MyBB Community Forums

My host has pretty much disabled me from hosting a MyBB powered forum with them anymore because they said it's causing the server to crash. Here's the email they sent me:

Quote:Hello,
The server admin changed the permissions to 000. This is due to the
resource consumption of the forum you have running in the directory.
You can no longer host this forum on this server. It is causing the
server to bog down and crash. You will have to delete this folder and
have the forum hosted elsewhere.

I am sorry that this has come about but this forum is using too much
resources for a shared hosting account and we can not afford the
downtime that it is causing.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Jay

What in MyBB would possibly be making the whole entire shared server crash and stuff? The thing is, my forum only had like 20 members on it and maybe 200 posts at the most. I have an IPB powered forum on the same server that's about 5 times that size, and it hasn't did anything to the server whatsoever.

This is all I can tell you about the server I'm on:
OS: Linux
Kernel: 2.4.21-37.0.1.ELsmp
Machine: i686
Apache: 1.3.34 (Unix)
PERL: 5.8.7
PHP: 4.4.2

1) what exactly in a small MyBB forum could be crashing a whole entire server?
2) does it have anything to do with the server specs?
3) do you think I should switch hosts?

I'm really confused about this whole thing. Any help would be appreciated, looks like I lost my forum hosting for that forum now. :/

Thanks in advance,
Andy

Can your host provide any more information?

Because there is no way a forum that size is crashing the server.

Look at us here and over at msghelp.net - a lot bigger.

Hi Chris,

I'd be glad to contact my host and see if I can get any more information from them about it, what kind of questions should I be asking them for though?

Yeah, I think it's kind of odd something so small could crash a whole server like they're claiming. Unless it got hammered down by bots or something, but still MSGHelp.net has 156 visitors on it right now - the most mine ever had was 40 some (mostly bots of course.)

Thanks,
Andy

I have a site hosted by AwardSpace with MyBB, and they aren't complaining. What hoster do you have?

I think your host is just trying to screw you over because nothing should be happening like this... even if you reach like 100,000 members

The only thing I can think of that can cause excessive server stress is the search feature on MyBB versions < 1.1.

Hmm, i own a server, i'm running MyBB and it aint causing any lag or anything like that.

I'd leave that host because they are obviously no good.

There is no resone for you hosting to complane about it. There is nothing in MyBB that could be slowing down there servers. I recommend finding another host for your board.

Meh, sounds like my host (or their 'server admin' at least) is being a big cracky.

I shot them back this email, I'll let you all know when I receive a reply (and no, that's not the actual URL of the forum below):

Quote:Hi Jay,

Are you completely positive that my forum, XXXXX.com, was the cause of the server crashing? I'm really curious as to how it could have caused a whole server to crash and 'bog down'. Do you have any type of logs or anything to show that it did? The forum was using a legit and popular forum software called MyBB (see http://MyBBoard.com), there's nothing that the software itself should have/could have done that would have caused a whole server strain like you've said. Not only that, but the forum literally had only 20 some members on it and roughly 250 posts and threads. I also made direct contact with the people that wrote the forum software, I asked them what (if anything) on MyBB could have caused a complete server to do what it did, and they all seem to be clueless. The only thing that could have caused the crash/bog-down (according to one of the guys that actually wrote the MyBB forum software) would have been massive searching on the forums; but that is almost highly unlikeable because 1) even a forum with a database thousands of times bigger than XXXXX.com's generally wouldn't have a problem, and 2) the forum simply doesn't have enough members or traffic to search so much (especially with search flood control enabled as it was.)

I hope I didn't make you mad or anything in my message, but I'm just trying to get a point across. How could a forum that has little traffic, 20 some members, search flood control enabled, and roughly 250 posts cause a whole entire server to shut down? And to add to that, the authors of script have been able to back me up saying it's nearly impossible for their forum software to do something so malicious to a server. If you could furnish any type of proof (like logs, etc.) clearly showing that my forum was the cause of the entire server's bad stability, I'll take back what I've said and I'll move that forum to another server. But until then, I really can't say I see any logical reasoning for the forum doing anything of the like. Perhaps you could contact the server administrator if you yourself don't have the proof (and they do), and send them this email as well. Please get back to me on this.

Thank you Jay,
Andrew

I'm a host my self and you know what one thing i do before i blame anyone for anything i always check logs hacking logs php usage logs mysql logs all logs, just so i dont go blameing some one like what happend to you.

With your board i find it very unlikely to have been you.