Thread

I received an email from my webhost today, stating that the EE index.php was causing too high of a server load and they had to disable access.

Honestly I think the site has outgrown the barebones hosting package it’s been on till now. However, they included a list of running queries; could someone look through them and let me know if any stand out as the cause of the slowdowns, or at least which areas I should focus optimization efforts on? Thanks.

The running queries file is attached.

I think you are correct about the “outgrown” part…....
A single page of my forum, for instance, can take 55 mysql queries to make it display. Other EE templates might take 12-30 detailed queries.

Some hosts run HUNDREDS of sites on one server. All modern CMS software is resource intensive…compared to static html pages.

If they are sending you a list like that to be concerned about, I’d say it’s time to move on…quickly if your site is of any value!

This reminds me a bit of the old days of ISPs. They would have one T1 line and 50 modems to serve 600 users…figuring (rightly so) that everyone does not dial in at the same time. But they used that same T1 line for dedicated servers on their shelves, their own computers for their network stuff, etc…...

Basically the old story of shoving 50 pounds of something into a 10 pound sack.

I took a quick look at the file..they seem like normal queries to me. When these places advertise “X traffic” and “mysql/php”, you’d think they actually meant it…but, then again, you get what you pay for and for $10 a month you can’t expect to have more than 1/100 of a server (if that).

A decent installation should be able to process many sql queries per second…in fact, it HAS to…...to make a page render.

Michael,

Our own Greg just wrote a fantastic article on the subject

EE Blog : Troubleshooting Site Performance Issues

Nothing stood out in your attached file. It might be as handyman says, that you have outgrown your resources. I can recommend EngineHosting for your needs if you do decide to move.

The funny thing is that there was no surge in traffic whatsoever that I can tell, and the issue happened on our lowest average traffic day. We’ve certainly had spikes of 200% regular traffic after sending out newsletters and the like without causing the server problems. Whatever the cause was, a traffic spike does not seem to have been it. Is it conceivable that an EE PHP script or MySQL query got stuck in a loop (similar to computer programs getting stuck) and consumed all available server resources? I was actively editing templates in the CP at the time of the crash…

I’ll have a read through that very detailed article, thanks John. If we were starting out new, I’d certainly recommend EngineHosting, but since we’re already on HostGator, upgrading to a VPS with them, where they handle all the upgrade process and data/settings transferral, is too enticing to pass up. 😊

Michael C:

It could also happen if other sites on your server were having issues.

Let us know what happens after you upgrade to the VPS. We can keep this thread open until then.