My forums were at version 1.1.8. My host recently told me that the database was performing some very slow queries, so they had to shutdown the database. If I upgrade my forums to the latest version, will these problems still exist?
It depends on which they think was slow queries. But of course we made a lot of changed in 1.2.8 - which include speedups.
So yes you should update.
My forums have about 6,000 users, what do you think could be slow up that is being caused?
Do you think that disabling search functions may help?
The sessions table might be the slowest - which have been optimized since 1.1.8
We recommend you do upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible.
However, if after the upgrade you still experience slow loading times, you can click advanced details in the debug information (bottom right of your forum) to identify any queries which are taking a long time to run. I would also suggest that you disable any plugins you have installed to see if any of them are responsible for slow loading times.