Deleyna

Again, I can’t thank you enough for your help. I’ve submitted a ticket to SiteGround to see if they can give me any more information on those executions. I read the article you mentioned and spent some time going over my AWStats. I found something that may be relevant…or may be obviously irrelevant to anyone who understands this.

My site’s IP is x.x.x.110. By far the largest amount of traffic is from x.x.x.156. (Note: I’ve masked x.x.x — but they’re identical.) Also looking at AWStats, almost the same number of hits as come from x.x.x.156 is coming from Bulgaria. Which is very interesting, considering that x.x.x.156 and my site are both located in Chicago. x.x.x.156 generates 32,000 hits compared to the next highest at just under 2000. Looking down at the bots, Google generates around 4,000 hits (since the beginning of the month). I’m not sure how hits equate to CPU seconds, but I’m thinking this isn’t something like Google.

I’m wondering if there is any way to use a non-ajax form for the mail-poet signup? While it wouldn’t look cool, it might resolve the issue and bring the load back down to a manageable level.

An update: in the last 24 hours, I’ve had 2 spikes 2 hours apart that were over 6000 CPU seconds/hour. My site is at risk of being throttled or shut down due to this activity and I’m completely baffled as to how to shut it off AND keep MailPoet running.

I am not great with .htaccess files. I *think* that what I’ve done is to manually recreate the tool that SiteGround offered, with the one exception for admin-ajax.php. If that’s the case and that’s the only change, then whatever is causing the spikes must be using the admin-ajax.php, right?

And if that’s the only way to allow MailPoet signups…then… I’ve got a problem.

Really hoping I’m missing something. Or is everyone else having the same issue and just not noticing???

Other interesting note: I did see live traffic when the tool was on, because I was on an IP that was whitelisted. However, I did not see the subscription tool listed as blocked, even when I watched as other people ran the test.

Interesting! Thank you for the reply. I disabled their tool last night and added:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from x.x.x.x

<Files admin-ajax.php>
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Files>

to the .htaccess file in the wp-admin directory. I also have:

<Files wp-login.php>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from x.x.x.x
</Files>

in my root .htaccess file along with the usual WordPress MU configuration and the WAF firewall settings.

I can now get newsletter signups.

But here’s the thing. Since turning off that tool, the overload issue has returned.

I wish I could show you the graph, because it really bothers me. When I look at the CPU usage for my site, the usual CPU seconds/hour for the site is around 200-400. At 0500AM the rate jumped to 4000 and at 0600AM it was still at 3000. Then it dropped back to normal. According to their graph, a normal site runs around 100-200, so I’m usually high, but it is WordPress MU, so that doesn’t bother me. The sudden jump DOES. That seems to happen about every 12 hours when I have the tool off, although currently I’m at 13 hours without a spike. I’ve only had the tool off for about 18 hours.

I do not know what is causing the spike. Initially, I thought it might be a Wordfence scan, but after setting the scan settings much lower, it didn’t seem to affect that CPU rate.

Initially, I asked SiteGround to try and help me sort out what was causing the load issue, but they just said to use their tool and it would be fine…and it was. Except that no one can sign up for newsletters…and since the primary goal of these sites is to connect with clients…

Does that help? I have felt like I’ve been fighting this problem in a vacuum, so I am extremely grateful for the reply.

Is this an actual fix? I’m not seeing the button…??

We’ve managed to get tinymce advanced working everywhere else and are ok. Thanks.

Stray bit of information: with this plugin enabled and enable for comments UN checked, I had the small gray box instead of the submit comments.

After I checked to enable it for comments, my comments form looks great! So the opposite of the previous poster…

Using The Bootstrap theme.

Actually — nevermind. It was just hidden. I see them now. THANKS!

Just noticing this is still showing up in my error log 4 months later…

Thanks! Glad to help. It’s what I do. LOL

As for the different domains — you got that working in 3, iirc.

THAT may be a function of WP 4. It seems to me that it handles the MU differently than 3 did. Now I’m saying that more from a “feel” than knowledge.

Part of my initial mess was that I had created a series of domains in a WP 3 MU install just as you are describing. I thought I could do that with this.

I could not. It seemed to require a “parent”. For me, this required sitting down and thinking over my own structure and if there was a parent corporation. There was, it just didn’t have a website.

Now it does. It’s lame, but it’s there. And once I set it up that way, everything started working. It seemed to be an almost philosophical approach change for me.

Shrug.

And it has given me all sorts of ideas for that new site. LOL!

@george — thanks for helping! I do get how you figured that stuff out — same way I learned! As for spinning out of control: one bit you may have missed: mine is now working fine. Works like a charm. Especially when I don’t test some of the odd things bloggy found in various documentation. (Grin)

@bloggy — I will say this: I got it working. Lots of people have. So there’s something going on. I’m not at all sure the plugin is screwy. I think the setup is very specific or else it breaks. If that is the definition of screwy…then maybe, but I don’t know any software that doesn’t break when the setup is off.

Some random comments:

Never use wp_ as your table prefix.

LOL. And never list what your real prefix is on a forum. ??

Although, this could be confusing to some people as well. What you are telling people to do is to set up a wildcard domain DNS record such as *.domain.com. That’s fine if all you’ll be doing is setting up sub-domains, meaning 1.domain.com, 2.domain.com, 3.domain.com. There is no need to do this with your DNS server if you are not doing to be using sub-domains but will be using multiple domains.

@bloggy — didn’t you say that you WERE set up with a sub-domain structure? Yes, it is virtual, but still… this point might be something to reconsider.

And with that, I’m actually leaving town and probably won’t be chiming in. Looks like you’re in good and much more knowledgeable hands.

And… mine works. If *I* can get it working, you know *you* can!

I’m completely stumped.

Both times the id number will be the same… 2.

So it sounds like one variation is set up and the other didn’t stick. Did you try deleting the one that didn’t show up in the sites page and adding it again?

Always on WordPress 3, right? Me too. I had a network on 3 that set up so slick…I hadn’t anticipated any problems with 4.

I think that is part of the reason I was a little flippant with the setup initially — “oh, well, I’ll just set it up wrong and move it to the right place later” — and that was what bit me.

I am really stumped as to what is going on with yours now. I know that once I was very particular about how I set it up, it all went together well.

I do know that my server is specifically set up to be good for WordPress 4. So if there was a server setting, I wouldn’t know about that. I have a unique ability to crash servers, so I rely on my hosting company to set mine up.

Seriously. Bought a server once, crashed it within 5 minutes. Had to have an expensive technician come out and format and rebuild the whole thing. It took him ours, muttering, “HOW did you do this???” the entire time. Shrug.

I don’t do servers. (grin)