BingBot is trying to access the forum and causing issues. I have never seen this before.
All 50 of my available Apache process are at 50%+ load and my error log looks like this :
[Thu Nov 21 08:47:41.512104 2019] [php7:error] [pid 75699] [client 40.77.167.157:0] PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/opt/www/example.com/httpdocs/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 239
[Thu Nov 21 08:47:42.129128 2019] [php7:error] [pid 75695] [client 207.46.13.175:0] PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/opt/www/example.com/httpdocs/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 262
[Thu Nov 21 08:47:43.463125 2019] [php7:error] [pid 75707] [client 40.77.167.157:0] PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/opt/www/example.com/httpdocs/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 239
[Thu Nov 21 08:47:45.213124 2019] [php7:error] [pid 75706] [client 207.46.13.75:0] PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/opt/www/example.com/httpdocs/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 262
[Thu Nov 21 08:47:51.641110 2019] [php7:error] [pid 75719] [client 40.77.167.157:0] PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/opt/www/example.com/httpdocs/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 262
I have plenty of ram to spare, and restarting Apache solves nothing. It's only Microsoft that is making the Apache process hang like this.
last pid: 76172; load averages: 27.90, 29.27, 35.65
94 processes: 34 running, 60 sleeping
CPU: 100% user, 0.0% nice, 0.0% system, 0.0% interrupt, 0.0% idle
Mem: 1408M Active, 8908M Inact, 2262M Wired, 1490M Buf, 4433M Free
Swap: 3881M Total, 3881M Free
PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
76168 www 1 45 0 178M 48M CPU2 2 0:02 100.09% httpd
75722 www 1 79 0 182M 58M RUN 6 1:56 32.22% httpd
75758 www 1 79 0 181M 59M CPU1 1 1:46 27.65% httpd
76138 www 1 79 0 177M 47M RUN 4 0:09 27.49% httpd
75697 www 1 79 0 181M 55M RUN 1 2:10 27.38% httpd
75723 www 1 78 0 182M 55M CPU7 7 1:54 27.13% httpd
75707 www 1 79 0 178M 50M RUN 1 2:11 26.27% httpd
76034 www 1 78 0 178M 53M RUN 7 0:33 26.26% httpd
75712 www 1 80 0 182M 55M RUN 6 1:52 26.11% httpd
75912 www 1 78 0 181M 54M RUN 3 1:04 25.84% httpd
76094 www 1 78 0 187M 57M RUN 3 0:19 25.84% httpd
75699 www 1 78 0 181M 59M RUN 0 2:10 25.73% httpd
75921 www 1 80 0 182M 56M CPU4 4 1:00 24.91% httpd
75978 www 1 78 0 178M 50M RUN 4 0:54 24.70% httpd
75717 www 1 78 0 182M 59M RUN 3 1:57 24.55% httpd
75970 www 1 79 0 182M 60M CPU3 3 0:49 23.90% httpd
75913 www 1 78 0 182M 60M RUN 7 1:04 23.79% httpd
75986 www 1 79 0 182M 54M RUN 0 0:52 23.59% httpd
75724 www 1 79 0 182M 58M RUN 5 2:00 23.32% httpd
75719 www 1 79 0 182M 57M CPU5 5 1:55 23.21% httpd
76134 www 1 78 0 178M 53M RUN 5 0:08 23.11% httpd
76116 www 1 79 0 181M 59M RUN 4 0:12 22.99% httpd
75888 www 1 78 0 181M 59M RUN 7 1:15 22.93% httpd
75713 www 1 79 0 181M 59M RUN 0 1:42 22.47% httpd
76141 www 1 79 0 181M 52M RUN 6 0:07 21.31% httpd
75911 www 1 78 0 181M 54M RUN 5 1:03 20.56% httpd
75762 www 1 79 0 182M 60M RUN 6 1:55 20.23% httpd
75878 www 1 79 0 178M 53M CPU0 0 1:15 19.19% httpd
75983 www 1 79 0 182M 59M RUN 5 0:50 18.89% httpd
75706 www 1 79 0 182M 59M RUN 1 2:06 18.82% httpd
All the requests are trying to access the forum main page :
/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d2c2e41982bb4b980308f2d867918891
/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=da08a05dabcde04bc28ec5cb13d90fca
/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=164ecfb38ab9d9bc056e2b7adc1527e8
/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=8adb0aeae0718fa7f493acb12ed2d11f
/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=6016ed5108e66df425cb200363e2e72c
My webserver has handled 20x the traffic I am getting now and did not have this issue.
I managed to solve the issue by reverting back to PHP 7.1 and removing the SMF Hacks PHP 7.2+ compatibility mod.
If anyone else is using that mod, check your error logs as it will make your forum fail to load for random people.
I really hope SMF 2.0.16 will be available soon, as I will not be able to stay on this PHP version for long.