High CPU usage -- server crash

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I had a Concrete 5 install of mine (an upgrade 5.3.1.1 > 5.3.2) pulled down from a server by the hosting company today because of abnormally high CPU usage.

The most significant change i've made to this site recently is the upgrade from 5.3.1.1 to 5.3.2, which I did after moving the whole site from a development/demo server to the live server/site we're going to use. Moved all files, imported the whole database and then re-made config/site.php links/details and all worked fine.

The site is back up now, and the hosting provider is happy that the CPU usage is down to acceptable levels (is shared hosting) for the time being -- I agree with them though, a 25%+ CPU usage for one site isn't on, and this isn't a particularly heavy site at all! I just disabled the dashboard stats (I use Google anyway) which is the biggest change i've made to slim down the database calls (I activated database logging for about 2 mins and click around a bit and we hit nearly 30,000 entries in the database log!). Could this explain it? The statistics table in the DB was up to 1.6megs, so it wasn't small.

I'm wondering if it had something to do with the fact that the stats showed 3000 visitors in a morning before I cleared/disabled them, which is a little unlikely considering this is still a demo site which only a handful of people have the address to!! How could that unexplained visitor hike be explained?

Sorry for the long post, but desperate for any help/direction anyone can offer, and i'm just trying to avoid having to rebuild the entire site (as I would like to take it like at 5.3.2 and I reckon a fresh install would fix all probs). Should I just swallow the few hours rebuilding the site and go with a fresh install? :-S

arcanepain
 
frz replied on at Permalink Reply
frz
yes, keep database logging off. We're killing that feature next version.

You might go ahead and turn statistics off as well, if you get sizable traffic google analytics is far more useful.

regardless, it sounds like something else might be off. is it apache or mysql that is eating cpu? any more details?
arcanepain replied on at Permalink Reply
arcanepain
Thanks for the reply! Hosting company were a bit cagey and curt about the whole thing but, from what i could get out of them, was a mySql issue. Brought Apache down, but the only recommendation the tech team gave me was to reduce mySql queries.

What do you think? Best bet for me to start with a fresh 5.3.2 and go from there? There's no way quite a few 'getThemePath' calls in the header could have done this is there? With a handful of visitors I don't think that could have caused too much overhead, but perhaps that's not the best way to link to scripts. Any idea why your built in stats might show a sudden 3000 visitor leap?