Getting worse | Page 4 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Here’s as much as I understand:

WordPress is a database-driven content management system, using MySQL and PHP. If that means nothing to you, the rest might not either.

One of the tables in the database is called wp_options (WordPress options). It’s supposed to be quite a small table which contains various basic settings for link structures, email address and so on. In its ideal state it’s quite a small entry – just a few KB in size. However, some plugins cache information there as entries called transients. The idea is that the transient data gets overwritten and uopdated when the process is next used, which is quite an efficient way to operate.

However, one or more of my plugins is creating unique transients, which might look something like transient_timeout_dsaoklg43598ueorkgjh4309834rtf – the latter bit being a unique identifier. Crucially, because it’s unique it’ll never be overwritten, because no plugin will ever use it. So the entries pile up, to the extent that yesterday I had a 5.1 gigabyte table which should only have been 180 kilobytes.

wp_options gets referred to every time a new (non-cached) page is requested, but if it’s too big it’ll end up trying to run masses of processes and run out of memory. That’s why I used to get those Gateway Timeout errors, and why yesterday things kept slowing down or crashing. So the impetus is to keep it as lean as possible. 

Now, what I need to do is work out which plugin is creating these unique entries, and ditch it. I don’t think there’s an easy way to do this beyond looking at the database size, disabling some plugins, then seeing if it creeps up again. If it doesn’t rise I’ve probably found the culprit. It’s quite a painful process but IF I’m able to finally find out where the problem lies this site should run like a dream. I’ve done enough testing and optimising elsewhere over the past weeks/months to trim all the fat. I just haven’t been able to isolate the actual problem!

In the meantime, I’ve got an automated script purging the entries, but I think it runs only once a day. Probably just about enough to keep things in check, but not a final fix.

Finally, the plugins do various things on the site, from the crumbtrail (“You are here:”) to the stats reporting, the top ten most popular pages, the maps, related links and so on. Most of them are very useful but there’s normally an alternative. I’d rather have a fully working site than one which tries to do everything but crashes all the time.

Worst-case scenario, this forum is creating the rogue database entries. At some point I’ll have to disable it to see, though I will give warning before. I don’t *think* it’s the forum though.

I hope all that made sense.

That’s exactly it, yes. I was writing early this morning and might not have been completely clear, but you’ve got it.

It’s probably a badly-coded plugin rather than a faulty one, but I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.

Actually, I noticed that quite a lot of the entries looked like this:

_transient_timeout_178.73.212.242bookmark
_transient_178.73.212.242bookmark
_transient_66.249.73.76search

Each contains a visitor’s IP address, and they all end in either search or bookmark. I’ve removed the search/subscribe bar for a while to see if that stops them building up. If they continue I’ll put it back.

You’re right, this isn’t my sole source of income, but it’s important to me to keep it online. Too much downtime and my Google rank drops, people start going elsewhere and my reputation suffers. A cranky server isn’t worth that, not after all I’ve invested in getting this to where it is.

One option is to crack on with the new theme, which is looking quite good already but is in a very prototype state. A bit of work and it might be good enough to trial. Switching themes can sometimes make a difference, if something was awry in the old one. Leave it with me.

Sorry, I moved the site to yet another new server (hopefully for the last time – fingers crossed). I had to put the forum into read-only mode for a while, but it took longer than expected.

It *should* be working OK now, but there may be some problems here and there. Let me know if anything doesn’t work (avatars etc).

I can split/merge posts or parts of a thread into different threads now, but haven’t tested it out. The polls are coming sooner – they’re part of an add-on which is yet to be released (a plugin within a plugin, if you like). I’m looking forward to that one.

Is it missing for both your accounts VB?

All seem to be working now. I found out I could reorder them too, so I did. HTH.