I’m back! My exile is over.
The suspension on this site was lifted a few minutes ago. I want to thank everybody who offered their support and help over the past 24 hours.
I’m now off to track down a new webhost.
While the suspension was in place I posted a couple of entires on a temporary blog at WordPress.com. I’m going to copy and paste the text of those entries below so that folks can see what was going on.
You can see the original posts at paulof.wordpress.com.
Post Number 1:
I’ve been suspended…
I’m severely pissed off right now because my web host, One.com has suspended my account for OFlaherty.dk. That means that all you can see when you visit my blog is a white page with the words: “This site has been suspended”.
So why have One.com suspended my account.
Apparently at 12:05 today my blog generated a heavy load on their servers.
the php code used generate a heavy load on our servers
Now, lets get something straight, I only run Wordpress of OFlaherty.dk. I’ve got one installation for my blog, and one for Blog Resource. The root of the domain contains just a few pages of bog standard HTML.
Now, according to one.com the problem was being caused by my blog (pauloflaherty.com) but they couldn’t tell me what, or why, or how, or even hint at what “script” might be causing the problem.
I’ve had the OFlaherty.dk domain since June of 2004 and I have always had multiple WordPress installations in multiple sub domains. At one point I had 4 WordPress installations running concurrently without problems. About 6 months ago I reduced that to just two installations.
Now, I can understand One.com wanting to prevent other users on their server from being affected by my site using excessive resources, but what bugs me is that I haven’t changed the code of my site in a couple of weeks.
According to them the problem started at 12:05 today. All that happened at 12:05 was that I posted a blog post and then went in and moderated my comment spam. There was 101 pieces of spam in the moderation queue and 201 in Akismet waiting to be checked for false positives.
I deleted the 101 in the queue and then checked Akismet for false positives. Once that was done I hit the “delete all” button and my site stopped responding. I refreshed the page, it loaded but none of the spam was gone. I hit the delete button again, got a blank white page.
I tried to go into /wp-admin/ and got a white page with the suspended notice.
It’s a little too coincidental that the server load coincided with the only activity I performed on the site today, so I can only surmise that the deletion of a large number of spam comments from the database was too much for the server to handle at once.
But it was only 201 comments. That seems a very low number to me as just 2 days ago I deleted in excess of 4000 spam comments in one go.
Still my reasoning that it was something to do with Akismet (not necessarily directly but interacting with the server to delete a large number of comments) was supported after opening up my PHPMyAdmin panel.
I have 1301 comments on my blog. When I opened phpmyadmin I could see that the comments table was taking up 9.9 MB. I optimized the database (which I do regularly) and it quickly returned to a more believable 821 KB.
What’s bugging me here is One.com’s dealing with the issue. I received an email almost the same instant that the “site suspended” page appeared. It was an automatic response so told me nothing useful except that I should contact One.com.
I logged into my control panel and accessed their “live support” which is just java chat between you and an operator.
The first operator was NOT helpful. He essentially just told me that it was my fault and I’ve got to fix it. He wouldn’t / couldn’t give me any information about what “script” was causing the server load.
According to him I should just fix it, with nothing but FTP access to my site and direct my questions to the WordPress support forums (I have been checking the existing questions in the forums, but to no avail. I’ve also posted a question here.)
The second operator I spoke with at least informed me when the server load occurred which allowed me to match up my activities to the time.
So I disabled Akismet via FTP, and asked for HTTP access to my domain to be enabled. Apparently they won’t do that!
The operator told me that I had to email One.com support, explain the whole lot and await a reply form them. Unfortunately , my experience is that support emails can take up to 24 hours to be replied to.
Why can’t the operators just enable http access? I was told it was for security reasons! That can’t be right. They’ll enable FTP access for me but not HTTP access?
I’d hate to be a novice user in this situation. I’d hate to be unable or afraid to FTP in and delete files from my server.
What I really hate is the “This site has been suspended” notice. It makes things sound as if I’ve done something wrong, such as not pay my bill or violating the terms of service.
Don’t get me wrong here, I understand that One.com has to protect other sites hosted on that server, but I do think that considering I pay for 5 web hotels on their service they could be a little more helpful.
Anyway, below is a copy of the 3 conversations I have had with One.com support operators as well as an email I sent to them afterwards. I didn’t get nasty with them because I want to get the issue resolved.
Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with ‘Enzo’
Enzo: Thank you for using One.com Interactive Online Support. My name is Enzo. How may I assist you?
you: Hi.. I’m getting a “This site has been suspended” on OFlaherty.dk Why?
Enzo: yes
Enzo: i’ll check this out
Enzo: you’re the manager of this website ?
you: Yep. It’s mine
Enzo: the php code used generate a heavy load on our servers
Enzo: you have to fix it
Enzo: can you ?
you: The php code hasn’t changed.. It’s just standard wordPRess
Enzo: one minute
Enzo: we cannot determine which script causes the load, you need to identify and determine that at your end…
Enzo: Wordpress’s working fine on our servers
you: All I have running is 2 versions of WordPress and a couple of html pages..
you: About 6 months ago I used to have 4 versions of wordpress and there was no problem
Enzo: we will active your FTP account so you can fix the issue
Enzo: Will you ?
you: I will try…
you: But if you guys could give me some sort of clue as to what I’m looking for?
Enzo: one minute
Enzo: it’s in your side
Enzo: try the Wordpress Forum, a plenty of help
Enzo: The FTP is ACtif now
Enzo: you can enter it
Enzo: but
Enzo: .
Enzo: the Http access is still blocked, until this issue is fixed
you: Can you tell if it’s resource.oflaherty.dk or pauloflaherty.com is causing the problem
Enzo: needs to contact someone who knows programming to help you fix it
Enzo: the blog
Enzo: get back to us once its done
Enzo: we will Unsuspend your http access
Enzo: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: Not right now..
Enzo: Please feel free to contact us again for any further assistance. Good Bye and have a nice time : -)
12:35
Kaye: Thank you for using One.com 24/7 Interactive Online Support. My name is Kaye. How may I assist you?
you: Hi Kaye.. I was just talking with another operator because OFlaherty.dk was suspended due to excessive server load. Could you tell me when this excessive server load began?
Kaye: just today 7/10/07 12:05 PM
you: Thank you…
Kaye: You are welcome
Kaye: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: Not right now..
Kaye: Alright
Kaye: Have a nice time
12:45
Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with ‘Enzo’
Enzo: hi
you: Hi.. I believe I’ve located the problem with OFlaherty.dk and have disabled the script in question
Enzo: so it’s ok
Enzo: a script you added
you: I believe so, the problem started at 12:05 pm which is when I was moderating spam
Enzo: ok, one minute
Enzo: Please send a mail to: support@dk.one.com Team, an explain them the issue
Enzo: they will be able to finelize this operation
Enzo: and maybe addvise more
Enzo: .
Enzo: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: So you can’t reenable my account?
Enzo: your http access will return aftrer
Enzo: for us now, the FTP
Enzo: after consulting support@dk.one.com all will be ok
Enzo: it’s for security reasons also
Enzo: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: no thanks
Enzo: Please feel free to contact us again for any further assistance. Good Bye and have a nice time : -)
Hi,
My site www.oflaherty.dk was suspended today after it apparently started using to many CPU resources.
I contacted your support who told me that the “php code used generate a heavy load on our servers”.
Other than that he was not particularly helpful telling me that One.com is unable to tell which script was causing an increase in load and expecting me to fix the problem with no clue as to what as going on except that it was on “my side”. His only suggestion was to contact WordPress support (I run wordpress on OFlaherty.dk).
Contacting them is kind of pointless if all you can say is “My site is generating excessive server load but I don’t know why”.
Anyway, I spoke to another operator, Kaye, and she was quite helpful in telling me that the excessive load started at 12:05pm.
12:05 pm coincided with me moderating spam on the site and I believe the load may have been caused by Akismet (Spam moderation plugin used in WordPress) as it communicated with the Akismet servers. The spam moderation was the only action performed by me on the site today besides create a blog post earlier.
I have disabled the plugin and request that you re-enable http access to my account.
Paul
Again, I’d hate to be a novice in these situations. I know a lot of people who had friends set up their blogs on their web hosts and have no idea what to do if there is a problem
Now I just have to wait to see what One.com replies back.
Any comments would be helpful, especially if anybody has experience of problems related to the wp_comments table and Akismet.
Hopefully my next post will be from my usual location….
Post Number 2:
Update on my suspension. Thanks to all for support
Well, I’m still suspended by One.com. I did however, receive this email last night at 18:18 pm after I had left for Vordingborg.
Hello Paul,
Thank you for writing.
We have forward your request to the concern department to activate your domain.
We will let you know as soon as possible.
Best Regards
SUPPORT
So no joy there then! What’s amazing here is that I received an an automatically generated email at 1:02PM acknowledging receipt of the email I sent them yesterday.
A little simple math shows that it took the staff at One.com 5 hours and 16 minutes to inform me that the email would be forwarded elsewhere.
It’s 11:34 in the morning as I write this post. Their concern department has had that email for over 17 hours now. All I want is my HTTP access enabled. How hard is that?
Anyway, enough ranting.
I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive so far, offering me advice, spreading the word and even offering to host my site.
In no particular order thanks go out to:
Rex Dixon of Lending Club and Technically Speaking
JohnC of Homelessinjax.com
Steven Hodson of Winextra
Scot Duke of Innovative Business Golf Solutions.
Finding a webhost with decent a decent support department is difficult, as any experiences you read about are generally, like yours, when things have been less than ideal.
I’ve had wildly varying experiences, however the one time I was in a similar situation (one of my sites had been compromised as had a spammer-script installed on it) the host at the time (1and1.co.uk) sent me an email alerting me to the exceptional load being produced by a script on the site, and the email included the filename of the scripts involved (which of course, turned out to be the spam-generator scripts) – no doubt in your situation something similar would have helped you too.
They then “disabled” the offending script (I think by removing it’s execute permissions) and asked me to investigate. Of course, I didn’t need to re-enable the script!
I hope you do find a decent webhost with a good support dept.
Even though I did have a similar experience with excessive server usage and being regulated to a non-production server until the problem was solved at least I still had access to everything to do with all my sites.
along with that I did recieve prompt replies and help – as much as they could give considering it was a php script causing the problem they said – turns out upgrading to 2.2.1 of Wordpress fixed the problem.
So during your hunt I would suggest taking a look at Lunarpages – if you have any questions about them just email me and I’ll do the best to answer.
and it’s good to have you back
Thanks Steven I’ll check them out.
Try the one I use for Nuclear Inbox LLC. Cheap, and pretty easy to use.
Rex
Enzo sounded a bit sarcastic saying “have a nice time!” after the first support chat!
I despise support chats…all they do is show how incompetent the business you’re dealing with is.
LOL I can’t disagree with you there Andy
Similar experiences with Dotster here. I have every intention of pulling them up on their service level guarantee as soon as I move my sites elsewhere and aggressively chasing a refund.
Over 3 days we were down for upwards of 9 hours over 3 separate episodes. After finally exploding at them after firstly trying to reach them via online chat, email, and even phoning another country directly, I was told in no uncertain terms that 24 hours downtime is entirely acceptable in this industry.
The fact that my site was down due to their actions, and the fact that I was unable to even do anything about it due to their maintenance of the software I use to control my VPS, and the fact that I pay for premium services with these guys did not even come into it. Do not go anywhere near Dotster.
I buy my domain names there and host DNS etc, but hosting is something these guys just don’t get.
Anyway, enough ranting. I’ve been trialling the MediaTemple grid service, and am very impressed with what I have seen so far. I have no intention of letting traffic spikes force a break in service again, and have this time gone with someone who specifically caters for it with automatic scaling and load balancing.
Hope it all works out man. I hate to see someone else going through this.
[...] If webhosts are going to offer hosting for Wordpress blogs, they also should invest resources in helping to diagnose problems which can happen from a rogue plugin, but can also be caused by a spam attack or something as simple as deleting a few spam comments from your database as recently happened to Paul. Paul was using One.com for his hosting, and he is very technical, and isolated the fact that One.com shut down his hosting because he deleted some comments from his database that had been caught by Akismet. [...]
Hey Paul I was just reading Andy Beards blog and saw that you had a similar problem to what I went through. Mine started on June 26th with Lunarpages and ended with them suspending my site on July 21st – at least they gave me time to try to find the problem but they were no more helpful that your host was.
They tried to force me to move to VPS – after slow support replies I finally relented and told them they could move my sites to vps on a monthly account as I knew my sites didn’t require VPS just yet.
I only agreed so that I could get my sites back on line and keep working to resolve the problem that they’d been absolutely no help in identifying.
Unfortunately the support team decided to tried to lock me into a two year VPS account! They billed my credit card $642 bucks! This was also after they told me that there would be a $75 an hour charge to move my sites from the normal shared hosting C-panel account to VPS. When they told me of the $75 fee I said for them to stop everything they were doing and to send me more information, but that’s when they went ahead and changed my account from shared to VPS and billed me $642.
The support team at Lunarpages told me that they couldn’t tell me what time my site started acting up. Nor could they tell me which site. You’d think that they could at least tell you which domain had the problem??? I’ve got 10 domains on my account – 11 WP installations, 1 CMS run by Joomla and one very large HTML based site. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint what might possibly be one poorly written add on when you have that many files and domains to go through. Grrrr!
I’ve sinced moved to HostGator and I’ve had no problems in this first week.
Oh all my sites were fairly up to date at the time that my problems started but I went through everything and made sure I had the latest updates on all my plugins, got rid of ones that weren’t essential and went over everything to make sure that there wasn’t any files on my account that I hadn’t placed there.
If you really think Akismet was your problem – well deleting a large amount of spam that Akismet had caught, you might want to also add the Bad Behavior plugin to your site. It hides your site from most spam bots. Prior to beginning to use Bad Behavior in February I was getting as much as 400 to 500 spam comments (caught by akismet for the most part) on my four busiest blogs, and lesser amounts on my slower blogs. Since installing bad behavior I average perhaps 10 akismet spam per day on the busy blogs and sometimes only 1 on the slower blogs. Huge change and it’s much easier to see real comments that have accidentally been captured by Akismet too!
Thanks Richard, Tricia and everybody for sharing your experiences with me.
@Tricia .. Yeah I’m sure it was Akismet, or at the least Akismet which triggered it, possibly by timing out when the spams were being erased.
Anyway, thanks for your “Bad Behaviour” suggestion. Andy mentioned it to me before but I never got around to looking at it. I’ll have to revisit it now
[...] of 2000+ can put some heavier than usual load on CPU resources. I guess this can be compared to deleting hundreds of spam comments in Akismet plugin. But today the website I was working on went through an ultimate test of endurance. I made few [...]
[...] Finding great webhosting has always been an issue for me and you may remember some of the major issues I had with One.com which resulted in my entire site being down for more than a mere few [...]