Excessive CPU time - Host wants more money

[chinathetimes]

SMF Version: SMF 1.1.3
In an earlier release of SMF, I remember that there was a problem with Firefox hammering servers with update requests that made it look like a DOS attack or that a billion users were coming on to the server at one time.

There was a patch released at that time which I installed and the problem went away.

I just upgraded to SMF 1.1.3 and it seems the problem is back.

I just got this notification from my host Aplus.net:

Dear Aplus.Net Customer,

Over the past month, we have been monitoring the resource usage of your Web site on our Shared hosting server. We would like to think that, with the amount of resources your site is consuming, your business is doing very well these days. Unfortunately, the plan you are currently using no longer meets your site's requirements. We would like to invite you to review the current plans we offer, available at http://hosting.aplus.net/, and have you choose a more appropriate one for your site to avoid a disruption in service.

For your convenience, we have included a brief summary of your current plan as well as the suggested plan that we think will better suit your needs:

Server : pro26.abac.com
Registration # : AP???
Current Plan : Solo XR
Username : ?
Overuse : 37min CPU time daily
Suggested Plan : ePro

SO ... anyone know why I suddenly started consuming 37 minutes of CPU time DAILY!?

I know 1.1.4 just came out. Is this one of the bug fixes that is addressed with this release?

My site upgrade went without a problem except that I can not use the auto-upgrade feature from the control panel and had to perform it manually ... irritating but nothing I can't deal with.

Does anyone have any ideas before I get the boot from my host?

[chinathetimes]

Sorry to press the point but I am being threatened with having my site yanked due to excess CPU Usage and I only have a short time to get to the root of the problem.

I have 9 users by the way.

[Rumbaar]

Well looking at your forum stats I can't see how you are exceeding anything.  But I'm not up with servers so don't know if 37min CPU time is high or not.

I suggest you shop around for a better host, there are some great SMF friendly host that can be found in the HOST section of this forum.

[chinathetimes]

Believe me, I am sorely tempted but the fees have been paid.

The problem did happen before (Two releases ago) and it was traced to two lines of code in an 'if' statement being reversed ... a two minute edit in other words.

Unfortunately, I lost all my emails from that time and can't for the life of me remember what program the change was made in.

The problem returned when I went from 1.1 RC3 to 1.1.3 so obviously, the problem is in one of the programs that was just updated.

Thanks for looking, I appreciate it.

[Jade Elizabeth]

that sucks

i mean i lost my forum for 5 days cause of bandwidth....but i got 7.5 times more cause my host saw his plan was unfair and updated everyones

never heard of CPU being incorporated into plans or bills before...id get a new host...for real...

[haasiegirl]

i use bluehost.com [nofollow] with no problems, i do 30K posts a month or more.

[chinathetimes]

i use bluehost.com with no problems, i do 30K posts a month or more.

I have 9 users and we my do a couple of hundred posts per month.

Something IS wrong with SMF Forums and about a year ago the problem was found and fixed on my forum.

I assumed the changes were applied to the core and would be present in the upgrades.

Obviously, I was wrong.

[Jade Elizabeth]

what was wrong originally?

[Bulakbol]

Yes, I would like to know the problem too. Maybe there's a recursive routine that keeps calling itself until satisfied?

[Jade Elizabeth]

well its hardly satisfied dear

[Fiery]

Hello,

It really sounds like a host issue.  We can try to optimize your forum however.

Do you have any mods, what themes are you using, have you changed any code?

[Fiery]

Also, take a look at the stickied topics at http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=86.0

Thanks

[Bulakbol]

well its hardly satisfied dear

haha yes sweetie, that's the right term.  Thank you. 

Back to topic.  Chinathetimes might be correct. I am interested to know the fix.

[chinathetimes]

The last time I had this problem was:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=76547.msg513712#msg513712

when I was using v1.1rc2. I then upgraded to v1.1 rc3 and now I have just upgraded to v1.1.3 as of about two weeks ago.

Sorry, I have not kept any records of my email from a year and a half ago. They are on my desktop system far away in another province of China.

I have been running successfully for a year and a half on the same host without any problems but the upgrade seems to have modified the fix I applied on the advice of 'the phantom help person' I can't track down.

The packages I am running are:

1.     Users Online Today Mod      1.4.0 Beta 2
2.    EmailFlash    1.0    
3.    audiblepm 1.5    1.5    
4.    Joomla/Mambo Tag Cleanup    1.1
5.    Active Members In Topic    1.5    
6.    GoogleTagged    1.0    
7.    Spiders Don't Increase Topic Views    1.0
8.    Streaming 3    4.2.2b

These are mainly packages that I have been running for over a year except Google Tagged which is new and the Streaming 3 which was updated to satisfy the changes in v1.1.3.

Although I spent many years as a systems person, I was a mainframe programmer so I am fairly competent in working with the code with the help of others I only usually get to work with this stuff when my forum has problems ... and we all know that with SMF ... It's the greatest thing since sliced bread and I have not had to hone my skills due to the fine work of the people programming this great forum.

Sorry for delays in responding to you all, I am in Beijing and I would imagine out of most of your time zones.

[chinathetimes]

As you can see from the statistics page supplied from the hosting site. Something is VERY wrong.

My traffic is .06% of what I am allowed and yet my piddly number of users is generating 133% over the maximum for queries???

There MUST be a loop here.



Current stats from the control pannel:
Username : XXXXXXXX
Hosting Plan : SoloXR

Recent Usage (Last two weeks)

                       Current             Allowed (period average)    Percentage (%)
Traffic (MB)           816.40                     955733.33                           0.09
CPU (Mins)           495.80                           224.00                        221.34
SQL (Conqueries)     4915946                 3670016                            133.95


Usage History (October 9)

                       Current             Allowed (period average)    Percentage (%)
Traffic (MB)          1238.60               2048000.00                            0.06
CPU (Mins)            688.10                       480.00                          143.35
SQL (Conqueries)   6978685              7864320                                88.74

   

   

[Gantry]

9 users with a couple of hundred posts per month, and the stats say for usage history 1.2GB (1238.6MB), if you are posting a lot of huge images or files I can see this being the case, if not, you might want to look into that.  Seems excessive to me.  (There is always the slight possibility that your host is (1) wrong or (2) trying to rip you off intentionally, food for thought.)  Perhaps there is another reason not related to the forums themselves, might be worth some investigation.

[chinathetimes]

Aplus is in the top five US hosts according to Cnet.com.

I have been hosting with them for two years now.

This is the second time this has happened and the first time was a manual fix a year and a half ago. I have been operating with no problems since then.

This has just started again when I upgraded from 1.1 RC3 to 1.1.3.

I don't think this is host related since the only thing to change in all that time was the upgrade to 1.1.3

[nebula_1979]

9 users with a couple of hundred posts per month, and the stats say for usage history 1.2GB (1238.6MB), if you are posting a lot of huge images or files I can see this being the case, if not, you might want to look into that.  Seems excessive to me.  (There is always the slight possibility that your host is (1) wrong or (2) trying to rip you off intentionally, food for thought.)  Perhaps there is another reason not related to the forums themselves, might be worth some investigation.

If you have big files, maybe there is something wrong in MD5 consistency check's?

[Jade Elizabeth]

well i disabled all attachments and uploads (like avatars) because it was using all my space and bandwidth, but i have never seen CPU brought into the equation....darling get another host

admin>server settings>Use a persistent connection> id uncheck that

admin>features and settings>layout and options>Display time taken to create every page> turn that on, maybe it will tell us something?


but seriously, get another host!!

[Ben_S]

I have 9 users by the way.

Find a new host then, there is no way on earth a forum with 9 members would cause any issues.

Aplus is in the top five US hosts according to Cnet.com.

Don't make me laugh, top 5 oversellers maybe, try doing some research on a real site like webhostingtalk rather than pathetic sites like cnet where money = good reviews.