Server overloaded for about a day now

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I haven't been at WP long enough to know if this is normal, but since yesterday evening, roughly 24 hours ago I think, I have been seeing a LOT of screens telling me that the server is overstretched because of the number of people posting. I just nearly lost a whole long (and carefully thought-out) article in this way, and I had to do some nerve-wracking guesswork to get it back. I was too busy trying to salvage my article to copy the error message that has been coming up so often, I'm afraid, but it was something about the number of users posting, a statement that the site "should" come back in 1 or 2 minutes (whatever "should" means in this context - it never did come back that quickly!), and an offer of a video clip about autism, which I always declined to watch.

The near-loss of this one article was exceptional, I hasten to add. The site has usually been failing gracefully, even under stress, and even on this latest occasion the draft text was preserved intact, although I got warnings about "POSTDATA" and so on, and wasn't at all sure what to do, and it was about half an hour before I got to see the text again. I have known websites which delete all your text for you even after a slight server wobble which is beyond your control! So once again WP proves itself well-designed. Still, the sheer number of delays has been frustrating and worrying, and I wonder if something is seriously wrong, or if this is a regular but (usually) minor inconvenience.

Last edited by Twirlip on 16 May 2011, 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, the site has been terribly slow the last couple of days. If you get that message about the site being overloaded just click the back button on your browser and your post will still be there. Try submitting it again a minute later, repeat until the site finally catches up. Sometimes you may get other messages like 'cannot get topic watch id' in which case your post may or may not have been posted, so again click back and submit again, it is generally better to post twice than lose your post. If the mods stumble on doubled posts we delete one.

I don't know if the slowness is due to the server hardware or the old site software and large size of the database. Either way it is beyond the moderators ability to do anything about. It requires action by Alex the site owner.

Here on my screen, things move along fairly smoothly until the "Online Now" count begins going much above 1,200 ...

... and then this morning I got that "Go watch TV" overload message when the online count had risen above 1,500 (the highest number I have ever seen here).

To anyone who was not here over a year ago: 800 online used to drag this site right down to a crawl for everyone!

Yes, that was what I did on all the previous occasions, but this time it didn't work, and I got treated to some kind of cascade of repetitions of the error message and autism video page, which confused and rattled me no end. I got quite upset (short of tears and tantrums, though!). And eventually all my lost text did reappear, which is quite impressive. (If I'd panicked just a bit more than I did, however, my panic reactions would have done for it, even though the website was still holding it somewhere just out of my reach.)

This is me right now and all today and late yesterday.

You're cute when you're mad

Thanks for the tip. I only lost a one-sentence post, but have experienced the heartbreak of lost long posts elsewhere.

Also, I donate money to things I like whenever I can. If I knew where to go, I'd throw a little cash WPs way to help with the growing pains.

It looks to me like Alex took the "Donate" button down, or maybe he has just not put it back up after some recent work on the system software. But either way, and with the new server Alex installed about a year or so ago, what we have here right now is probably how things will be for a while.

I'm no longer mad after this.

Poor thing, the server has gone psychotic from all the stress!

Seriously, though, it can't be because there are suddenly lots more people posting than there were a couple of days ago. There must be some other cause, of a short-term nature.

Also, it was still complaining when I started trying to use it this morning, in the UK, at about 9 a.m. BST (8 a.m. GMT), when surely the majority of users must have been (as indeed they still must be) asleep? It took me ages to get onto the website at all, and access is still very erratic.

That "0" is something I have seen before when/while Alex is tweaking, updating or maintaining something, and there was definitely something going on over the past couple of hours or so.

Ah, yes, I did wonder if maintenance might be in progress, because it was so bad this morning, at a time of light usage, but it was hard to be sure it wasn't just the same problem as last night (and the night before), only getting gradually worse.

P.S. It has been fine for an hour or so now.

The server must have Aspergers and it suffered a meltdown.

Global warming.

It seems much better now.

Jinx! I bet you've put the hex on us again!