michellealaska

Thanks, David. I wasn’t aware of the ‘flood protection’ already available! These look to have comment flood protection – you can’t post multiple comments in a short time – whereas this looks to limit the number of page hits a single IP can make in a period of time. This will stop, I think, various bots from running through one’s entire site at once and still, hopefully, stop spammers from hitting tons of comments at the same time. So this would (I think!) be more comprehensive than the comment flood protection available now. I think. Hmm. I should do some more searching around, though. (Thanks!)

Hi angsuman, thanks for the response. I saw this else somewhere and am definitely planning on implementing some of your suggestions. I just have to get my site back online (and the NEW host also appears to be dragging their feet. *sigh*) before I can tinker with the blog.

Thanks again!

I thought I’d add myself to the list of folks getting hassled because their wordpress blog is using up server resources. This is the second time that my website has been suspended because of the blog (this time, I’ve decided to switch hosts because my old host has been nothing but useless). I <i>don’t</i> have a highly commented blog, although there is certainly a lot of spam that attacks the blog (but doesn’t get through, because of a variety of plugins that I use).

I think this problem had something to do with the new WP update (not that there’s something wrong with the program in general, but rather that something weird happened on my particular blog when I updated). I kept the same theme that I’ve had for about a year and I had only four plugins activated: akismet, autoshutoff, bad-behavior, and tbvalidator.

I tried getting information from my host about the particular problem, but this is how <i>that</i> email conversation went:
—
Me:
Hello, my site has, yet again, been suspended. Might I ask why? Thanks.
—
My Host:
Hello!
The site was suspended by the same reason as it was suspended few weeks ago: Your site is suspended because it uses a high amount of server resources. We are not able to host the site in its current state.
—
Me:
Thanks for replying, although I would like more information as to what specifically was causing the problem (do you know what PHP code or query was causing the server resources to be used up?) so that I know what to do to change the site. Simply knowing that it uses server resources isn’t helpful in helping me fix it.
—
My Host:
The problem is with your blog again.
—

No shit, shirlock. At that point I decided that the solution was to switch hosts.

SO…I have no real idea what it was about my blog that caused such a server meltdown. Last time they said it was because of the spam, especially spammers hitting the comments-post.php page. I then installed the various plugins which I assumed helped with that. (It certainly cut down on the bandwidth.) I’ve switched hosts and hope to have things back to normal. I worry, though, that there will be a similar stress on the new ISP. I’ve read elsewhere that there’s a cache plugin that will help with the problem, that I hope to try once my site is back online.

As I said, I don’t know if this is a problem with the WordPress update, my host being wretched, some wires being crossed somewhere in the blog/plugins/theme, or some healthy combination of all three. I’ll do a clean install of WordPress once I get online with the new host and we’ll see if that takes care of the CPU problem.

Hi Otto, thanks for the suggestion! I don’t believe I have any ‘\’s in the text (although I have several ‘/’s).

I’ll paste the document I have below so you (or anyone else!) can see what I have.

saved as autoshutoff.php
—
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Auto-Close Comments
Version: 0.2
Plugin URI: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Plugins/Auto_shutoff_comments
Description: Autoclose comments after 21 days.
Author: Scott Hanson
Author URI: https://www.papascott.de/
*/

/* Add an index on comment_status to wp_posts to speed this up. */

function autoclose_comments() {
global $wpdb, $tableposts;

if (!isset($tableposts))
$tableposts = $wpdb->posts;

// Set $age to the age at which a post should become stale
$age = ’21 DAY’;

$date = $wpdb->get_var(“
SELECT DATE_ADD(DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL $age), INTERVAL 1 DAY)
“);

$wpdb->query(“
UPDATE $tableposts
SET comment_status = ‘closed’
WHERE comment_status = ‘open’
AND post_status = ‘publish’
AND post_date < ‘$date’
“);
}

add_action(‘publish_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘edit_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘delete_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘comment_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘trackback_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘pingback_post’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘edit_comment’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘delete_comment’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
add_action(‘template_save’, ‘autoclose_comments’, 7);
?>

Thanks again for the suggestion and I’d appreciate any other suggestions, from anyone, as to what’s gone wrong.

Bumping this up. Anyone have any thoughts? (Thanks!)

Found a solution! (Rather easy, too.) Go here: https://www.davejenbarnes.com/wordpress/?p=320 and follow the directions given by Lea (who deserves a special place in heaven for this fix). You have to modify two bits of code…but now my fields work and folks can comment without having to register (or post anonymously).

I’ll second the problem that (it seems) lots of folks are having. If I try to post a comment already logged in, it’s no problem. If I logout and try to post a comment as a non-registered user, two things happen: 1) the name/url/email fields simply aren’t there and then 2) it says “Logged in as . Logout” right above the comment box. I don’t want my readers to register to comment…so for the time I’ve just allowed anyone to post without entering a name/email. But the ‘solution’ is far from optimal because, since the name/url/email fields don’t even appear, those who comment will do so anonymously and/or just type their name at the end of a post. Not the best solution by a long shot.

I just did a clean reinstall of wordpress to no avail. Same exact problem. I’m hoping that this is something that can be fixed with a hack to the theme…but because the problem seems to persist for those who have changed themes, I worry that it could be a problem with the database. I’m SQL stupid (as well as PHP stupid) so I’m hoping someone smarter than I can (or has) figured out a fix to this…because blogs without comments just aren’t any fun at all! *grin*

Yeah…I did check the themes (first through theme editor and then by downloading the relevant theme via htmp and examining it in a text editor)…at least in the default theme (which I’m currently using) it appears to be made up of just CSS…no html in sight. Maybe I’m completely missing it (although one can hardly miss html tags) but I rather doubt it.

If you’re asking if I was aware that the new wordpress ran on themes and where said themes are located. Yes. Completely aware. But I’m still not aware of where, amidst the various themes and index pages and such, the html happens to be.