Excessive server loads producing slow page loads, timeouts, 500 errors...

[PeterMartin]

This is a repost originally made in the Off-Topic forum, which in retrospect I should have made here since it deals with BlueHost specifically.

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What is considered an unacceptable server load as reported by the cPanel status.html?

Our pages load significantly slower once it exceeds 10, and everything becomes pretty much worthless once it gets over 20. Problem is, it's frequently 50+. A reverse IP shows 1,113 domains assigned to our shared IP, which indicates to me that the box is seriously overloaded.

We have notified BlueHost via chat numerous times about this and are told "an admin will look into it" and "the admin found a problem and it should be fixed in x-minutes", but nothing is ever permanently resolved.

The main applications we use are Drupal, Phorum, SMF and Coppermine. I am not aware of any resource hogging code, and our cron jobs are set to run at staggered times thoughout the day. It is a beta site so any "high traffic" would typically consist of one user--me.

With our previous host (http://www.crucialp.com), these same applications ran at lightning speed. The average page load speed of a typical Web page on the Net averages between 2-4 seconds (as reported by sites that monitor such things). With our previous host, our pages always loaded, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in less than 0.5 second. (We run a script which monitors response times.) With BlueHost, it is frequently 30 seconds or more--if they load at all due to frequent time-outs or "Suspended Account" notifications.

A gazillion terabytes of disk space and bandwidth are of little use if the server can't serve up a simple static "Hello world" Web page without timing out, and it's extremely embarrassing to point clients and users to a page only to be told "It doesn't work."

Something is definitely amiss. BlueHost, please fix this. :( We don't expect dedicated server performance on a economically priced virtual server (we understand the competitive nature of the the hosting market), but is it too much to ask that it simply "works?"

Our main site is located at http://appbbs.com.

[charlesgan]

my one is once a while.
because i visiting my site few times a day, and some of the time it is slower.
During certain hours.

[Shonky]

It sounds to me like you have several incompetent users on the server you are on, who for whatever reason are doing things to the server that are bringing it down. Frequent loads of 50+ are certainly too high and it will be caused by someone creating high loads, either by accident or poorly coded sites, or it could be a hardware issue.

On my server a reverse IP shows 648 domains at last check, but the server load is consistently around 2.00, with the occasional spike to around 10, when the spike occurs, I'm almost certain that its another user doing something they shouldn't, since I typically see an error in the main logs accompanying the slow down.

When the server load is high, if possible login to the panel and check the error logs, you may need to keep refreshing the window to see something in the main log, but almost always in my experience the error will be associated with the load in some way.

I hope Bluehost has the tools to monitor which users are overloading the server, and the nerve to take action on high cpu usage users, rather than letting all other users on the server put up with the fallout from 1 or 2 cpu hogs.

Previously I was with Dreamhost, and it is fairly well known that they are ruthless when it comes to cpu usage, they didn't have your site throw cpu limit errors like Bluehost, if you regularly pegged your cpu usage, they would move you to low usage server, then they would monitor your site for a short time, if you didn't rectify the reason for the high cpu usage of your site within a certain time period, your account would be terminated, no questions asked.

This in my opinion was good, the expense of one for the benefit of many is better than the other way. I wonder how Bluehost typically handles high cpu usage users, I hope they don't just rely on that cpu limit exceeded thing, I hope they monitor how many times users hit that limit, and terminate the accounts of heavy users.

[PeterMartin]

On my server a reverse IP shows 648 domains at last check, but the server load is consistently around 2.00, with the occasional spike to around 10, when the spike occurs, I'm almost certain that its another user doing something they shouldn't, since I typically see an error in the main logs accompanying the slow down.

Consistently around 2.00? Heh, I've never seen it single digits. Right now it's at 84.69! :eek:

I don't understand why they let this continue.

BlueHost are you listening? If I buy you another box, will you spread out the load a little bit? :confused:

Dang...

[Basil]

Just ask them to move you to another server..

[PeterMartin]

Just ask them to move you to another server..

They said they couldn't do that without a valid reason for moving; e.g., requiring a move to a PHP5 server. I guess the fact that it appears someone poured molasses on the current server isn't a valid reason? :rolleyes:

Actually, that may be the ticket. I need to work with MediaWiki, and it requires PHP5. (Current server is PHP4.)

[areidmtm]

BlueHost are you listening?

This is a user to user forum. No one here can fix your problem and bluehost admins do not come here to read or reply to posts.

Read this before posting anymore

http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=1197

Contacting bluehost directly will help your situation a lot better then it would by complaining about it here.