Topic: Minimize TP load?

[David]

We have several TP installations on same server, and it seems we've reached the maximum capacity as TP creates a huge amount of files on our server and other scale problems.

Here are some snippets from host support:

" I'm working on clearing out a few large cache directories (1 million+ files), as well as putting a proxying/caching server in front of a few of your high-traffic sites. We'll get things back up as quickly as we can, but unfortunately *sitename.com* is receiving more traffic than *server* can currently handle."

" We've alleviated a lot of the disk problems on *server*, now we're seeing a great deal of load from your TradePulse script performing DNS queries for every single hit. This is causing Apache processes to back up and crashing the system."

"The problems are two-fold though.  The first is memory consumption by Apache due to the size the tradepulse scripts grow to.  The second are the huge amount of "cache" files tradepulse is creating on disk - thus pegging disk I/O right now."

I wanted to know if it is possible to limit or minimize the cache creating, and also know what can be done about the DNS queries? Are there any TP settings we can tweak?
We want to continue using TP as it's a great program for our needs, so hopefully we can come up with a solution.

Thank you!

[ip0li]

forwarded to kildoozer he will answer in cpl days since he is on family trip ATM.

[Kildoozer]

Hi. Something definitely goes wrong on your server, I have to check.
Please provide me TP admin and ftp access to kildoozer @ gmail and I will let you know.
Thank you.

[oil]

would be interested on how things where solved, although i dont have serious problems yet i realized that accessing TP and doing simple task like deleting often takes like 30 seconds

[ip0li]

oil shoot me email info@scriptpulse.com with access info I will show kildoozer your issues to see if he can tweak it. For sure it must be error since I have 30tp installs on 1 box and they are fast(I can show ya if you want). Cheers

[David]

This wasn't really resolved, and we're waiting on Killdozer to look at things again.

This is what our host writes about the
----------------------------------------
 I'm really not sure what the cache directory is for, but it's the cause of a great deal of disk activity which is why I asked if it's safe to have a shared cache directory (a question you need to ask the TradePulse people). It does seem like TradePulse is meant to have one install per server, not per domain, which may be part of the problem here. Unfortunately we do not have much experience with the software and it's encoded which blocks most of our attempts to examine it.
----------------------------------------

The cache directory we're talking about is:
/tp/data/logs/cache

We have around 30-40 tradepulse installs on one server, and over 100 on another (not using thumb grabbing, just text toplists on the 100+ one)

Our hosts also writes this:
----------------------------------------
Besides the disk IO issues it seems that TradePulse is occasionally making HTTP requests to a third party server that is fairly slow.
 While doing this, the script consumes 99% CPU and causes other processes to back up causing the overload condition. I've located an auto-update setting in TradePulse which I have disabled, I have not yet been able to determine if this was the cause of the spikes.
----------------------------------------

I'm not sure but I'm thinking this might be the thumb grabber?

[David]

I would also like to add, that resolving support issues through this forum instead of over icq would probably greatly enhance the functionality of this forum.

Whenever I have an issue with a TP installation, and want to see if other have experienced something similar, the support threads often end with "please icq killdoozer" without any clue as to what fixed the problem.

By providing the solutions to these problems you could probably decrease the number of support threads as well.

Just my 2 cents.

[Bryan]

By providing the solutions to these problems you could probably decrease the number of support threads as well.

Just my 2 cents.

+1

[ip0li]

Ok, I will try to push him to answer here, thnx for suggestion we really appreciate it!

I would also like to add, that resolving support issues through this forum instead of over icq would probably greatly enhance the functionality of this forum.

Whenever I have an issue with a TP installation, and want to see if other have experienced something similar, the support threads often end with "please icq killdoozer" without any clue as to what fixed the problem.

By providing the solutions to these problems you could probably decrease the number of support threads as well.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kildoozer]

I don't know with whom I spoken over ICQ just yesterday, but I've answered HOW to Minimize TP load.
If you put your tp/data/stats folder at RAM disc, your TP load (disk load I mean) will reduse A LOT.

[David]

Hi Killdozer,

1.
From our host it doesn't seem like it was them you talked with, but I'm afraid they were not impressed with the solution you mentioned first:
"The solution presented to put everything into a ramdisk is a very poor solution -- your stats/data would be completely lost any time the server restarted and it would take a great deal of RAM for all of the sites you are running TradePulse on"

As I stated before we run it on a lot of sites on this server with Tradepulse installed on each one, probaly around 80-90, this is maybe just too many for a single server?

2.
We have a problem with some stats showing the exact number for both last 60 minuttes traffic, and last 24 hours.
I see on this sites the cache directories in domain.com/htdocs/tp/data/logs/ is gone.
Is this something Tradepulse could have done, and do you think that is the reason for the stats not being correct?

What would you think is the solution to get the stats up and running again, reinstall?

Thanks!

[ip0li]

I just spoken with my tech(servers), he told me that sO much installs is simply too much for 1 box except if it's MONSTER BOX so you should do one of the following:
1) Get STRONG QUAD CORE CPU, SAS DISKS AND 8Gb+ ram
2) Distribute sites over multiple cheaper servers

...also system overload protection in trade pulse may help you a lot!

[oil]

so how much TPs is too much per server? i am curios

[ip0li]

Totally depends on server config, hardware and size of the sites. We have clients with over 50 tp's per box with NPS at all.

[oil]

well i have 50 and so far no problem, so was wondering how much david had when there was a issue