Deactivate Wordfence to Search for High CPU Usage Problem

  • Resolved equitate

    (@equitate)


    7 years, 10 months ago

    For the past few weeks, I have been experiencing extremely high cpu usage on my account and I am trying to figure out what is causing this issue suddenly.
    Error Message:
    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
    Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

    I have read online that wordfence can be a problem for high cpu usage, so I am considering deactivating the plugin to see if this issue resolves itself. If I do deactivate the plugin, and find that it was not the cause of the continuous error messages when I do something as simple as try to open a page on my site, I will activate the plugin again. Will my saved blocking information still be there or will that be erased upon deactivation?
    Also, I have been blocking IP’s manually lately, based upon the “people” that are able to log in and create fake user accounts. Would this cause the high cpu usage?

    Anyone that has any information on what I can do to try to resolve this issue, is greatly appreciated. Per my hosts meager suggestions, I enable CloudFlare and Mod_deflate inside your cPanel. Still getting the error message. I disabled Live View in Wordfence and unchecked many boxes in the scan option (per my reading of helpful hints on the forum), and still getting the error message.

    Below is the Resource Usage log (Sent to me from my host):

    ###
    +———–+———–+—-+—-+—-+—+—-+—-+—+—+—+——+——+—–+——+——+——+—+—–+—–+—–+—–+—–+
    | From | To |aCPU|mCPU|lCPU|aIO|mIO |lIO |aEP|mEP|lEP|aVMem |mVMem |lVMem|aPMem |mPMem |lPMem |EPf|VMemF|PMemF|aIOPS|mIOPS|lIOPS|
    +———–+———–+—-+—-+—-+—+—-+—-+—+—+—+——+——+—–+——+——+——+—+—–+—–+—–+—–+—–+
    |04-10 01:47|04-10 01:48|5 |5 |100 |0 |0 |100|9.3MB |9.3MB |0B |0 |0 |27.1MB |27.1MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |271B |271B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 01:48|04-10 01:49|2 |2 |100 |0 |0 |100|7.0MB |7.0MB |0B |0 |0 |25.4MB |25.4MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |272B |272B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 01:49|04-10 01:50|4 |4 |100 |0 |0 |100|6.2MB |6.2MB |0B |0 |0 |24.9MB |24.9MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |1.1KB |1.1KB |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 01:51|04-10 01:52|1 |1 |100 |0 |0 |100|7.0MB |7.0MB |0B |0 |0 |22.0MB |22.0MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |306B |306B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 01:52|04-10 01:53|1 |1 |100 |0 |0 |100|8.0MB |8.0MB |0B |0 |0 |22.7MB |22.7MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |466B |466B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 01:56|04-10 01:57|1 |1 |100 |0 |0 |100|8.4MB |8.4MB |0B |0 |0 |23.1MB |23.1MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |148B |148B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:10|04-10 02:11|1 |1 |100 |0 |0 |100|7.0MB |7.0MB |0B |0 |0 |22.0MB |22.0MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |306B |306B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:11|04-10 02:12|1 |1 |100 |0 |0 |100|6.2MB |6.2MB |0B |0 |0 |21.4MB |21.4MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |272B |272B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:16|04-10 02:17|39 |39 |100 |22 |22 |100|444MB |444MB |0B |0 |0 |315MB |384MB |384MB|22 |22 |0 |123 |0 |1.5MB |2.0MB |2.0MB|299 |299 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:17|04-10 02:18|23 |23 |100 |8 |8 |100|222MB |222MB |0B |0 |0 |199MB |384MB |384MB|9 |9 |0 |31 |0 |1.0MB |2.0MB |2.0MB|233 |233 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:18|04-10 02:19|2 |2 |100 |0 |0 |100|6.8MB |6.8MB |0B |0 |0 |13.5MB |13.5MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |8.0KB |8.0KB |2.0MB|1 |1 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:20|04-10 02:21|2 |2 |100 |0 |0 |100|10.1MB |10.1MB |0B |0 |0 |16.6MB |16.6MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |897B |897B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:21|04-10 02:22|4 |4 |100 |0 |0 |100|9.3MB |9.3MB |0B |0 |0 |15.7MB |15.7MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |5.0KB |5.0KB |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:22|04-10 02:23|0 |0 |100 |0 |0 |100|2.3MB |2.3MB |0B |0 |0 |10.5MB |10.5MB|384MB|0 |0 |0 |0 |0 |0B |0B |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    |04-10 02:26|04-10 02:27|12 |12 |100 |0 |0 |100|9.3MB |9.3MB |0B |0 |0 |15.9MB |15.9MB|384MB|1 |1 |0 |0 |0 |1.2KB |1.2KB |2.0MB|0 |0 |2.0K |
    +———–+———–+—-+—-+—-+—+—-+—-+—+—+—+——+——+—–+——+——+——+—+—–+—–+—–+—–+—–+
    ###

    Below is the explanation of each heading/column.

    “From” “to” – period of time
    “aCPU” – Average CPU usage
    “mCPU” – Max CPU usage
    “lCPU” – CPU Limit
    “aEP” – Average Entry Processes
    “mEP” – Max Entry Processes
    “lEP” – maxEntryProc limit
    “aMEM” – Average Memory Usage
    “mMEM” – Max Memory Usage
    “lMEM” – Memory Limit
    “MemF” – Out Of Memory Faults
    “MepF” – Max Entry processes faults
    ###

    I am not a computer genius, so solving these issues isn’t a piece of cake for me.
    BTW, this is a Free version of wordfence. Don’t want to pay for Pro if wordfence is sadly my cause of error.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Hi @equitate,

    Before you deactivate the plugin I’d like to suggest a few things:

    – Enable the low-resource scanning feature

    • Go to the Wordfence Options page
    • Scroll down to the bottom of the Scans to include section</li
    • Tick the “Use low resource scanning” checkbox

    – Check the Wordfence System Info page and make sure the Firewall is configured accordingly

    • Go to the Wordfence Tools page
    • Click the Diagnostics tab
    • In the Other Tests section, click the link that reads “Click to view your system’s configuration in a new window“
    • On the Wordfence System Info page, check the values associated with the following parameters:
    • Server API
    • PHP Version

    Should you choose to deactivate Wordfence in order to further troubleshoot, make sure the “Delete Wordfence tables and data on deactivation” checkbox (in the Other Options section of the Wordfence Options page) is not ticked.

    Thread Starter equitate

    (@equitate)

    Thank you for the reply.

    The Low-Resource scanning feature has been enabled prior to your response.

    Server API: LiteSpeed V6.10
    PHP Version: 5.6.30

    I am currently going through and deleting any and all photos on my site that are not needed, and cleaning up other unnecessary items, to see if that helps out in any way.

    Hi @equitate,

    Thanks for providing the info.

    Can you confirm if the 503 error happens at the same time as Wordfence scan?
    In order to check the scans times:

    • Go to the Wordfence Scan page
    • In the Scan tab (selected by default), click the “View activity log” link (located just below the “Scan Detailed Activity” box

    If you haven’t already done so, could you disable the “Scan images, binary, and other files as if they were executable” feature to see if that helps.

    Hi @equitate,

    Since I haven’t heard back from you I am assuming that the instructions solved your issue so I am marking this topic as resolved.

    If however, for whatever reason, you are still experiencing this issue and it is not resolved please respond to the post, which will move it back up the queue, and mark this topic as “not resolved”.

    Thank you.

    Thread Starter equitate

    (@equitate)

    Sorry for not updating.
    I went ahead and deleted Wordfence, and since then the problem has gone away.
    Also, to answer your question, this problem did not occur during scans.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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