# 09-04 Improving Nginx and PHP settings

# Problem

Today I observed that the system works just fine when only four beacons are running. Everything works as it should and no exceptions are thrown. The output of the API is normal. As soon as more load is put on the API by increasing the beacon count to 6 or to 8, things start to crash. This means that the cause does not lie directly in a programming bug, it rather is a result of something architectural or software bottlenecking.

# First attempt at a solution

In the log files I got some warnings regarding php-fpm pm.max_children too small. In thinking that PHP FPM or Nginx was failing scripts, I boosted the memory limits of both. This didn't solve the problem.

# Next steps

Tomorrow I will dig some more. I think it makes sense to test whether increasing the active client count also breaks things. What also might be the issue is that docker is not getting enough memory alotted.