Query locking tables and stacking queries - need help understanding

[starl]

Thanks Kevin. Yes, we definitely have a forum with that many threads..

I ask you to bear with me while I'm learning this stuff.. so I may ask bad questions..

archive/index.php.. sounds like somethat's archiving? If that's the case, why would it archive old threads and not just the newer? Or is it, but it's sorting by date first?

I don't understand " there's no index by the open or visible columns"

Yes, we have lots of spiders.. Baidu has been a royal pita. I've updated the robots.txt, but out of 200 spiders - they're 90%. Course, I know that the users online isn't up to the second, but still?

Thanks for referring a product, but we avoid 3rd party additions when possible. Is there another fix to this?

Any idea what makes the query run? With your reference to spiders, it sounds like they may be responsible?

thanks again!