CPU limit errors.

[Midnight-Soul]

OK, well I'v been with BH for nearly a year now, and they have shown no improvement with this issue and have got worse if anything. Basically, I run a browser based text game with what was a growing player count but has since deteriorated to next to nothing because of BH, at it's peak it was hitting around 32,000 visits a month which isn't really that significant in website standards, only around 1000 visits a day. Yet there were CPU limit errors about 10-15 times a day at random times even when there were fewest online. SO I went through the support process, with BH saying we need to optimise scripts, its DEFINATELY problems our end, when I kept assuring them it wasn't - we run a lot of scripts yes, but they run instantly 99% of the time and 100% of the time on any other host, but we optimised them even further anyway. This did not solve the problem at all - not surprisingly. Support then said - upgrade to the high CPU servers for $20 a month and you DEFINATELY wont recieve these errors anymore - and yet they still persist at the same rates as before even with the longer CPU time.
I have explained to BlueHost the ACTUAL problem with THEIR system many a time but everytime they reply with the same old 'its your scripts that need optimising'. It's clear when looking at the CPU logs that the problem is caused when their servers just regularly slow down and basically crash - during that time, any script on any site on that server that happens to be running at the same time as this server lag will hang and will not complete its process and continue trying to run - this then triggers the CPU errors and the sites go down for 5 minutes at a time. The one possible solution to this is to have a site which never ever runs any queries at all....
So on the whole, Bluehost has been a very poor host and I will definately be moving when it comes time to renew unless they radically improve their performance - maybe they should stop offering rediculous amounts of space and bandwidth to bring in customers and start looking after the customers they already have. They seem to merely ignore the countless hundreds of others having these CPU errors.

[Early Out]

Try shutting off awstats.

[Midnight-Soul]

Was that causing the problem? None of the support ever gave any help like that.

[Early Out]

Was that causing the problem? None of the support ever gave any help like that.Not sure, and not sure that will cure it, but some other users have reported that they discovered that all of their "CPU exceeded" problems were occurring when awstats was doing its daily "thing," and that shutting if off improved the situation. Worth a shot, anyway.

[Midnight-Soul]

Well thanks anyway. But whether it is or isnt the problem, I didn't need a high cpu server which BH insisted...makes it seem like they do it intentionally to force people to give them more money.

[charlesgan]

Was that causing the problem? None of the support ever gave any help like that.

as recommended, turn off the awstat.
that is taken quit many mysql thread and also cpu usage.

actually 32k monthly is quit high traffic.
Might consider to upgrade soon later.

[DiveLife]

Hi All,
I've just come in here to try and sort my problem which seemed to be the same. I had my webmaster and a friend (who is also a hoster and may be getting my business if this isn't resolved) online looking at this.
Basically i was getting suspended account for 5 minutes and all bluehost could say was that we exceeded cpu quota. This was running at 5.66% on 2 cpus, not too much i think.
We are currently getting higher volume than usual but as bandwidth is relatively low (15gb pm) compared to what is allowed and visits are aorund 4000 per day then i wouldn't have thought this was an issue.
Bluehost were syaing scripts need optimizing and they were going to shut me down if we didn't optimize them. Our webmaster siad the scripts were fine and it was their system. Who is right????
The package clearly states very high usage figures so i wouldn't expect to pay more to get what is offered initially.
We were also hacked recently and Bluehost say that it is our responsibilty to update scripts but other servers seem to do it for you???

Any thoughts??

[Early Out]

This was running at 5.66% on 2 cpus, not too much i think.If you're looking at Service Stats in cPanel, that's telling you that the load on the entire server is 5.66 (2 cpus). That's not a percentage - it's an arbitrary scale. Anything under about 8 is considered OK, anything over that indicates too heavy a load on the server. In any event, it doesn't reflect your usage of the CPU - it indicates everyone's usage, in total, and is just a snapshot in time.

[DiveLife]

OK. That seems fine. But the other issues?

[Hercules]

For the last month (while traffic dropped sharply because of summer holidays) my site is getting CPU errors too.
Not because of my scripts, but because of something on BH servers going wrong and starts accidentally adding CPU secs to your processes while the server hangs.
As soon as this totals around 40 secs your site gets suspended for 5 mins and than it's waiting to be 'lucky' again.
Switching to a high CPU server doesn't change this I'm afraid, because than your site will be suspended too if the same error on a BH server occurs, only the error will take like 90 secs or whatever the limit is on the high BH server.
In my case queries that normal take less than 0.1 sec now take forever and kill my site for 5 mins.
This happens now like every 2 days, but I'm afraid it will go up when my traffic will increase next month when the holidays are over.

Tue Jul 10 14:54:19 2007: used 0.09 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=355&pos=11
Tue Jul 10 14:54:25 2007: used 35.17 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=15&pos=30
Thu Jul 12 15:01:57 2007: used 0.08 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=274&pos=19
Thu Jul 12 15:02:17 2007: used 37.60 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=184&pos=49
Thu Jul 12 15:02:18 2007: used 37.60 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=184&pos=49
.................................................. ........................
Mon Jul 23 14:03:00 2007: used 0.02 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=356&pos=22
Mon Jul 23 14:03:03 2007: used 21.16 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/thumbnails.php?album=362
Mon Jul 23 14:03:04 2007: used 21.24 seconds of cpu time for /pictures/displayimage.php?album=356&pos=23

In this thread Bluehost's CTO is already admitting it's a BH problem, but until now they didn't seem to solve it.
http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=9171&page=10
If I would get into CPU errors due to really huge traffic, I wouldn't mind switching to a high CPU server, but now the problem lies somewhere else.
Awstats causing CPU errors I try to manage by updating awstats a few times a day manually so I won't take that much CPU recourses if done only every 24 hours.

[jlcarneiro]

Hi! I've made some changes in my code, how do I check CPU usage to see if it was worth it?

Other thing: I'm on box273, and cPanel Service Stats says "Server Load: 2.04 (4 cpus)". Considering I've read monday mornings are the top load and today is no monday, is that ok? Or should I ask to change boxes?

[Early Out]

Other thing: I'm on box273, and cPanel Service Stats says "Server Load: 2.04 (4 cpus)". Considering I've read monday mornings are the top load and today is no monday, is that ok? Or should I ask to change boxes?Anything under 8 for a server load is considered OK. When it gets higher than that, it indicates that the box is getting overloaded by something. When it's down in the 2 range, that can be considered "loafing."

[Hercules]

If the server load drops a lot between 2 or gets below 1 the server is probably completely trashed by too many open connections...
That way nothing will happen and BH doesn't get alarmed till someone opens a live chat.
Normally the server load is between 3-6 and everything runs smoothly on my box.
Even with loads around 15 I didn't notice much delay, but I'm living in Europe, so there is always some delay.
The only way to find out if you're doing ok CPU wise is monitoring the number of CPU exceeded errors in your TMP folder :)

[DiveLife]

I just seem to be having more and more problems.

Now the html and php has stopped working on my site.

Yesterday someone (Bluehost has now admitted it was them) did a backup of my site. Strange i thought as they never have before, but hey, thanks.

Then i find my site has been hacked and a trojan is in there.

My webmaster was watching them do a re-install and a database was not installed correctly so we had issues. Bluehost said it NEVER messed with the site at all until i pointed out the backup and then they said they had done it but wouldn't say why.

Now i can't take orders because the scripting is off. There is no support so i have had to leave a messgae.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are Bluehost being entirely honest as i have to say i think they have not been entirely straight with this.

???

[charlesp]

From this thread I am confused. I have a server load of 0.71 (8 cpus). Is that good or bad?

[Early Out]

From this thread I am confused. I have a server load of 0.71 (8 cpus). Is that good or bad?It's not even breathing hard. A very light load....

[eddiemoth]

Well...., I am also puzzled how BH run their business as well. The real truth is for a Platinum Pak account such as mine, your website can only use CPU 20seconds of every minute. If you have a few users hit the database at the time for more than 20 seconds this not to mention about the database query limit, your site will be down for Over CPU limit. Every time I back up my database, my site is down. Of course the database back up is more than 20 seconds. To go to a higher CPU server you have to pay $25 or close to that and your site will be down between 12 to 24 hours. I've never a get a straight answer from the tech support as to how much time of CPU you get when you upgrade. Some tech support said 40 seconds and some said 90 seconds. I hate to move to another host so soon. So, I have to shut off Yahoo Slurp bots from crawling on my site just to keep my site running for now.

[Hercules]

I think you have 40 CPU secs per minute on the regular account and 90 on the high CPU plan.
20 secs would be redicilously low and would cause over 95% of all moderate traffic sites to become useless on a BH server.