Title: CPU Usage spikes when editing posts Last modified: September 21, 2021 --- # CPU Usage spikes when editing posts * [danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) * (@danniee) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/) * I’ve recently started to notice in cPanel that the CPU Usage (and sometimes physical memory) spikes when I edit posts or even if I do something in the admin area. In general, I notice that the CPU fluctuates quite a lot, and can go from 5% to 40% to 30% continuously. * My host (which is a good one) has looked into it and they can’t tell for sure what the problem is. They can see a lot of requests happening to admin-ajax.php with my IP. * What I have tried is to disable Cloudflare, WP-rocket cache and even one plugin at a time to see if it makes any difference, but no success. * I’ve also noticed that if I change PHP version from 7.4 to 8.0, the site slows down significantly and the CPU Usage goes crazy. * Any ideas what can be causing this? My site is fairly big with around 70k+ monthly unique visitors. I’m on shared hosting but not sure if that is really the issue because normally everything runs fine, I get 1.0s load time in GTMetrix when cached, etc. * This problem is mostly related to me editing posts, although, as mentioned, the CPU seems to fluctuate all the time. Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) * [Kuldeep](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) * (@soberbanda) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14896151) * [@danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) Normally, CPU usage does spike up significantly when you leave your dashboard open for longer periods because of AJAX Calls from the API that provides real-time communication between the server and browser. It can also be a result of one or more plugins. You can further read here:[https://wordpress.org/support/topic/editing-post-causing-crippling-cpu-spike/](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/editing-post-causing-crippling-cpu-spike/) * You will need to limit the activity of the WordPress Heartbeat API in order to reduce CPU usage while editing posts. You can use this plugin: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/heartbeat-control/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/heartbeat-control/) * If the issue is from outside of WordPress, You can use this plugin to block bad requests: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-bad-queries/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-bad-queries/) * Let me know if it helps! * Thread Starter [danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) * (@danniee) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14896774) * Hi [@soberbanda](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) and thank you for your kind help. * I tried installing BBQ Firewall, but it made no real difference. CPU Usage keeps fluctuating. * Regarding Heartbeat control, I already do that with WP Rocket, so that didn’t solve the issue either. * I checked the thread where others also have issues with CPU spikes when editing posts but it seems they didn’t come to any conclusion. * Still wondering what to do about this. Not only does CPU spike when I edit posts, it fluctuates all the time and can go to 50% without me even doing anything. * [Kuldeep](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) * (@soberbanda) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14896887) * Sorry to hear that [@danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) * Do you have some transient API calls or cron jobs running in the background? * I suspect it’s a plugin. Make sure you have stable versions of those plugins. Here is another thread on this: [https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/13465/high-cpu-memory-spikes](https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/13465/high-cpu-memory-spikes) * You can also use this plugin to further check for issues: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/health-check/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/health-check/) * Thread Starter [danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) * (@danniee) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14897221) * Hi [@soberbanda](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) and thank you again for your kind help. * Not quite familiar with transient API so I cannot say for sure. It’s not something I have actively setup to the best of my knowledge. * No cron jobs running. * I did already deactivate one plugin at a time to see if it makes a difference, but it doesn’t. CPU will still spike when I edit a post. * I actually increased physical memory from 5GB to 20GB and it still managed to max out at one point. This is quite bizarre. * [Kuldeep](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) * (@soberbanda) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14897836) * [@danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) I would suggest moving away from a shared host at this point. It maybe due to a bad neighbor around: [https://www.reliablesite.net/hosting-news/what-is-bad-neighbor-effect/](https://www.reliablesite.net/hosting-news/what-is-bad-neighbor-effect/) * You can go through this incase you wish to change: [https://www.wpbeginner.com/best-vps-hosting-compared/](https://www.wpbeginner.com/best-vps-hosting-compared/) * Thread Starter [danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) * (@danniee) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14898086) * Thank you [@soberbanda](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) I’ll check out the links. Could potentially be the shared hosting, yes. If things don’t improve I will consider switching to Kinsta 🙂 * [Kuldeep](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) * (@soberbanda) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14898775) * [@danniee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/danniee/) Awesome – Your Welcome 🙂 Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) The topic ‘CPU Usage spikes when editing posts’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 7 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Kuldeep](https://wordpress.org/support/users/soberbanda/) * Last activity: [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cpu-usage-spikes-when-editing-posts/#post-14898775) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics