CPU and memory 100% usage – admin-ajax.php

HI!
We are experiencing problems with CPU usage and memory, constantly at 100% usage, also there are a lot of /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php calls. Hosting support told us it could be a problem with the theme, and after a search in the forum we notice other users are experiencing this issue too.

Is there any fix to this?
Thanks in advance.

Good day,

I am currently experiencing the same issues described above. My website is running on a dedicated cloud environment (4 vCPU and 8GB RAM). On average with even up to 400 to 800 concurrent visitors, I only use about 12% to 55% CPU.

However, multiple times a day I get 100% CPU usage to the point where my site either crawls to a halt or is not accessible at all. During the 100% CPU usage times, I only have about 50 to 100 visitors. I’ve been monitoring this for weeks and after checking my logs over those weeks, the thing that keeps standing out is I have extremely high calls here: “/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?td_theme_name=Newspaper&v=11.4”.

These calls are killing my DB.

I’m using CloudFlare, I’ve confirmed that I am not being attacked, and it is not a bot issue.

Can I also get some assistance with this please?

Regards,

Raf

• This reply was modified 4 years by Rafael.

Forgot to mention that there are over 20,000 admin-ajax calls during those times.

Also forgot to give the website: https://stluciatimes.com

Hey,

Thanks for your response. I’ve read all the articles I could find on these forums about the admin-ajax issue including the one you’ve mentioned above. I’ve also followed all the guides provided in that article and other articles as well.

As mentioned above, my site works perfectly fine 90% of the time even under very high visitor load.

However, the issue happens on average about 10% of the day when nothing is happening on the site and I have only a handful of visitors.

I can completely understand if the issue happens all the time because I haven’t optimized anything. I can slo understand if the issue happens when my site is under heavy load. But for the issue to happen only a few times during a typical day with not a lot of traffic suggests to me that it may be a bigger issue than just optimization.

If optimization or anything else mentioned in your link/article above was the issue, the site would slow down every time I have high traffic. That isn’t the case. As mentioned before, even under heavy traffic, the site performs very well with only about 55% CPU usage with about 800 concurrent visitors.

Hope that makes logical sense. There must be something else causing that issue.

Please advise. I appreciate your feedback. Thanks!

Kind regards,

Raf

• This reply was modified 4 years by Rafael.

Thanks so much. Appreciated!

Good day,

Just following up on this request. It’s been almost 2 days without an update.

Is there anything that can be shared with me?

Regards,

Raf

Good day again,

I’ve noticed something new happening when I have those admin-ajax related CPU spikes…

I have a custom post template that’s selected for all posts in your theme dashboard. However, when the server CPU spikes, the selected custom post template in the dashboard reverts to the default template that the theme comes with.

Please advise.

Raf

We have also experienced similar issues with random CPU spikes. Thank you for following up on this.

Thanks @columbusunderground.

Dear TagDiv: The custom post template resetting is continuing and we’re losing lots of money due to this. Our custom post template contains all of our ads. When it automatically resets to your default template, all the ads disappear until one of our staff notices. Then we have to manually select and save our custom template.

We don’t have someone sitting at a computer every second refreshing the page to see if the templates change, so we’re losing many hours of revenue per day.

Dear @Bettina,

Is there any update you can give me regarding this?

I’ve been searching through your forums and came across someone else who had this issue last year.

Anyway, I would be grateful for an update especially since I opened this thread 5 days ago and this issue is causing us to lose revenue every single day.

Raf

Good day,

So we’re on day 8 without a resolution. It’s been 2 days without an update. This also makes 4 days since we’ve been experiencing revenue loss.

I’m not upset. I’m just very disappointed in the level of customer support that I’m receiving. Especially with a customer who is losing money, I would expect that I shouldn’t have to be the one asking if there’s any update. It’s complete radio silence until I request an update.

This honestly doesn’t make for great customer service.

The sad thing is that sooner or later I’m going to have to stop using your theme and move on to another since we can’t continue operating as a business like this.

Put yourself in my position. Not hearing anything until you ask. How would you feel? What would you think?

Is there anything new? And if not, do you think it would be appreciated if someone could simply update me every so often so at least I know something is going on?

Not knowing is the worst thing…I’m just twiddling my thumbs wondering what (if anything) is going on.

Again, I’m not upset. I’m just disappointed with the customer service right now (and I’m losing money every single day this continues).

Thanks for the update. That’s all I’m asking for in the meantime.

I mentioned 2 issues that I think are related.

So I just want to know…is the fix for:

1) the high “wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?td_theme_name=Newspaper&v=11.4” calls?

2) My custom post template resetting to the theme default?

3) Both?

Please advise.

Regards,

Rafa

Good morning @Bettina,

I had a few questions:

1) I wanted to know if there’s anything I can do (temporary fix) in the meantime that could help my issue while your developers work on a solution?

2) As mentioned before we’re losing revenue due to these issues. I’m thinking of rebuilding the site from scratch and migrating all my content over to the new site to see if that provides a temporary fix. However, I can’t register the theme on the test site because the current site is still operational.

Is there any way I can get a TEST/TEMPORARY registration code so that I can rebuild the site while the old one is still running? Then when I point my domain name to the rebuilt site, I’ll delete the old one after.

Please put yourself in my situation and understand my frustration right now.

Please advise.

Raf

• This reply was modified 4 years by Rafael.

Hi @Bettina,

On February 24, I said the following:

“Thanks for your response. I’ve read all the articles I could find on these forums about the admin-ajax issue including the one you’ve mentioned above. I’ve also followed all the guides provided in that article and other articles as well.”

So I’ve also already read and tried everything listed in the article you just sent me.

Regarding my other question I asked previously:

2) I’m thinking of rebuilding the site from scratch and migrating all my content over to the new site to see if that provides a temporary fix. However, I can’t register the theme on the test site because the current site is still operational.

Is there any way I can get a TEST/TEMPORARY registration code so that I can rebuild the site while the old one is still running? Then when I point my domain name to the rebuilt site, I’ll delete the old one after.

Please advise.

Hi,

I can’t unregister my current site because it’s live and I use custom cloud templates. If I unregister, won’t that affect my cloud templates?

I have 2 questions:

1) Has there been any update to the fix your developers are working on?

– My custom post template is still resetting.
– My site is still using 100% CPU at random times.
– I’m still losing revenue.

2) Can someone log into my site to see if there’s something they can do to help me?

I’ve noticed that you’ve offered to log into websites to take a look at much simpler issues.

• This reply was modified 4 years by Rafael.