"defunct processes" Problem
 

Message straight from my webhost provider HostGator:

Hello!

No, this server does not appear to be under any attack at this moment. I can't tell you why your site is generating these defunct processes. Russell killed off the defunct processes and they regenerated; perhaps you should get in contact with your script developers for support.

[root@gator985 ~]# ps afux | grep delta | grep -v grep
delta 29064 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 29659 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 30319 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 30322 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 29053 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:27 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 29071 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 30299 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? ZN 16:28 0:00 | \_ [php] <defunct>
delta 4544 0.0 0.2 46120 19648 ? RN 16:32 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/php /home/delta/public_html/search.php

How do I fix defunct processes? I don't see any problems with my hacks and plugins and the whole month this month has been fine, yet today I am having problems. I have no edited anything at all but today I'm having trouble. =(

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks!

You need to check your server logs for issues, namely apache/iis/message_log etc

Hmm.. How would I do that? I think only hostgator has server logs:x

Is this a dedicated / vps server?

If it's a vhosted account, then your server logs should be accessable tipically in you folder above public_html, usually in a folder called logs or something similar.

It's a shared hosting account from hostgator and when I check logs, I don't see anything in the error logs about apache or anything.

I turned off the arcade and it made forums a bit faster and the 500 internal server error went away temporarily. But now today this morning, it's back. =\