server problems site down

hi guys,
I been having problems with one of my sites, site gives errors all the time “error database connection” and sometimes “503 errors” when i go to server I see tons of php processes, when i kill them they come back. I uninstalled visual composer and put an older version, helped a bit but there is still same problem.

http://pasteboard.co/1urKqhOh.png
http://pasteboard.co/

I had to upgrade to level 3 goddady and site barely functions, this is newspaper 6 but problem where before upgrade as well.

I wrote to wpbackery and they say this:

Hi salomon,

The issue is because there is an inbuilt version of Visual Composer (or the related code) present in your theme which is overriding the standalone plugin version and hence causing the issue. You will have to get rid of it. I would advise you to do so with the help of theme author, otherwise you might loose the extra elements added by him. Once this is done, you can install the standalone plugin and it will work fine. Kindly check.

Thank you,

Please help!

Did you increase the default memory in your wp-config.php file ?

You MUST change that from the default 40MB to at least 96MB, pref. 128MB and ideally 256MB to use Visual Composer.

hi chris,
I dont see a place for memory there….. 🙁 is this normal?

Hi,

I don’t think it’s a good idea to go around posting the password of you database and stuff 😀

Chris S was saying to increase WP memory. Paste the following line in you wp-config.php file:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');

Paste it in between this two lines
define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Thanks bro, that was lame of me (still learning this stuff) I changed the password already 🙂 and added the line but i don’t think this is a real solution. 1.6gb of memory usage is not normal…I would like to know what tagdiv support can support to this 🙂 for now visual composer is disabled and site is live but a mess….

Be sure to regenerate your hash keys also!

Visual Composer is a memory hog; no doubt about it.

With Newsmag the last version of VC crashed our server (processes went from .06 to 52, with 8 XEON processors and 32GB ECC RAM); we had to use the beta “SHIM” workaround that Radu came up with.

Basic solutions are:
a) make sure you have at least 128MB allocated for php, and have that in the wp-config.php
b) limit number of queries (e.g., have a 10 most recent list in sidebars, not five queries of latest 2 items from 5 categories); consider disabling the “related posts” element; don’t use mega-menu
c) if you have a LOT of posts added daily, image processing is an ‘expensive’ use of CPU, so consider pre-planning your modules to limit number of image thumbs being built per story, ensure you have a high compression level set and pre-optimize the heck out of what you upload – don’t upload a 767kb file when it could be 45kb at outset for example
d) consider turning off the stupid comment counters (ahem); who cares how many comments a story has, really? That’s a huge amount of queries going on all over the place.
e) optimize the heck out of your site (some of my suggestions are in the stick for site optimization, including adding the memory item in wp-config.php and removing all the comments in wp-config.php — all that crap in there getting loaded over and over)

Stuff like that can set a good baseline to watch the system and see if it chokes. In other words start SIMPLE as possible with everything off, then build up to meet your system capability — if it just dies no matter what, go back to V4; and wait for version of SHIM beta from Radu which works with NP6 (basically this lets you have a homepage with most of the neato modules, but without some of the more dramatic options of VC). I’m running the shim beta with Newsmag on 3 sites now, and zero issues.

Not sure any of that helps … but food for thought …

hi there, thanks! ehat is ” beta “SHIM” workaround that Radu came up with.” how can i do that?

Apologies to all for not including links in my recent posts; was doing that from my iPad and not desktop. I “should” have included link to the optimization post with the memory config info and also link to the shim discussion. Doh. Sorry about that. Sometimes I try to be helpful but only go 80% of the distance. 🙂

Thanks Emil and Chris! I installed the shim thing and increased php memory. I will be checking to see what happens the following days. Now visual composer should be left deactivated? is there a more permanent solution? becuse i may want to add new pages with vc….:(

Yes, with SHIM at work you only need visual composer activated to create new pages. Activate it to create new pages. If you need to create/edit pages all the constantly, this is a bummer unless you can manually edit the shortcodes. But I believe that usually, one does not need to be regulary editing/creating pages, at least I don’t. Maybe at the beginning of making a website, but afterwards you rarely create/edit pages.

Cheers!

I think the shim will automatically turn “off” Visual Composer (in theory).
What I do is leave the “shim beta” turned ON; then leave VC OFF; then turn VC on if I need to make any edits to home page (e.g., this weekend I’m removing the “load more” to limit ajax calls; and simply have link “read more” that goes to the “index” for that topic; which I already did on the sidebars with simple text link — this is the kind of micro-optimizations I’m doing now as time permits…).

For those who care, Radu & Co. have in mind to do a sideways devtrack to possibly remove Visual Composer entirely from future version (E.g., Newspaper 7), but that doesn’t help “right now” as you already know.

not all elements work with this plug sadly, I am wondering if I am better of just transfer the site to a compatible server. you guys have any idea witch kind of server will not react like this? site is loading now better finally…. but i will have to modify some pages as for instance titles are not working….

Well .. no idea. Some folks have zero issues with the latest versions of VC.

IN our case it killed our 32GB 8-core XEON dedicated server. Which is pretty wild.

We’re running Apache, CentOS with Plesk/Parallels.

Somebody with “zero trouble” will need to chime in on this one with their server specs.

I’m not having any issues with my VC plus i only use it to build my front page with the blocks,i don’t use it for any thing else because it just going put more stress on my server,all the nice features that comes with V6 is nice to have but if you don’t have a good host are server all you going do is make headaches for your self…

I’ve notice that any thing running ajax make your site go heywire that’s why i turn every thing off my site that use ajax also i’ve notice that loading animation of images was slowing my site down as well and i stop using,since i make things simple on my site it run fast and i also have good scores from pagespeed etc..

I don’t use any RELATED ARTICLEs,MORE ARTICLES FLY OUT,SHOW POST VIEWS,SHOW COMMENT COUNT,LOAD MORE,LOADING ANIMATION OF IMAGES,INFINITE LOAD…ALL THESE THINGS USE A LOT OF RESOURCES AND MAKE YOUR SITE RUN VERY SLOW ALSO PUT A LOT OF STRESS ON YOUR SERVER..

Ok guys, Thanks a lot! I just wanted to let you know how I solved this for good.

I was using a C-Panel level 3 Godady hosting

I migrated to a WordPress dedicated godaddy account.

It seems setting are optimal for WordPress there and it solved the issue completely.

Migration was very easy to do. So that is the way you solve it if you are using godady

Hope it helps!

Thanks for all the support!