Connectivity Problems - Please Help - End of Tether

[Tanfies2]

My Simple Machines forum is currently hosted by Blue Host, has been for a few years now. Was originally on one of their shared servers, had no issues, everything was fine.

Last year, my website and Simple Machines Forum started to slow up, really badly, to the point that the pages would would just keep spinning, nothing would load, and then would crash.

Blue Host were normally helpful, I'd get in touch, they'd fiddle with something, and I'd be back up and running, but then they stopped being helpful, and pushed me down the routes of upgrading to their Hosted Server, said it would resolve my issues.

They said I was being throttled or something on their shared server, and by upgrading, it would be  faster, more reliable, with less downtime, plus it would help with the optimisation side of things?

Anyway, we made the move, website was a lot faster, however, we've been having connectivity issues ever since.

Randomly, and this can happen at any time, busy, or no busy periods, we get this error come up:-

" Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later."

We only lose connectivity for short periods of time, couple of minutes, maximum 5, but it's so frustrating.

Blue Host are unhelpful as ever, keep saying something along the lines of my website needs optimising, errors in some tablesthough they sold me the dream of saying their Hosted Server package supports this?

From my Blue Host CP, I'm seeing quite a few errors, it's saying my website load time is 6 second, plus other bits and pieces.

To be honest, I'm really stuck, and don't know what to do, where to go.

Do I need to move away from Blue Host, does my website/forum need optimising, are there companies that can help do this?

Thanks in advance.   

[Illori]

can you provide a link to your forum? how many members/topics/messages do you have?

looks like bluehost is part of the EIG group, might be time to look for a new host based on that alone.

[Tanfies2]

Thanks for you reply, it's really appreciated.

Here is a link to my Forum:- http://www.friendsoffulham.com/forum/index.php

At present, I have 3283 members, not all active, but average around 15 - 25,000 page views daily, depending on whats going on.

We're a football forum, so naturally busier around game times, but these dropouts are random, busy or quiet times.

[Dzonny]

Do you have any errors in your forums error log maybe?
The error you're getting is usually caused by server overload, not sure what are the specs of your current hosting plan, but it may be that your forum just require more resources than it's having available.

Not related to this, but you should consider updating your forum to latest stable version - 2.0.13.

[LiroyvH]

I wanted to take a look at your site, but ironically it appears down at the moment.
BlueHost is known for having very low resource limits on highly oversold servers, if you have a normal forum (no poor code in it) with those stats: it should run on any decent host; such as the ones listed in the hosting board here.

[Tanfies2]

I wanted to take a look at your site, but ironically it appears down at the moment.
BlueHost is known for having very low resource limits on highly oversold servers, if you have a normal forum (no poor code in it) with those stats: it should run on any decent host; such as the ones listed in the hosting board here.

This is what happens, they are frequent dropouts during the day, can happen any time. If you look again now, it'll most likely be back up and running.

[Tanfies2]

Do you have any errors in your forums error log maybe?
The error you're getting is usually caused by server overload, not sure what are the specs of your current hosting plan, but it may be that your forum just require more resources than it's having available.

Not related to this, but you should consider updating your forum to latest stable version - 2.0.13.

I'm not sure, and don't even know where to start. It's showing errors on the Bluehost CP, but that's about as far as I know. Sorry to sound really dumb, but I'm not technical when it comes to all this. A guy of mine helped design the website and do the forum, he does bits now and then, but even he's a bit stumped. We've tried updating to the latest version, but it keeps crashing.

At this stage, it's killing the credibility of my forum, and are willing to seek professional advice about how to rectify it.

[Illori]

as you have been told, it is time to find a new host to resolve this issue.

[Tanfies2]

as you have been told, it is time to find a new host to resolve this issue.

But is it as simple of moving away from Bluehost? Will these problems rectify theirselves, or do I need to get someone technically involved? 

[Dzonny]

Most likely everything will work fine once you move to a better host. You don't actually need anyone as long as you follow our instructions.
How do I move my SMF forum to a different host?
How do I backup my SMF forum?
How do I backup my database?

Please remember to always perform a backup before you try made any changes on your forum, so by following those instructions you should be able to successfully transfer your forum to new host.

[WhiteJC]

as you have been told, it is time to find a new host to resolve this issue.

can you suggest a reliable hosting company?

[Illori]

such as the ones listed in the hosting board here.

find our paid hosting board and look there.

[Tanfies2]

Guys, many thanks for your help so far, WhiteJC who has joined the thread, is a bit more techie than me, so can hopefully answer more questions.

[Tanfies2]

Any feedback on this mob?

https://www.interserver.net/vps/

[Illori]

i doubt you need a VPS, shared hosting should be able to handle you just fine.

[LiroyvH]

Indeed, it doesnt look like you need a VPS at all. Waste of money.

[Tanfies2]

Right, ok, but, I was on a shared server with Bluehost last time, that's when things seriously slowed down? Was ok for years, then it just started out of the blue. Was then advised to upgrade to their super duper Cloud-Based hosting, unlimited this, that, local caching, unmetered bandwidth, storage, would solve all our problems - not

https://cloud.bluehost.com/products/cloud-sites/?_ga=1.240933252.607373425.1483801398

Must admit that the website/forum is faster, but we're experiencing these dropouts.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Which mod are you using to get the topic hover effect?

[Dzonny]

Right, ok, but, I was on a shared server with Bluehost last time, that's when things seriously slowed down? Was ok for years, then it just started out of the blue. Was then advised to upgrade to their super duper Cloud-Based hosting, unlimited this, that, local caching, unmetered bandwidth, storage, would solve all our problems - not

https://cloud.bluehost.com/products/cloud-sites/?_ga=1.240933252.607373425.1483801398

Must admit that the website/forum is faster, but we're experiencing these dropouts.

That doesn't mean you have to go with VPS, that just mean that their "unlimited" isn't really unlimited, obviously. If you find good hosting provider shared hosting will work just fine for your forum. Like CoreISP said, VPS would really be a waste of money.

[Tanfies2]

Which mod are you using to get the topic hover effect?

Not sure, sorry, WhiteJC who posted in here earlier might be able to answer that, why?