psionmark

Yes, I had to also remove it due to the enormous server load it created. My blog has around 3,000 posts and my server usage trebled with the use of this plug-in. Shame, as I really like it!

Some form of caching is needed, I feel.

Otto42:

Thanks for the detailed response. I apologise – I did think you were an “official” WordPress presence. I do appreciate that you’re trying to help.

Here’s an explanation of a GPU from the MT site:

“With (mt) Media Temple’s GRID system your server site is no longer tied to an individual hardware server, rather it is spread across hundreds of server processors. The model gives your site ever expanding grid-cluster computing capability which allows you to scale and grow beyond the older shared server systems and even radically exceed dedicated server performance. The way this system is made possible is by keeping track of each customer’s individual usage using a system we created, called GPU (which stands for Grid Performance Unit). Each (gs) Grid-Service hosting plan includes a large number of GPUs which have been carefully calculated to provide 99.7% of all customers with enough resources to never exceed the GPU allocation. For those clients operating large scale web sites experiencing daily or infrequent traffic surges, GPUs allow you to host your websites without worrying about reaching an arbitrary limit before getting shut down.”

This is what confuses me – why am I not in the 99.7%? I would be surprised if a fair number of that 99.7% weren’t WordPress, so what’s different about mine?

I think you might be on to something re “what’s hitting index.php”. I’ve put:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*flightsimx.co.uk.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]

in my htaccess to try and stop what appeared to be a fair number of spam bots coming in. It does seem to be making some difference. I’ll report back with results when it’s been in place for a while.

Sorry for hitting out at WordPress. It’s just that everyone seems to blame everyone else. To be honest, I don’t really care where the problem is, so long as I can fix it!

Installing DB Cache caused wp-cron to be hit excessively again – over 200 times in an hour, using almost of that hours GPU allowance in itself. I’ve therefore now disabled that, too.

I’ve left 1BlogCacher in place for now.

It seems that any kind of caching (with the exception of 1BlogCacher so far as I can tell) kicks off a huge number of hits on wp-cron. If so, that somewhat defeats the object, doesn’t it? We’re installing all this caching stuff to speed things up and reduce server load, when in fact they seem to increase server load!

@jmaxwilson – I managed to solve the wp-cron problem – by switching off WP Super Cache! wp-cron was getting hit more than 2,000 times per day. Switching it off has reduced that to less than 10! Looking back over the logs, I can see that the massive hits on wp-cron started when I installed WP Super Cache.

I’m now using 1BlogCacher to see if that’s any better.

Although I’ve now sorted out wp-cron (I hope), there’s still a severe problem with server load. Looking back through the logs, it appears to coincide with the upgrade to WP 2.7.1. Prior to that, I was just under my 1,000 GPU allowance on Media Temple. Since 2.7.1, I’m regularly using double that (so that’s an additional $80 – $100 per month, on top of the $20 per month for the GS service). I’m getting the same number of visitors and I have the same plugins installed.

I’ve done pretty much everything I can think of. Uninstalled as many plugins as I can, installed 1BlogCacher and DB Cache etc. The site loads fast now, but still the excessive server load persists.

I’m only 8 hours into the day, have had 636 hits and 962 page views on the site and I’m already over my daily GPU allowance.

If it’s any help, Media Temple reports that my index.php has had 3,381 hits (defined as “number of hits to this path” and an IO read (defined as “the read load that these hits caused”) of 553,000 in those 8 hours. Any idea why I’d be getting that many hits? I’m getting spidered quite a bit, but not a lot to take it up to that number.

I’d really like some idea how to proceed. I’m reaching the stage where I really can’t afford to run the site much longer 🙁

I’ll add my name to the list of WP 2.7.1 users with slow, server heavy installations.

I’m with Media Temple and my GPU usage has almost doubled since installing 2.7.1. That’s costing me an additional $80 per month for hosting, when my traffic is not substantially different than it was before 2.7.1.

Here’s a snapshot of my GPU usage for today so far (8 hours worth of data):

Path HTTP response Hits IORead IOWrite GPUs / hit %of total GPUs

flightsimx.co.uk/index.php 200 1046 163207 2317 0.0014 10.85% 1.4984

flightsimx.co.uk/wp-cron.php 200 811 118022 1527 0.0015 8.53% 1.1789

wp-cron.php seems to be having an adverse affect for sure.

I’ve tried all the usual – added WP Super Cache, removed all non-essential plugins, optimised the database etc.

If whatever the problem is isn’t fixed soon, I’m gonna have to look at another platform – I can’t afford this much for my hosting!

Mark

Hi renato_s,

That’s the one! Many thanks. It’s obvious now you’ve pointed it out 🙂

Cheers,

Mark