My back-ups stops working half way through and causes my website to get suspende

Hi Alison,

Can you ask them why they suspended the whole account, instead of just killing off the long-running script?

UpdraftPlus will run for as long as it’s allowed to by the web hosting server. And it’s happy to be killed off too, according to the web host’s policies. It’ll then pick up again later, from where it left off.

Web hosting companies configure how long they want scripts to run for – and then kill them when they hit the limit. As you say, 123-reg is a huge company, and as such there are loads of UD users using it. You should press them as to why they’ve selected you for special treatment!

David

Thanks, i have asked thr above questions. In the emantime they have wrtiien this to me, does it make any sense to you? (it doesnt to me)

‘ Dear Tina,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 28th October 2015.

I have now removed the suspension. Please allow up to an hour for the change to take effect.

This is a part of the error logs that we can see using our back-end tools:
NULL | longrunning | sweb11.hi.local: /usr/bin/php53 as admin-ajax.php in /home/cluster-sites/3/p/purplecowgifts.co.uk/public_html/wp-admin

Please make sure to remove the script that is running for longer than 2 minutes as your website will be suspended again when this script is triggered.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

Daniel
123-reg
‘

Hi Alison,

The information they’ve sent says nothing more than that something in WordPress ran for more than 2 minutes. The key question is, why, if they see a long-running script, are they suspending your account, instead of just enforcing a limit on how long scripts can run? i.e. instead of just killing the script?

It seems rather like they’re looking for an excuse to get rid of you, as, there’s nothing unusual about long-running scripts; scripts run until the webserver kills them off.

David

Hi David,

I have spoken to 123 Reg and see below their answer. This is tricky because my clint (who’s website 123 are hosting) are in a contract for a year so cannot leave… I really want to use your plain though.
Is there a way I can back up through the FTP using your plain (so I will get all the relevant back up info I need) instead of the backend of wordpress so I wont get this issue?

Thanks and sorry for all the questions!

‘Dear Tina,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 29th October 2015.

I am afraid that we are not able to change this setting as it is a server-side one. This is how the shared hosting platform is designed to function and I am afraid that these changes cannot be amended.

I recommend removing the plugin in question if it is causing the website’s suspension.

As an alternative, I recommend considering a different hosting solution, such as a VPS, where you will not encounter this type of issues: https://www.123-reg.co.uk/vps-hosting/

Also, you can manually backup your website via FTP, following this article: https://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/answers/Web-Hosting/Files-and-FTP/how-do-i-back-up-my-website-using-ftp-4127/

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

Daniel
123-reg’

Hi Alison,

Because UpdraftPlus is a WordPress plugin, it can’t do anything other than be run as part of WordPress, and hit whatever limits 123-Reg have for what scripts are allowed to do.

UD has been downloaded over 3.2 million times so far, and we’ve never come before across a hosting company behaving like this. It’s really bizarre; it’s in their power to enforce whatever limits they prefer, which is what they all do. (We’ve not even heard from a 123-reg user who’s had this issue before, and, as you say, they’re a decent-sized company, so there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of people using UD on there).

I wonder if for some reason they just want rid of you?

Having said that, we can tweak UpdraftPlus to tell PHP “please kill me after this number of seconds”. There’d never normally (as explained) be any good reason to do that. To use it, please do the following (the ‘195’ is the number of seconds):

a) update to the development version: https://updraftplus.com/faqs/devversion/

b) add this to your wp-config.php, before the first “define” line:

define(‘UPDRAFTPLUS_SET_TIME_LIMIT’, 195);

David

David

Thanks David/

I agree its really bad of 123 Reg, not impressed at all!

Just before I make that tweak to PHP, does this ‘fix’ the issue? And it shouldn’t cause any issues with my site or anything?

Sorry I am no tech person so have no idea what I am doing and because I don’t have a back up I want to make sure I won’t loose the site ??

Hi,

That piece of code sets UpdraftPlus backup processes to be killed off by PHP after 195 seconds. You can double check with 123Reg exactly how many seconds is the maximum they will allow for scripts to run, and change the 195 to that number. This should prevent UpdraftPlus from running long enough to get to their cut-off point.

It should have no other effect on your site, as it only applies to UpdraftPlus

Updates:

1) A more recent thread suggests that the limit is 30 seconds – so, choose 25 to make sure you get under it.

2) No need to update to the development version; current UD releases now incorporate the capability mentioned.

David

Hi Alison
I have a 123-reg website with a similar issue. I have a form which sends info to a script which writes back to the site. Basically people can add themselves to an email list, at the same time I get an email to inform me of the entry. I have had continuous garbage entries onto the site and all the emails I receive come from various names all @sweb11.hi.local

I have taken the form down which sends the entered fields to the script that writes to the page and it still happened. I changed the web file attribute chmod to me only and it still carried on. I have more than one 123-reg site and strangely I cannot cross run the script between sites so I came to the conclusion that it was the server itself. I have only just done a goggle search on this which found your post so I will be giving 123-reg a contact.

Just thought I would post as another 123-reg customer.