I'm hopeful that one of you can lead me in the right direction! (Note: I did submit a support ticket to my host, but ...)

---

My site seems to be going down more and more--especially since the upgrade, and I don't know why that is.

(FYI--it's up now--but running very sluggishly)

IF there is something that would slow down a site that I currently have turned on, I will turn it off. I mainly (right now) just want a site that my community can rely upon 99.9% of the time.

I *think* the only really resource draining option I have turned on is "Who's Online." I can certainly turn this off, but, well, I like to be able to have some bells & whistles!

I don't have the Shout Box enabled.

I haven't been able to figure out the gallery, so that isn't taking up any resources.

---

I went into the Plesk--but I keep getting a certificate error. When I got in the back-door, I couldn't even access the server.

I saw that things were in the Red after being in the Yellow (with Red being very severe).

---

Anyway, I was hopeful that someone could either give me a 101 lesson, or point me to a site with more information, or let me know if there are some resource draining bells & whistles that I might have on but don't realize it.

I like 7.3, but I also like my site up and running!

Thank you for any & all feedback.

~Sue
adwoff.com

well 7.3 is no more resource intensive than 7.2.2, so i'd look into what has changed as far as your hosting..

My personal sites get a small amount of traffic yet my VPS was dragging more and more. I 'd open a support ticket with the host, it would speed up for a day or 2 then back to a crawl. After waaaayyy too long I ditched the host for a dedicated server with another provider - it was overkill (we use <10% of the alloted resources) but really flies now

According to the tech guys with my site, the following is happening:

quote
This is something you're running. It might be related to the boards you have. Apache is just spawning processes like mad. Someone is exploiting UBB, as evidenced by this string from your access_log:

195.242.99.93 - - [10/Jun/2008:00:00:21 -0400] "GET /messageboard/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=650725%3C/span%3E%20-%20%3Ca%20href=%22http:/cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=all%22%2Fubbthreads%2F%22&u=adwoff.com/messageboard/ubbthreads.php%3Fubb%3Dshowflat%26Number%3D650725&w=ubbthreads&d=WbXAS5zfQ7GE&icp=1&.intl=us%22%3ECached%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/li%3E%3Cli%20id=%22r2%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res-p%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res%22%3E%3Cdiv%3E%3Ch3%3E%3Ca%20class=%22yschttl%22%20href=%22http:/www.jakchat.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/activetopics/range/7/type/p%22%20%3EJakChat%20-%20Forums%20and%20Chat%20for%20Indonesia's%20English-speaking%20community%3C/a%3E%3C/h3%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22abstr%22%3EForums%20and%20chat%20for%20Indonesia's%20English-speaking%20community,%20in%20particular%20Jakarta%20and%20Bali.%20...%20JakChat%20Free-for-all%20...%20%B7%20My%20Cookies%20%B7%20Mark%20all%20read.%20Powered%20by%20...%3C/div%3E%3C!
span%20class=url%3Ewww.jakchat.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/activetopics/range/7/type/p%3C/span%3E%20-%20%3Cem%3E54k%3C/em%3E%20-%20%3Ca%20href=%22http:/cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=all%22%2Fubbthreads%2F%22&u=www.jakchat.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/activetopics/range/7/type/p&w=ubbthreads&d=Utj0H5zfQ5zx&icp=1&.intl=us%22%3ECached%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/li%3E%3Cli%20id=%22r3%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res-p%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res%22%3E%3Cdiv%3E%3Ch3%3E%3Ca%20class=%22yschttl%22%20href=%22http:/www.darkskyfilms.com/DarkSkyForums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showprofile&User=3%22%20%3EDark%20Sky%20Films'%20Forums:%20UBB%20Error%3C/a%3E%3C/h3%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22abstr%22%3EHome.%20View%20All%20Titles.%20Pre-Orders.%20New%20Releases.%20Dark%20Sky%20...%20My%20Cookies%20%B7%20Mark%20all%20read.%20Powered%20by%20UBB.threads%20Contact%20Us%20%B7%20Dark%20Sky%20Films%20Home%20Page%20%B7%20Top%20...%3C/div%3E%3Cspan%20class=url%3Edarkskyfilms.c!
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Cached%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/li%3E%3Cli%20id=%22r6%2!
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ass=%22res-p%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res%22%3E%3Cdiv%3E%3Ch3%3E%3Ca%20class=%22yschttl%22%20href=%22http:/www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/441962/fpart/1%22%20%3ENot%20all%20new%20threads%20recognized%20-%20MacFixIt%20Forums%3C/a%3E%3C/h3%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22abstr%22%3E...%20Forums%20%22%20MFIF%20Community%20%22%20Forums%20Feedback%20%22%20Not%20all%20new%20threads%20recognized%20...%20List%20page,%20try%20clicking%20on%20the%20%22Mark%20all%20read%22%20link%20in%20the%20lower%20left%20of%20the%20page.%20...%3C/div%3E%3Cspan%20class=url%3Emacfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/441962/fpart/1%3C/span%3E%20-%20%3Ca%20href=%22http:/cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=all%22%2Fubbthreads%2F%22&u=www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/441962/fpart/1&w=ubbthreads&d=bWFHm5zfQ69a&icp=1&.intl=us%22%3ECached%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/li%3E%3Cli%20id=%22r9%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class=%22res-p%22%3E%3!
Cdiv%20class=%22res%22%3E%3Cdiv%3E%3Ch3%3E%3Ca%20class=%22yschttl%22%20href=%22http:/readerrant.capitolhillblue.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=30761&page=2%22%20%3ERussia%20" 414 323 "-" "-"

You need to fix this issue ASAP.
/quote

Yikes!

I have no idea what is happening or why it is happening or how to fix it!

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

Sue
adwoff.com

odd indeed. what's my site doing in there?!

I think "related searching"

Doesn't anyone have any idea what might be causing this?

I'm seriously concerned that if I cannot figure out what is taxing my board so much, I'll have no choice but to find a different board to use.

I don't want to do that.

I really, truly do not.

I've been with this software/company for more than 7 years now, and I really want to continue using the board, but if it

1. either slows down my site, and/or
2. doesn't even allow me access to my site ...

... I fear I'll have no choice but to find a different board to use.

I really, truly do not want to do this, but I also am not able/capable to figure out/fix this on my own.

Is there anyone else out there experiencing this?

Sue
adwoff.com

The access log that they posted shows an odd URL, however if your support would have actually tried to go to that URL, they'd see that it actually just gives the standard UBB error message as all of the fields are sanitized. So, that's not the issue. It looks like just some sort of odd URL that is being accessed because of a search.

I see you have a VPS. The biggest question is has MySQL been properly tuned, or are you just running the stock MySQL config?

An example of why a properly tuned MySQL is so important. I just worked on a site a couple weeks back that has well over 2 million posts. They were running a stock MySQL config, and were getting load times anywhere from 1 second to 15 seconds. Searches taking 30-60 seconds.

After proper tuning, everything is in the subsecond range with searches taking 1-5 seconds.

You don't have a huge forum and generally when viewing your site right now, everything is very quick. Typical debug line I'm getting is:

Generated in 0.156 seconds in which 0.040 seconds were spent on a total of 22 queries

Looks like you have about 50 users online right now. So, under normal conditions such as these, everything appears to be running fine and fast. When you get slowdowns, it would be useful to see the debug line to see if it's coming from MySQL or from just general server slowdown.

Another thing is if you have SSH access to the server and if it's a Linux box then when you get the slowdowns you can run the 'top' command to get some info on what all is going on at that particular time.

Rick, thank you so much for taking the time to look/respond.

To be honest, I have no idea how to make sure MySQL has been properly tuned, and I also have no idea about this:



Is there a way to check?

While I'm no way an expert on any of this--in fact, most of this programming is absolutely Greek to me--I am able to follow directions fairly well.

Sue
adwoff.com

The easiest might be to contact your host. They can probably give you the info on if you have SSH access, or if it's a Windows server, then if you have Remote Desktop access.

I'm going to guess they probably just set you up with the standard MySQL configuration. But the main thing will be to get some kind of idea on what the processing time looks like during a slowdown period. Maybe start a topic on your site and when any of your users experiences a slowdown, have them paste the bottom debug line that shows the page generation time into that thread so we can get some data.