As you’ve probably noticed, Club Troppo has been almost unuseably slow-loading for the last few days. It has also been out of commission completely for substantial periods. Now the comment facility is not working at all. Apparently the latter is not an accident but deliberate sabotage on the part of our webhost, which goes by the ironical name “Dreamhost”. I received an email from dreamhost this morning in the following terms:
I’m writing you about your database “clubtroppo”. It seems to be very busy lately and today was causing severe load problems on the triumph mysql server. I’ve had to disable the table wp_comments until the issue can be resolved. The problem is that the queries on the wp_comments table are taking a longer amount of time now that there are around 50,000 comments in the tables, and with a flood or spike in traffic, the multiple-queries-at-once is causing severe problems. Please double-check that the wp-cache module is configured and working as this will help with loads. If nothing can be improved upon, I’m afraid your database needs are outgrowing what shared hosting can offer and you will need to look into a VPS or dedicated solution:
… (stats follow)
In fact I had already taken steps to find a new host due to Dreamhost’s appalling performance and non-existent service since I signed up with them a few months ago. We will be moving over to a new Virtual Private Server host over the next week or two. In the meantime, Troppo page load times are likely to remain slow, and the comment facility might or might not be restored. If you’re thinking about changing webhosts, steer very clear of Dreamhost. They’re without question the worst I’ve ever struck in 6 years of using webhosting services.
Additional by Jacques: All very embarassing for yours truly as I was the one who recommended Dreamhost in the first place. However Club Troppo has grown much faster than I or anyone expected. As Ken says we will be moving to our own Virtual Private Server, which should drastically improve the site’s responsiveness. I’ve literally just got off the plane but I can see I need to attend to the move immediately. I’ll be starting now so don’t be surprised if Troppo goes up and down like a yoyo in the next few hours.
Update by Jacques: Sorry, I’m not really in a condition conducive to cleverwork – desperately tired, jetlagged and hungover. I think I’ve managed to reverse Dreamhost’s temporary disabling of comments, but don’t be surprised if they reverse the reversal at some point. I’ll get back onto the Big Move as soon as I can.
c’mon.that’s the australian way on a monday. and judging from most websites the way most webmonkeys operate.
Serves you Troppodillians right for being among the 85% of Dreamhost customers who return only 15% of their revenue!
And, while we wait with bated breath to see how long it will be after stoushing resumes in the comments at Troppo before the Dreamhost guys toss the other clog into the works, one question hangs over our heads – what’s to become of Missing Link?
Forget I asked that – with a web-host of such pre-eminent silliness to deal with, it’s really only a minor matter.
I can’t see any reason ML should be affected.
I’m on deck but no time to write or co-ordinate this edition of Missing Link. I gather that Helen Dale is co-ordinating/editing this edition, and has postponed publication until today for a number of reasons. I imagine it will appear later today.
Like Nicholas, I don’t see any reason why the problems with Dreamhost should prevent Missing Link being published. They disabled comments not publication of primary posts, and the email plugin that sends out Missing Link to subscribers is unrelated to the comments facility/database AFAIK.
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Ken, having had similar problems with DreamHost I commiserate. They really are the pits. Hope it all works out. I notice you have other plans, but if you happen to still be looking for a host, happy to put you touch with mine, which is sort of a subhosting set-up that is working out well. Drop me a line if it’s of interest.
That’s funny. I followed your very good suggestions about running WordPress efficiently over here:
And you’re right again. Dreamhost should rename themselves Nightmarehost.
Disabling accounts, servers down, broken emails, overbilling. You name it, they’ve done it in the past year. We still use them for testing but that will soon be at an end too.