Cross-posted with Board:

With all this talk of dedicated hosting, I feel like I should explain something about that option. Call it a warning or a disclaimer or whatever. A dedicated server may not necessarily be the best solution for us and it certainly won't solve all our problems.

Yes, when all is said and done, we may very well end up needing a dedicated server. But people should be aware that the kind of dedicated server we will be able to afford, as a community, will be significantly less powerful than the server we are residing on currently.

The server that we were on before? The one that we slowed to a crawl before they suspended us? That was probably more powerful than what we'd end up on with our own dedicated server.

Of course, there are some upsides to dedicated. The most obvious is that, no matter how much we talk, no one can boot us. Another is that while we have fewer resources at our disposal, we don't have to share those resources with anyone. But connections that aren't closing will bog us down and any server sluggish and slow, dedicated or otherwise.

I sense that some of you are impatient and want to just find a solution already but please keep in mind that, no matter where we end up residing, debugging the code and finding ways to streamline operations is essential to the future health of this board.

Just something to keep in mind.

Thanks for the clarification, Kristen. I do hope you don't feel like people are beating you up about this. I understand it's going to take a little time to debug the code and see if any of the fixes are sufficient. And there may be other fixes we haven't thought of yet that might help as well.

I think we're all just trying to be helpful and may be tripping over each other a bit in the effort.

No, I get that. And I know a lot of the conversation is simply talking out loud to see which ideas could work and which won't.

But I don't want anyone running out and buying us a server because they want to be the nice person and solve all our problems. Because it won't really solve our problems. It'll just postpone them for awhile.

This might be a stupid question, but how is it that we can figure out what is causing this-- what sort of bug might be in the code or if it is just that we talk so much? I am not particularly technically literate, and it seems like there are other sites on the internet that talk as much as we do!

I'm not a debugger or a coder so I don't have a clue how to track it down. But the problem that we're having is using too many concurrent MySQL connections. Our limit is 50 and, the day we went down, we were at 200+. We know that 50% of those were quotes and we can disregard those for now. Which leaves us with approximately 100 or so connections to worry about.

That number means that were 100 connections to the database open at the same time. In order for that to happen, 100 separate users would have to either submitting a post or loading a page all at the same time. Given that we only have 1000 registered users total, and I think I'm three of those myself, the odds are against that scenario. [Unless we have a bigger lurker population than I was aware of.] Especially given the time and what level of activity we were seeing that day. That's what's saying bug to me. It seems like, for some reason, connections to the database are being opened and are not closing.

Were there any coding changes (significant) put in after the first of the year? Because from September through at least Dec/Jan on hostsuckit, I don't remember us having many problems. Then they were there. Maybe if we can pinpoint when we started being such server hogs, if we can cross-reference it with any coding changes that happened around that time, it will focus the bug search?

I know that one of the many issues that led to the HR debacle was the search feature, which has since been disabled. But also, not to be all ATP again, Music opened in January and Movies in February. I think they were contributing factors too.

Edited because I said that backwards

But are there tons of new users in those threads (I honestly don't know - I can't find time for them). I mean, I've noticed less Hec in Bitches, Natter and the show threads. People can only post so much. I understand (and agree with) the principle that proliferation increases overall number of posts, but it's got to be finite. And there are threads that have shut or petered out since Movies and music were added - like the Holiday thread, etc.

If it's hard to conceive that 100 whatevers are being used at once on one hand, I don't understand...

I don't think I understand what you're asking.

I know that one of the many issues that led to the HR debacle was the search feature, which has since been disabled. But also, not to be all ATP again, Music opened in January and Movies in February. I think they were contributing factors too.

I find it hard to believe that two threads contributed that much. Unless they're completely populated with new users, that is. The people who post in those threads, have less time to post in the threads in which they used to post. Take Hec, for example. He's much less of a fixture in Natter and Bitches than he was before.

I do understand there's probably a small gain in overall number of posts and page loads, etc., but it's hard to conceive that two new threads contributed that much, because in the mean time, other threads (where people were previously posting) have all but died or have actually shut.

Doesn't it have to be more code based?