Site Crash - Database Volume Issue?

[CyprusGrump]

Hi all,

My site crashed yesterday... it was off-line for eleven hours before iPage managed to get it up-and-running again.

It seems to be working fine now but the response from iPage is a little disturbing: -

Hey CyprusGrump,

After thorough investigation with top-tier engineers on your website's issue, we found a reason to why your forum will not pull up properly.

At first, we thought the issue originated by your database overclocking the query limit, but after further research we found your database user to be the source of the problem. The error lies with the max user connections limit.
Somewhere in the script is keeping 10 or more concurrent connections of the database user open, making that go over the limit and therefore timeout.
Most codes close out connections automatically, but it looks like that is not that case with your code. The other possibility is that the site could just be getting an overwhelming amount of traffic.

Ultimately, this just looks like it's hitting limits with our system as it seems to require a lot more than what our shared servers allow.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I will do another check to be 100% sure- but at this point it does seem like it will not be something that we can directly help with.

Kindest Regards,
Kelsey S.
Executive Response Manager

Clearly, I need to resolve this issue or move to another host - I can't just wait for the site to go down again.

The thing is, we only average about 300 posts per day and I don't consider that to be heavy use.

Any suggestions please?

[kat]

Could it be a mod? You don't tell us which ones you use.

[CyprusGrump]

Could it be a mod? You don't tell us which ones you use.

I apologise!

I have the following.

1.    Tapatalk SMF 2.0 RC5/Final Plugin    3.3.0
2.    SMF 2.0.3 Update    1.0    
3.    Bad Behavior mod    1.5.15
4.    Simple Image Upload    1.3.0
5.    Ad Managment    3.0.1
6.    Aeva Media    1.4w

Does that help?

[kat]

No problem! It's just the the more info you can give us, the better the chance we have of helping you out.

None of those looks particularly bad, unless you have LOAD of videos playing, at the same time, with AEVA, perhaps.

In your site's CPanel, you'll have access to raw access logs and Webalizer, that kinda stuff. I'm surprised your host hasn't been more help, with that. I suspect they're trying to get you to pay for an upgrade, to be honest.

[Arantor]

I would check whether Admin > Configuration > Server Settings > Database and Paths > Use persistent connections is ticked or not (ideally not on a shared host, especially not on a known overseller)

[CyprusGrump]

I would check whether Admin > Configuration > Server Settings > Database and Paths > Use persistent connections is ticked or not (ideally not on a shared host, especially not on a known overseller)

Thanks - it is not ticked.

[CyprusGrump]

No problem! It's just the the more info you can give us, the better the chance we have of helping you out.

None of those looks particularly bad, unless you have LOAD of videos playing, at the same time, with AEVA, perhaps.

In your site's CPanel, you'll have access to raw access logs and Webalizer, that kinda stuff. I'm surprised your host hasn't been more help, with that. I suspect they're trying to get you to pay for an upgrade, to be honest.

Thanks for your help...

I don't think we have enough users for AEVA to be a menace to be honest...

I have to say, 'you need an upgrade' does appear to be the first response most of the time - I can't justify the cost of a dedicated server though...

If I posted some stats here would you be able to say if they are unreasonable?

[Arantor]

In that case... the mods listed do not create multiple connections.

Which means he's sort of dancing around the reality. What he's saying is that you can only realistically have ten concurrent users on the site (not ten 'online', online is not 'concurrent', 10 online means 10 online across a 15 minute window, 10 concurrent means 10 requests to index.php that are running together)

Search engines are included in that.

Seems to me that your host may be obfuscating how limited your server actually is.

[kat]

Dare we ask who your host is?

[Arantor]

It's iPage - a known overseller. $1.99/month for 'unlimited disk space, bandwidth and email addresses'.

Even an account from HostGator is probably better at this stage.

(This thing about going to a dedicated server... nah. I'm running several modestly busy sites on a single VPS, cheaper than a dedi. Even a decent shared server would be an improvement.)

[CyprusGrump]

Thanks for your help guys - greatly appreciated!

I have attached some stats - unless they leap out as being outrageously high then it is time to change host.

Any suggestion as to a reliable host would be greatly appreciated too!

[Storman™]

I have attached some stats - unless they leap out as being outrageously high then it is time to change host.

Sure, but to some extent they don't mean too much because if your host is only giving you minisul resources to play with then it's difficult to know where the bottom limit lies.

Maybe have a look in the Paid Hosts section.

Don't forget though though that you get what you pay for, $1.99 per month should be telling you you that it ain't going to be great...

Personally I'd also avoid any host that offers "unlimited" this or that. There's no such thing IMO so why hide the real restrictions in the small print somewhere. (rant over....lol  )

[CyprusGrump]

I have attached some stats - unless they leap out as being outrageously high then it is time to change host.

Sure, but to some extent they don't mean too much because if your host is only giving you minisul resources to play with then it's difficult to know where the bottom limit lies.

Maybe have a look in the Paid Hosts section.

Don't forget though though that you get what you pay for, $1.99 per month should be telling you you that it ain't going to be great...

Personally I'd also avoid any host that offers "unlimited" this or that. There's no such thing IMO so why hide the real restrictions in the small print somewhere. (rant over....lol  )

Thanks for your help!

I was just wondering if anything stood out from the stats as being outrageous....?

We probably have 20 active members, 300 posts per day and 500,000 posts total...

[kat]

Your daily hits total's gone up by ten thousand a day, since last year. Pushing thirty thousand seems rather high, to me.

I'd be curious as to what that's all about. Those hits could be causing what Arantor mentioned, earlier, I'd imagine.

[CyprusGrump]

Your daily hits total's gone up by ten thousand a day, since last year. Pushing thirty thousand seems rather high, to me.

I'd be curious as to what that's all about. Those hits could be causing what Arantor mentioned, earlier, I'd imagine.

Thank you...

We do seem to get a lot of guests (currently 25 guests, 6 users).

I'd hoped that bad behavior would reduce them....