Barb Carlson

This is the email I got. I deleted Wordfence (which is making me unhappy) and they released my website. HostGator offers an “optimized WP” service that flat out doesn’t allow Wordfence. I’m unsure how to keep my website safe without over using resources. I’m also unsure how I was supposed to KNOW I was using too many resources, as the only email I got was when they shut me down. Is there something on the cPanel I’m supposed to check regularly? Is there any way to be notified when I go over? I asked HostGator repeatedly but they haven’t answered me.

Wordfence has blocked so MANY attempts that I’m afraid to leave it unprotected, but I cannot risk having the website be blocked again right now, at the height of accepting registrations for our event on Aug 4.

Any advice would be appreciated.
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Your account has been abusing CPU resources for an extended period of time and has been disabled in order to ensure continued performance stability of the account and server. While we do limit each account to no more than 25% of a system’s CPU in our terms of service, we do not actively disable accounts until they greatly exceed that number, which is what happened in this case.

Please take a moment to review this email in full as it contains important information and resources to assist you in resolving this issue. Please note that this permanent restriction requires you take further actions to gain access to and resolve the issues on your account.

– How can you resolve the issue?
We have two solutions available. Moving the account to a dedicated server, which will allow far greater hardware resources or you may try following some of our tutorials for optimizing popular scripts. https://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/optimize-cpu-resource-usage. If you feel your scripts have already been optimized, it may simply be time to consider the hardware upgrade.

If you reply back to this email with your IP address (https://www.hostgator.com/ip.shtml) we will be more than happy to go ahead and enable HTTP access for you, allowing you to safely work on the script while minimizing the negative effects on the server and its other users.

– How does a CPU issue occur?
Many times popular scripts may perform inefficient tasks repeatedly leading to CPU abuse. Below please find helpful articles outlining resource restrictions set on HostGator accounts:
https://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/rules-terms-of-service/cpu-resource-restriction
https://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/rules-terms-of-service/cpu-resource-usage

CPU Seconds used in the past hour: 2695.8, 75% CPU
Fri Jul 7 00:02:10 CDT 2017
Running Processes:
parsec99 409995 47.2 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 72.6 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Running Queries:
*************************** 1. row ***************************
USER: parsec99_1ol1
DB: parsec99_1ol1
STATE:
TIME: 3
COMMAND: Sleep
INFO: NULL
*************************** 2. row ***************************
USER: parsec99_1ol1
DB: parsec99_1ol1
STATE:
TIME: 8
COMMAND: Sleep
INFO: NULL

Open connections

Current Site Requests:
183.39.233.194 parsec-sff.org /
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /confluence/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /confluence/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /confluence/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_testA
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan&isFork=1&c
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan&isFork=1&c
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan&isFork=1&c
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan&isFork=1&c
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_doScan&isFork=1&c
192.185.21.67 parsec-sff.org /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wordfence_testAjax
54.210.134.185 parsec-sff.org /lecture-series/future-ya-lectureworkshop/feed/

Reference: ui
Server: gator4022.hostgator.com
Brand: hostgator
Srv. Type: cpanel
Created: Sun Jul 27 11:00:32 2014
Acct Type: Shared
Plan: Baby Croc
User: parsec99
U. Domain: parsec-sff.org
Email: [email protected]
IP: 192.185.21.67 (shared)

Doc Root: /home2/parsec99/public_html
Shell: /usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell

CPU Usage: 120.7% (warning)
LimitPHP: Limit file exists. (warning)
Varnish: parsec-sff.org is cached. (warning)
Varnish: confluence-sff.parsec-sff.org is cached. (warning)
Varnish: *.parsec-sff.org is cached. (warning)
Varnish: confluence.parsec-sff.org is cached. (warning)

Snapshot 1
parsec99 409995 47.2 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 74.3 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Snapshot 2
parsec99 409995 47.2 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 74.7 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Snapshot 3
parsec99 409995 45.6 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 67.8 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Snapshot 4
parsec99 409995 45.6 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 68.3 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Snapshot 5
parsec99 409995 45.6 0.1 372536 71496 ? SN 00:01 0:12 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
parsec99 410939 68.8 0.1 371588 70632 ? RN 00:02 0:06 /opt/php56/bin/php-cgi /home2/parsec99/public_html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Current load: 00:02:11 up 15 days, 23:53, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 0.01, 0.00

My hosting package was deactivated because of “resource abuse” from Wordfence scans. This is prime time before our local convention and people need to be able to buy registrations. I can’t even get into my admin page (WordPress) to disable the plugin. And if I do disable it, then what do I do for security? We’re a small nonprofit and can’t afford the price of a pro version (and that doesn’t even guarantee we won’t get the resource issue). Any suggestions? I’m chewing my fingernails here waiting for HostGator to review my ticket. This is bad. Real bad.

I was just deactivated this morning. I can’t get into my WordPress admin account to deactivate Wordfence. I’m really disappointed because I liked this plugin. I’m waiting for HostGator to turn me back on again. I guess I’ll have to delete Wordfence in all my websites.

I put it on basic and not the Falcon cache, but perhaps the basic cache does that as well.

<went to check>

Yup. That did it! Thanks!!

–Barb–

Additional information: This problem is only on one of the six websites I manage.

Lesson learned. First I had to figure out HOW to make a backup …

I found the plugin (well, at least one) that was causing the problem. It was a purchased version of Form Maker, which I use all over the place. ?? All the forms are now broken. I’ve been re-adding the plugins (I physically moved them into a different folder). After I moved them all, the dashboard came up (with errors because it couldn’t find the plugins).

Frustrating. I’ll see if there is a backup anywhere.

Okay, it looks like I shouldn’t have deleted parabola. I read around a bit and deleted all the plugins and the @#$#!#$ dashboard loaded. Sigh. The website itself won’t load … just a white page. I hope I can get it back via the dashboard.

Well, I deleted Parabola. 2015 is in the themes folder. It won’t load, and gets the same error. Should I delete 2015 as well? If there is nothing in the themes folder, where will it get the default theme from?

There is another theme (2015) in that directory, but it wasn’t the chosen theme. If I delete that one, too, do you think it would work?

>>insert weeping and wailing<<

Still won’t load dashboard. Same error code. Sigh. And all my tweaks to Parabola are gone. And now the website itself is down, too. ??

Never mind. I was trying to delete it from the tree. Duh.

I’m in cpanel.

wp-content/themes/parabola

Right click does not give me the option to delete. When I highlight the folder, I don’t have the option to delete on the File Manager ribbon across the top of the screen.

Robin: Thanks. When I click on the folder for my theme (parabola) it won’t let me delete it. Do I need to clean out all the folders first?