Server high load message occurs too frequently lately

[vevy]

Sorry but you cannot use search at this time. The server has high load. Please try again later.

When trying to access Active topics.

[Andrew Lee]

Sorry but you cannot use search at this time. The server has high load. Please try again later.

When trying to access Active topics.

Yes, I noticed that as well and have been trying to make some tweaks since a couple of days back.

I have made another tweak. Please let me know if it has gotten better. Thanks!

[Midas]

Noticed that sporadically, too -- just thought it was due to high user presence, which has also been above average. (600+ against the more usual ~150...)

[Andrew Lee]

No, I suspect it is due to some recent update to mariadb, but haven't really nailed down anything yet. I have implemented some workarounds, and am monitoring the situation to see if I can find out more.

[joby_toss]

This problem becomes increasingly annoying for me too, as I am often not able to use any of the forum's "Quick links", especially "Unread posts".

[Andrew Lee]

It was OK for a couple of days, but seemed to have gone downhill again

Basically, the symptom is that mariadb is exhibiting extremely high load (>150% CPU) for reasons unknown to me.

Please be patient! I am trying my best to troubleshoot this, but it is turning out to be a very difficult problem. If you guys have any ideas or leads, do let me know.

[lwc]

First of all, if it happens there should be a way for you to take everything down and instead just write a simple HTML of sorry, we're down. Otherwise it looks like the site was hacked or gone for good.
As for the high load, maybe try and see if it's specific IP addresses that cause this and block them?
Last but not least, you don't seem to use Cloudflare - it might be able to protect the site from such matters, maybe even for free.