestWorkers limit. The webhook would hang on certain operations and eat up all the worker threads. Fixed it by adding proper timeouts in the Python code and tweaking Apache’s config - specifically the Timeout and KeepAliveTimeout settings. I also added logging for request start/end times in the app itself since Apache’s logs weren’t showing the internal hangs. I’d suggest adding some application-level logging to see when requests actually start processing. That’ll tell you if requests are making it to your code but getting stuck somewhere down the line.
This screams memory leak or deadlock. I had the same thing happen when my bot was making concurrent database connections without pooling - they’d pile up silently until everything just froze. Could also be webhook failures. Your bot gets stuck waiting for responses that never come, and platforms like Telegram keep retrying failed deliveries which can crush your server. Set up a heartbeat endpoint that pings every few minutes, then use external monitoring to catch when it dies. Also watch your Python app’s memory usage - gradual leaks will kill it eventually.
definitely sounds like a resource thing. Apache can be tricky when it comes to handling memory. maybe try monitoring tools like htop or add a health check. just to be sure, you could also check for any updates or patches for your bot and server.