Amateur Poker Association & Tour

Poker Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: Des on January 13, 2012, 15:17:57 PM

Title: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 13, 2012, 15:17:57 PM
Apologies to everyone as we"ve been suffering with forum performance issues over the last two days.  Maintenance will be carried out over the remainder of today, so to avoid frustration :) you may wish to avoid the forum until tomorrow when we hope all will be back to normal.

Thanks for your patience.

Des.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 13, 2012, 15:26:56 PM
CPU usage stats are holding steady, we may have nailed the problem.  (Famous last words.)

Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: duke3016 on January 13, 2012, 15:43:43 PM

CPU usage stats are holding steady, we may have nailed the problem.  (Famous last words.)




Just in time as well, Paulie was getting told off for deleting posts on Facebook....
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 13, 2012, 15:48:04 PM


CPU usage stats are holding steady, we may have nailed the problem.  (Famous last words.)




Just in time as well, Paulie was getting told off for deleting posts on Facebook....


lol, I can laugh now!

Looks like we"re over the worst...stas holding beautifully.

Culprit was a poorly coded plugin on another site that I am building on our server.  That and a pretty average tech support response, which I"ll be thinking a little more about in the coming days.

Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 13, 2012, 16:20:59 PM

CPU usage stats are holding steady, we may have nailed the problem.  (Famous last words.)




Typical.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 14, 2012, 01:13:23 AM
I"ve now got to wait for the server provider to complete some tasks tomorrow and we should be good to go.  Apologies once again for the inconvenience this downtime has caused.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: technolog on January 14, 2012, 09:18:23 AM


CPU usage stats are holding steady, we may have nailed the problem.  (Famous last words.)




Just in time as well, Paulie was getting told off for deleting posts on Facebook....


;D
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: PHIL_TC on January 18, 2012, 12:32:50 PM
Hi Des

Couldn"t access the forum last night and this morning, might just be me, but was getting a random time out or a "The FastCGI pool queue is full" error message.

Having hosted some random WordPress sites (presuming the APAT site is WordPress based?... if not ignore I ever posted this!) in the past before for companies I know we had to tweak some of the settings within the fcgiext.ini to increase the default values on :

1. instanceMaxRequests :  This is the max number of requests that can be processed by each FastCGI worker process before it is recycled.  The default value on install is 200.

2. maxInstances :  This is the max number of FastCGI worker processes that can be started in the application pool that is allocated to your website (we use IIS running over Windows here).  The default value on install is 4.

3. queueLength : This is the max number of requests that can be queued for a FastCGI process pool. The default value on install is 1000.

We also had a problem when a user added a widget plugin to their WordPress site, it had been fine then the CPU usage went crazy and we had to constantly recycle the application pool until we did more digging. It was a plugin called "WordPress Popular Posts" which was the culprit. Soon as we disabled the plugin, recycled the application pool, gave it the old "switch it all off and back on again" routine... it was fine.

Not sure if the above will help.... but just in case :)

Phil x
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: AMRN on January 18, 2012, 12:59:20 PM

Couldn"t access the forum last night and this morning, might just be me


Nope, not just you....
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: nosey-p on January 18, 2012, 13:04:56 PM

Hi Des

Couldn"t access the forum last night and this morning, might just be me, but was getting a random time out or a "The FastCGI pool queue is full" error message.

Having hosted some random WordPress sites (presuming the APAT site is WordPress based?... if not ignore I ever posted this!) in the past before for companies I know we had to tweak some of the settings within the fcgiext.ini to increase the default values on :

1. instanceMaxRequests :  This is the max number of requests that can be processed by each FastCGI worker process before it is recycled.  The default value on install is 200.

2. maxInstances :  This is the max number of FastCGI worker processes that can be started in the application pool that is allocated to your website (we use IIS running over Windows here).  The default value on install is 4.

3. queueLength : This is the max number of requests that can be queued for a FastCGI process pool. The default value on install is 1000.

We also had a problem when a user added a widget plugin to their WordPress site, it had been fine then the CPU usage went crazy and we had to constantly recycle the application pool until we did more digging. It was a plugin called "WordPress Popular Posts" which was the culprit. Soon as we disabled the plugin, recycled the application pool, gave it the old "switch it all off and back on again" routine... it was fine.

Not sure if the above will help.... but just in case :)

Phil x


What he said  :-\
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 18, 2012, 13:06:15 PM

Hi Des

Couldn"t access the forum last night and this morning, might just be me, but was getting a random time out or a "The FastCGI pool queue is full" error message.

Having hosted some random WordPress sites (presuming the APAT site is WordPress based?... if not ignore I ever posted this!) in the past before for companies I know we had to tweak some of the settings within the fcgiext.ini to increase the default values on :

1. instanceMaxRequests :  This is the max number of requests that can be processed by each FastCGI worker process before it is recycled.  The default value on install is 200.

2. maxInstances :  This is the max number of FastCGI worker processes that can be started in the application pool that is allocated to your website (we use IIS running over Windows here).  The default value on install is 4.

3. queueLength : This is the max number of requests that can be queued for a FastCGI process pool. The default value on install is 1000.

We also had a problem when a user added a widget plugin to their WordPress site, it had been fine then the CPU usage went crazy and we had to constantly recycle the application pool until we did more digging. It was a plugin called "WordPress Popular Posts" which was the culprit. Soon as we disabled the plugin, recycled the application pool, gave it the old "switch it all off and back on again" routine... it was fine.

Not sure if the above will help.... but just in case :)

Phil x


Thanks for this Phil.  I know they looked at MaxInstances and Plugins a couple of days ago, but will pass these details through nonetheless.  We"ve moved to a dedicated application pool just now and the site has come back online, so fingers crossed that will help.  I hate needing to rely on third party providers for the support!  Maybe time to bring an IT director on board.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: PHIL_TC on January 18, 2012, 13:22:19 PM
No problems. If you haven"t got a dedicated server and sharing with other companies then having your own application pool is the way forward for sure. Personally if funds allow I"d switch to a dedicated server as well, but I know hosting costs can be prohibitive. Drop me a PM if your 3rd party providers are struggling, we used to host a number of WordPress based sites for other companies, might be able to help.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 18, 2012, 13:30:42 PM

No problems. If you haven"t got a dedicated server and sharing with other companies then having your own application pool is the way forward for sure. Personally if funds allow I"d switch to a dedicated server as well, but I know hosting costs can be prohibitive. Drop me a PM if your 3rd party providers are struggling, we used to host a number of WordPress based sites for other companies, might be able to help.


Ta again.  I"ve got a fairly high spec dedicated server, but had more than one site sharing the IIS application pool.  We"ve now moved the sites to dediated pools and I"m hopeful that this will make a difference.  That said, our current support partner hasn"t filled me with confidence thus far, so will keep your kind offer in mind.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Paulie_D on January 18, 2012, 17:05:42 PM
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?  ;D
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 18, 2012, 17:07:00 PM

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?  ;D


Lol, now that"s a brief funny interlude.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: duke3016 on January 18, 2012, 17:09:11 PM

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?  ;D


ahh I have missed this :)
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Santino67 on January 18, 2012, 19:05:13 PM
When I saw the thread title I expected a Strictly Come Dancing style panel giving out scores  ;D
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 18, 2012, 19:18:22 PM
Right, I think I sorted the issue.  See how the next hour goes.  Fingers crossed here.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 19, 2012, 12:59:09 PM
A quick update. 

A full backup of the APAT website and forum databases was made in the early hours of this morning and we are planning to carry out a complete site rebuild at the same time tomorrow morning to address the problems we"ve been experiencing recently.

For that reason, the problems will continue throughout today.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: nosey-p on January 19, 2012, 13:01:22 PM
Have you forgot to put 50p in the meter
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: cashman on January 19, 2012, 13:18:01 PM

Have you forgot to put 50p in the meter


;D
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 19, 2012, 18:56:59 PM
7pm now - has anybody had any site performance issues in the last two hours?
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: nosey-p on January 19, 2012, 19:09:05 PM
Been on for the last hour, no probs with me
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: TightEnd on January 19, 2012, 19:33:37 PM

7pm now - has anybody had any site performance issues in the last two hours?


Been fine. Best for a week

fingers crossed!
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 19, 2012, 19:37:05 PM


7pm now - has anybody had any site performance issues in the last two hours?


Been fine. Best for a week

fingers crossed!


Touching wooden things.  
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: pables on January 19, 2012, 20:38:47 PM



7pm now - has anybody had any site performance issues in the last two hours?


Been fine. Best for a week

fingers crossed!


Touching wooden things. 


Too much information!
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Santino67 on January 20, 2012, 01:24:09 AM
All good here for past 6 hours  8)
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: nosey-p on January 20, 2012, 06:34:46 AM
Looks like the 50p did the trick
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Paulie_D on January 20, 2012, 10:53:34 AM

Looks like the 50p did the trick


I beg to differ....


Have you tried turning it off and back on again?  ;D


Obv.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: Des on January 20, 2012, 12:16:48 PM


Looks like the 50p did the trick


I beg to differ....


Have you tried turning it off and back on again?  ;D


Obv.


Sigh....if only.
Title: Re: Forum Performance
Post by: technolog on January 20, 2012, 22:07:54 PM
Was shockingly slow for me earlier. It was taking 2 to 5 minutes to load each page. Seems fine again now though.