CleanTalk overwhelming server and causing downtime

Hello.

Please set the “Set cookies” option to “Off”. This should help.

Having the same exact issue on many of my websites. Not sure why the “Auto” option was selected automatically as I have never adjusted this setting myself, seems like Off should be the default there.

Thank you for your prompt reply. I will consult with my client; they moved to Akismet after the site went down another time and, even though it’s more expensive, may be happy with it.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by jamesdonegan.

Yes, the option “Set cookies” has its default value as “Off”. Many website configurations work without issues with it.

I also noticed that the website uses not the latest version of the CleanTalk plugin, which is should be 6.11.1. Please, update the plugin in a usual way:
? WordPress Admin Page → Plugins → Installed plugins → Anti-Spam by CleanTalk → line “update now”.

Let us know if the issue persists.

It doesn’t currently have ANY version installed. We removed it when it kept crashing our server. Thanks for your help.

Thank you for your feedback.
Let us know if you decide to use our services.

If you are willing to share more details of the issue so we could improve our service, please create a private ticket:
https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

I’d like to inform that we have fixed the issue. Please, re-install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam from this archive:
https://github.com/CleanTalk/wordpress-antispam/releases/download/fix-version/cleantalk-spam-protect.zip

The update guide is here if you need it:
https://cleantalk.org/help/update-wordpress

Please, write back to us if the plugin works correctly now.

Hi,
Had exactly the same issue, heavy server usage and finally resulting in the Error connecting to the database error. And five minutes before the complaints came in, we sent out a newsletter.
I talked with my webhost and they could see that cleantalk was the cause. I copy:

POST method requests are not cached, as these are requests made when a client makes an entry on your site.
If your site is using a lot of post requests then it can generate a load on the server, and since post requests are not cached, it causes the server to behave erratically.
In your specific case, I checked the access logs to see the kind of requests that were hitting your server, and there I was able to notice the anitspam plugin making the post requests.

So after i deactivated the plugin, everything was going back to normal again. My guess is that the extra visitors, following newsletter links, cause the extra job for Cleantalk, resulting in the downtime.

@serge00 mentioned “Yes, the option “Set cookies” has its default value as “Off”. Which i haven’t tried yet. Too much afraid to crash the server once again. I just updated to 6.11.2 but Cleantalk is still inactive.

What do you suggest?
Rob

Hello,

If the option “Set cookies” is set to “Off” then there should be no additional load to a database.

@bapakrob 6.11.2 solves the latest known issue with POST requests. Could you please activate the plugin? Does it work?

@shagimuratov will try that out later tonight. It’s still critical to activate it, since the newsletter is still creating webtraffic. But i will report tomorrow!

We will wait for your reply.

So far it seems stable.

Thank you for your reply. Let us know if you need any help.