Server unresponsive - Any ideas?
 

Lately, many users were complaining about the site being slow (I also experienced such issues myself).

We installed microstats and found out that the problem is that those times that the page takes a long time to load, its because of PHP, and not mySQL (for instance: Page generated in 29,596240 seconds (99,26% PHP - 0,74% MySQL) with 25 queries).

If it was mySQL, it would be easier to troubleshoot it and find out which queries are slow. But how do I proceed now, that PHP is the problem?

Note: It doesn't happen every time a page is loaded, but some of the times.

Can you give us more information e.g, shared server, VPS, dedicated. Processor type/power, RAM. What Web Server software, e.g Apache/nginx etc.

I'm sorry, you're right, I should have provided more information.
The server is a dedicated server at rackspace.

• Memory: 6 GB DDR RAM
• Hard Drive: 250GB SATA
• Hard Drive: 250GB SATA
• Whitebox Server: Dual Socket Dual Core AMD Opteron 2214HE
• Linux OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 - 64 bit

The web server software is Apache.

--------------- Added [DATE]1224964644[/DATE] at [TIME]1224964644[/TIME] ---------------

By the way, when I disabled hooks (for myself only) it was still slow sometimes, even though the page generation time (provided by debug mode) was much less. :confused:

Have you already posted in the Server Configuration forum over at vb.com to get your server optimized?

No, should I?

Update your php maybe? Have you check your server error logs? Installed any mods lately?

I would recommend it. They have helped me get each of my servers running well (we've moved servers or changed configurations a few times over the years).

PHP is quite up to date (version 5.2.x). I haven't installed any mods lately (but I'm constantly adding some of my own). Nothing weird in the server error logs.

@Lynne: Thanks, I'll give it a try!

Hmmm - maybe some PHP issues.

Can you copy the board to a test environment enabling the PHP error reporting in case there's something wrong ?

What's your RAM usage? Try doing a grep command :)

Are you able to identifiy if it's particular pages that take a long time to load?

Obviously there are things like xcache and eaccelerator, but with PHP times that high there must be a bigger underlying problem. Might be worth running vmstat and seeing what's going on when the pages are taking a long time to load

Please start by posting in the Server Configuration forum on vB.com.

I did, when Lynne told me so. ;)

Its not particular pages. It happens randomly, on random pages and it happens more frequently during peak hours.
Its usually 1,3GB - 1,8GB (out of 6)
Wouldn't that show up in the error logs?
Also wouldn't it occur in specific pages, all the time, if that was the problem?

cant you post the phpinfo page ?

mine looks like this - http://disputeclaims.org/phpinfo.php

I was asked for this at vb.com as well but I was hesitant to post it due to security reasons. Anyway, since I seem to be the only one with similar hesitations, here it is:
http://www.e-steki.gr/test.php

This might be a shot in the dark but...

vBulletin 3.7.x supports PHP 5 without any problems, though you may need to disable strict mode for MySQL, see HERE on how to enable 'force_sql_mode'.

You might want to run vmstat for a while, or keep an eye on things with top or ps too. If you add:

, to the bottom of your config.php (obviously changing 1.2.3.4 to your IP address), you'll get some debugging info too, in particular how long each mysql is taking, and how long PHP spent running

Jesus, I know how to enable debug mode for my IP address! LOL!
And I have done it already, nothing insighful.

I see no php cache installed. I recomend you install xcache. Also make sure you have gzip disable in vbulletin you have mod_deflate installed.

so your saying we can go to vb.com and ask them to optimize our server - would there be any benefits for this as im on a dedicated server and tbh never really throught of having it optimised for vb.

They have a forum where you may request some help optimizing your server. You need to provide a list of information, then George makes some suggestions on what to change.

mine is dedciated but fully managed.But tbh i never ask them anything as i dont know what to ask so i may nip over to vb.com and annoy them over there (sorry i mean Ask :))

Cheers Lynne

could it be possible that microstats is reporting an error and your usage really isn't any where near that?

@sssslippy: We have APC installed
@FRDS: Nope, vBulletin's debug mode reports the same.

@All: We had our server optimized and that helped a bit. However the problem persists, just with a slightly smaller frequence. Any ideas? :(