My Moodle is very slow or not responding. Any other website is fine and I tried several other computers and browsers. The problem appears to be the server where the CPU useage is hitting the limit. The site is hosted at AussieHQ and they say that the problem is not the server, but Moodle. I am still using 1.9 and had no problems in the past. Could Moodle be the problem? Would anyone has a suggestion?
What changed? Don't say nothing - something did?
Thanks Howard,
I am uploading more content approximately 100 Meg, text and several small JPEG, but this should not be a problem. Other than that nothing changed on my end. The hosting provider says that Moodle is the problem and that I would have to upgrade to Moodle 2. This does not make sense to me.
"Although your website may have been working fine in the past, it has now
started to hit the CPU limit which is why sometimes the site doesn't
correctly load for you. Jarrod did increase the CPU limit for your
account but your site is still hitting this limit so you will need to
optimise the website code which can be done by upgrading the installation"
If Moodle is the problem and an upgrade to Moodle 2 fixes the problem, I am happy to do that, but I am not convinced, hence my question to the forum
You don't say what version of 1.9. You should certainly be using the latest version if you want to stick with 1.9. However, all else being equal, upgrading to 2 is likely to make the problem worse.
However, we are guessing as we don't understand what the problem is. Once again, that brings me back to what was different when it worked? Has the number of users increased? Has the type of activities changed? Has your host upgraded anything?
You will need to tell us the full spec of your site (versions of Moodle, PHP, Web server, Database etc.. Memory available, processor configuration etc.) as well please
Thank you so much Howard,
I will try to find all the information.
In the meantime, it is Moodle 1.9.5 (Build:20090624)
In the Moodle server environment server check all the boxes are ok.
The problem is when I try to upload content, other than that it appears to be ok.
There are not many users, perhaps the most 10 at anyone time and almost no one while I am working on it.
I have not uploaded or modified content in a while, so it is difficult to say when it started.
The host says that nothing has been changed since a Cloud Linux update about 2 years ago.
AussieHQ provided the following changes to my site which appear to be automatic updates.
Wed Jan 4 13:07:03 2012 ./lms/theme/auto_acad Wed Jan 4 13:07:04 2012 ./lms/theme/auto_acad/favicon.ico Wed Jan 18 13:53:18 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin Sun Feb 19 07:23:02 2012 ./lms2/blocks Sun Feb 19 07:23:04 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/config_instance.html Sun Feb 19 07:23:04 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/README.txt Sun Feb 19 07:23:05 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:05 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/COPYING.txt Sun Feb 19 07:23:05 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/settingslib.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:05 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/settings.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:05 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/styles.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:07 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/db Sun Feb 19 07:23:07 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/icons Sun Feb 19 07:23:08 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/db/course_menu_migrate.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:08 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/icons/viewall.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:08 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/plugin Sun Feb 19 07:23:08 2012 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./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/en_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:14 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/fr_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:14 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/zh_tw_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:15 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/en_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:15 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/fr_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:15 2012 ./lms2/blocks/yui_menu/lang/zh_tw_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:31 2012 ./lms/blocks Sun Feb 19 07:23:33 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/config_instance.html Sun Feb 19 07:23:33 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/README.txt Sun Feb 19 07:23:33 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/settings.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:34 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:34 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/COPYING.txt Sun Feb 19 07:23:34 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/settingslib.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:34 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/styles.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:36 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/db Sun Feb 19 07:23:36 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/db/course_menu_migrate.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:36 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/icons Sun Feb 19 07:23:36 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/icons/viewall.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/calendar.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/gradebook.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/messages.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/mods.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:37 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/participants.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:38 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/plugin/outline.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:39 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/l.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/m.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/mh.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/n.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/p.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/ph.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:40 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/skin/t.gif Sun Feb 19 07:23:41 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu Sun Feb 19 07:23:41 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/en_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/en_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/fr_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/fr_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/zh_tw_utf8 Sun Feb 19 07:23:43 2012 ./lms/blocks/yui_menu/lang/zh_tw_utf8/block_yui_menu.php Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content/uploads Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content/uploads/2011/05 Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/What-the-employers-say-about-the-training-window.wmv Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content/uploads/2012 Sun Mar 11 11:36:36 2012 ./website/wp-content/uploads/2012/03 Tue May 1 01:54:18 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules Tue May 1 01:54:23 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack Tue May 1 01:54:26 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/sharedaddy Tue May 1 01:54:46 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/widgets Tue May 1 01:54:47 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/error_log Tue May 1 01:54:53 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/widgets/error_log Tue May 1 01:54:59 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/sharedaddy/error_log Tue May 1 01:55:05 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/shortcodes Tue May 1 01:55:44 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/shortcodes/error_log Tue May 1 01:55:47 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/error_log Tue May 1 01:56:25 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/after-the-deadline Tue May 1 01:56:25 2012 ./website/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/after-the-deadline/error_log Wed Oct 24 06:15:33 2012 ./lms2/course/format Wed Oct 24 06:15:37 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/ajax_override.js Wed Oct 24 06:15:37 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/ajax.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:37 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/backup_check.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:37 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/backup.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:38 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/backup_execute.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:38 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/backuplib.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:38 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/config.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:39 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/converter.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:39 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/deletesection.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:39 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/editsection.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:39 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/edittitle_form.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:39 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/edittitle.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:40 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/import_form.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:40 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/import_upload.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:41 2012 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06:15:47 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_BackupRestoreBase.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:47 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_CourseScript.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:48 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_Backup.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:48 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_Exceptions.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:49 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_FileSystem.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:49 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/SharingCart_Restore.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:51 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project Wed Oct 24 06:15:51 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/v2uploader Wed Oct 24 06:15:52 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/v2uploader/projectupload.swf Wed Oct 24 06:15:52 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/v2uploader/v2uploader.js Wed Oct 24 06:15:52 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/v2uploader/v2uploader.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:52 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/v2uploader/v2uploader.txt Wed Oct 24 06:15:53 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang Wed Oct 24 06:15:53 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared Wed Oct 24 06:15:54 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/format_project.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8 Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/format_project.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/qtype Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/qtype/SharingCart_qtype_cloze.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/qtype/SharingCart_qtype_match.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:56 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/shared/qtype/SharingCart_qtype_randomsamatch.php Wed Oct 24 06:15:57 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help Wed Oct 24 06:15:59 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project Wed Oct 24 06:15:59 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project/directoryname.html Wed Oct 24 06:15:59 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project/fileupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:15:59 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project/resourceupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:15:59 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project/sectionbackuprestore.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:00 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/en_utf8/help/project/cousefileupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:01 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8 Wed Oct 24 06:16:02 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help Wed Oct 24 06:16:04 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project Wed Oct 24 06:16:04 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project/directoryname.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:04 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project/resourceupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:05 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project/cousefileupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:05 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project/fileupload.html Wed Oct 24 06:16:05 2012 ./lms2/course/format/project/lang/ja_utf8/help/project/sectionbackuprestore.html Sat Apr 27 09:02:50 2013 ./website/wp-includes/error_log Sat Apr 27 09:02:52 2013 ./website/wp-content/plugins/fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin/error_log Mon May 6 05:30:05 2013 ./newMoodle/admin/error_log Mon May 27 00:55:44 2013 ./backup/.ftpquota Mon Jun 24 09:46:29 2013 ./newMoodle/uploaddata/sessions/sess_c7fa7d4e50ee4b407d828aac1625fb08 Mon Jun 24 09:46:33 2013 ./newMoodle/uploaddata/sessions Mon Jun 24 09:46:33 2013 ./newMoodle/uploaddata/sessions/sess_b20e9393942748df0dec5a4533b675f0 Mon Jun 24 10:36:22 2013 ./lms Mon Jun 24 10:39:06 2013 ./website Mon Jun 24 10:39:40 2013 ./website/wp-includes Mon Jun 24 16:00:06 2013 ./newMoodle/uploaddata/cache/languages
"The site is hosted at AussieHQ and they say that the problem is not the server"
To para phrase Mandy Rice Davies, well they would say that wouldn't they.
My hosting company swore several different ways that they had changed nothing until they admitted a teeny teeny upgrade to the version of PHP. And they were a good company who knew what they were doing.
In reply to Hansruedi (Lori) Lorenz
Re: Moodle very slow or not responding
Just received this info:
Details as follows:
Apache: 2.2.24
PHP: 5.2.17
MySQL: 5.0.96
Memory available: 1.5gb RAM for your account - server has 4gb.
CPU available: You are currently allocated 80% of 1 CPU core - server
has 4 CPU cores assigned Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5649 @ 2.53GHz
According to /home/authlowc/public_html/lms/version.php, you are running
Moodle 1.9.5+ (Build: 20090624)
I'll also note that the default CPU limit for accounts is 60% of CPU for
1 core, and 1GB RAM. You'll your current limits are quite generous for
shared hosting.
It's also worth noting that the resources used are from anything within
the account, for example page views to
http://automotive-academy.com/website/ which is a wordpress site and not
related to Moodle at all can contribute to overall resource usage.
So, does that mean you are permitted 60% of 80% of 1 processor core and 1GB of RAM. That's a bit rubbish for running Moodle I suspect. I'm not up to speed on this shared hosting stuff where they limit the processor use but it doesn't strike me as the sort of arrangement you want to be running a production Moodle site on.
One person's generous is another person's miserable
Moodle 1.9 didn't have automatic updates of any kind, so this begs the question why do you have a list of "updates" (are you sure that's what they are) for a version of Moodle from back in 2009? It's normal just to upgrade the whole thing to the newest version (1.9.19 I think, for 1.9).
I'm just noting that you have some non-core plugins and course formats there. I'm unfamiliar with any of them. What are they for? Could adding those be related?
You also seem to have Wordpress. Is that running ok?
Thank you so much Howard
I am doing almost nothing in WorldPress. But now that you are asking, I think I had similar issues, but thought that it was a bandwidth issue, as I had problems with that in the past too.
Plugins; a number of them have been installed over the years. Face to Face is the only one that I am using or that I am aware of. There is paypal and some to monitor students progress.
I will send the link for this thread to Paul Tosney as he knows a lot more about all these things. I am just the teacher and pretty useless with IT stuff. That is why I am so grateful for your competent advice.
There is a general concept of performance debugging of starting with the most minimal install possible and then adding stuff till it slows down. The other approach is to take a copy of the current version and throw things out until performance becomes acceptable.
Try a fresh install of the same version with no plugins and minimal activities (on a different db/folder) and see what the performance is like.
I think the 1GB is probably more of a limit than the %age of the CPU time.
I just made another attempt to upload some content and as expected the server froze and is still frozen.
As mentioned earlier there is also WorldPress on the same server, so I tried, while Moodle is frozen, to enter WorldPress and it works fine. I have not been uploading anything to it, just open and closed things, edited and saved and all without any problems. Would this indicate that Moodle is the problem?
In reply to Hansruedi (Lori) Lorenz
Re: Moodle very slow or not responding
I start to question my sanity!!!!! Since my last post, I have been uploading content; text and pictures, and at a rate that I have not been able to do in weeks. Needless to say, it stopped a few minutes ago and we are back to the old tricks. Whenever it stops working, I check internet speed try from another computer and browser. The internet speed is good and the problems are the same on other computers or browser. So it has to be the server. I just can not see how Moodle could intermittently suck up so much CPU.
I just had a thought. What you are seeing could be cron. That is the thing that does the scheduled tasks behind the scenes like mailing out forum posts to subscribers, and making automated course backups, to name just two of the more resource-intensive tasks.
It could be those two things kicking in, and slowing everything else down.
The only way to work it out is to use some monitoring tools, so you can see what the server is doing at any given time.
Thanks Tim, there is hardly any activity on this site except me uploading content. Could crone still slow down Moodle that much?
In reply to Hansruedi (Lori) Lorenz
Re: Moodle very slow or not responding
I can not access either Moodle or WorldPress. Download speed is more than 5Mbps. Any other site works fine
I think the 1GB is probably more of a limit than the %age of the CPU time.
Thanks Marcus, how many GB do you think I should have?
Over the last week, I have been vacationing in Seattle and the place that I am staying at has a very "flakey" Internet connection. There are times where I have problems connecting with my Moodle, yet, I can sometimes connect to other sites. Of course, this is very disturbing. Even moodle.org is real flakey, not just my own moodle.
Have you tried accessing your Moodle from another ISP? Is moodle.org responsive?
I rebooted my VPS thinking that it was my server, and it seemed to help a little. But I found that my best solution was to work from the local library.
Maybe you need to restart your router? I know this sounds strange, but I thought I would offer my 2 cents.