andrewjourney

They didn’t get back to me with more detail. I did just pay to double my CPU to a full core, so we’ll see how that goes.

Thanks!
Andrew

Hardly any. I typically don’t tag posts. But now, when I add 3-5 tags at once—BLAMMO! Server shutdown. I notified my hosting service and they are having their server tech look into it.

I thought it might have been the Classic Editor plugin, so I disabled that, but nope. Not that.

Andrew

I figured it out.

Tags overload the CPU. Every time, for any post, if I added several tags at once, the server would disable my site.

When I add a tag to a post, from what I can tell, WP looks through my 330+ posts. Whatever algorithm that WP is using, I think it’s crap. It shouldn’t use hardly any CPU for doing a tag search.

So, I stop doing tags (I’m not sure how useful they are anyway) or upgrade my hosting plan.

Thanks!
Andrew

Thanks, James, that’s helpful.

It is on a shared server and it has a 50% CPU limit. Maybe it’s a virtual machine, like a virtual Commodore 64 or something…

“0.5 CPU Core, 0.5 GB RAM, 10 GB SSD”
(I have no idea what the “core” is…)

Is there a recommended minimum for WP? It’s not a lot of traffic on my site.

Andrew

The more I look at this, the more I’m convinced it only happens when I’m editing. But it’s not every time that I’m editing.

Here are the processes for my latest fault:

pickleballjourney.pickleballforums.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=ajax-tag-search&tax=post_tag&q=David+n

pickleballjourney.pickleballforums.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=ajax-tag-search&tax=post_tag&q=David+

pickleballjourney.pickleballforums.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1572839895.2435779571533203125000

pickleballjourney.pickleballforums.com/xmlrpc.php

I was starting to think that when I add tags to a post, it spikes that CPU, but I added more tags to a post I’m writing this morning and no fault has happened. So bizarre.

I’ve gone ahead and swapped out the wp-cron for a cPanel cron as described here:
https://www.ecenica.com/support/answer/replace-wordpress-cron-cpanel-cron-job/

I might disable XMLRPC and stop using the mobile app or just limit access to specific IPs that I know are mine.

Thanks,
Andrew

Thanks, James.

My hosting plan limits my server usage to 50% of the CPU.

lsphp:ome/pickleb1/pickleballjourney.com/xmlrpc.php 12%
lsphp:ome/pickleb1/pickleballjourney.com/xmlrpc.php 21%
lsphp:me/pickleb1/pickleballjourney.com/wp-cron.php N/A
lsphp:ome/pickleb1/pickleballjourney.com/xmlrpc.php 21%

I don’t know if those are concurrent processes or not, the cPanel report isn’t super obvious, but if concurrent, then they total to 54% which would cause the fault.

I wouldn’t think it’s an attack, the site has only been up a week, but dunno.

I use my WP phone app to upload photos to media. If I turn off XMLRPC, would that prevent mobile uploading?

As far as blocking access to WP-Admin, is this good advice here?
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/11-vital-tips-and-hacks-to-protect-your-wordpress-admin-area/
Or would you recommend a different article?

Thanks!
Andrew

James, James, and Liew, it does seem primarily linked to me creating or editing posts. But not every time that I edit. I was having spikes prior to installing Litespeed Cache.
Looking at the server log, there are two processes at the time of the latest fault:
xmlrpo.php
wp-chron.php
I decided to start last night by turning all the Heartbeat API instances with Heartbeat Control. But that hasn’t seemed to make any difference since I had a fault today anyway.

Thanks,
Andrew

Thanks, James. I was hoping to avoid that since the spikes are intermittent and occur only once or twice or three times a day. It’s probably going to take a week to to through that “elimination” process.

If anyone knows of known issues with the plugins, then let me know.

In the meantime, I’ll slog through building it back up from the ground up and see what happens.

Thanks!
Andrew