Site suspended. Need to know why

Hosting Support
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Surprised to see my Wordpress site suspended (due to high CPU usage?), after I woke up this morning (theadvancedaudiophile.infy.uk). I was only working on the theme layout before going to sleep, and it was up then. So how I could have hit “MySQL limits”, while I am sleeping??

I am only in the setup phase of restoring my previous Wordpress site. So I have not opened my site, and have zero visitors. I am not under bot attack. I have a caching plugin. I do not have backup jobs set to run automatically. As far as I know, I do not have “cron jobs” or anything else, scheduled to run in the background.

In fact, I seem to recall a message in my WP dashboard complaining about the lack of scheduled jobs. I don’t know of any plugins I have, that could have caused this ‘suspended’ condition. But I am no professional expert on Wordpress, or site development.

So is it possible I could find out why the site was suspended, to try to avoid this in the future? It’s nothing but a small personal blog, with very few visitors. Using about 1/5 of the max storage, given. So I don’t need much in the way of resources.

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Please check client area for the reason

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I did just check it, but the message only tells me it was suspended. In my VistaPanel, it shows I only have ~700mb storage used, 41% of my ‘inodes’, 1511mb bandwidth (but this is unlimited), and I have only 2 out of a possible thousand MySQL databases.

So IOW, I don’t have a clue as to what happened here, and how I can prevent this suspension from happening in the future.

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I would be very surprised if that was true. Google, Bing, AI crawlers, etc will all visit your website. Depending on how your site is setup, these bots could very much bring you to the limit.

WordPress is also quite high in resource use, so you do need a lot of resources. Can you share the list of plugins you have? Some plugins like Elementor cause even higher resource usage and are not recommended for free hosting.

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Does it prompt you to open a support ticket? If so, that’s what you should do, we can’t help you here for permanent suspensions.

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Please read my earlier reply again.
Take note VistaPanel is not the client area I am referring to

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No support ticket shown in Client Area, but in VPanel, I noticed it says at the top “Your account is suspended this could be due to reaching limits of your hosting plan or for abuse.” But when I click on the link, it just brings me back to the client area. It is not opening a support ticket.

There is no abuse, and since I am only quietly trying to set up my WP site, I don’t see how the limits were hit. I only opened the site a few days ago, so I am not on Google or Bing yet. This forum is the only hit my site name gets. Also, I have a thing that says how many visitors to my site. It shows only 1. Me.

I would like to list all the WP plugins I have, but of course, I can no longer access my site to view that list. To name a few possible contenders from memory… a caching plugin, Akismet (comment spam killer), back up plugin (manual only), a few widget plugins, an editor… And I have a stats plugin, an SEO plugin, and a broken link checker. But I have not configured any of those yet.

I don’t have Elementor. I installed “Astra” theme yesterday, if that matters. Are there any other plugins I should avoid, that are not recommended for my site?

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What does the client area say? Does it show your account is suspended? If so, what reason does it give?

What “thing”? Because depending on what it is, it won’t show visitors deemed not human.

That’s useless since you won’t be able to use the backups due to file size, and running it can be resource intensive.

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As I say, the client area just tells me what the email did. “Your account was suspended because you hit the MySQL Usage limits”. It does not tell me why, and the stats in VPanel currently don’t show any indications of being past my limits. And again, when I try to open a ticket to “learn more” in VPanel, it just takes me back to the client area.

The ‘thing’ that told me I had but one visitor in my WP dashboard, was either Wordpress, or most likely, the Stats plugin I have. If Google bots can trigger a suspension before I’ve even finished restoring my Wordpress blog, then I dread what will happen once I actually post the link somewhere and someone other than me visits the site.

In any event, if I don’t know what is causing the MySQL issue, then I don’t know how to avoid it from happening again. I can say that I did do a backup of my WP installation yesterday afternoon, with the “Updraft” plugin. Far from useless, it created a full backup, and the only backup that I have. I’m glad I was able to do that, because I now see how easily and suddenly, I can lose all of my work.

There were no issues with the backup, and I deleted all the backup files right after I downloaded them to my computer, so they wouldn’t take up resources on the server.

Is there a way that I can know whether I am getting close to these “MySQL” limits, while working on my site? I got a few “502 Gateway” errors yesterday, but I don’t know if that’s related. Is there “types” of plugins I need to avoid, in order to avoid another suspension?

A suspension is bad enough. But it could be a disaster if I lose my data entirely by the MySQL surges causing my site to be pulled and deleted permanently, if backing up my 700mb Wordpress blog is resource-intensive enough to trigger a suspension in the first place.

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You said CPU and MySQL, two completely different things.

As soon as you requested an SSL certificate a bunch of bots were able to get this information:

[
	{
		"id":"9340752559",
		"tbs_sha256":"6fa9985f012b07018d7adcebfc7721d664d1596b3be1c1d8d743602a99884a55",
		"cert_sha256":"18b3382aca965ebfda903e51f3e8b2d488f64104e1e25dd190303a0aaa97194f",
		"dns_names":["*.theadvancedaudiophile.infy.uk","theadvancedaudiophile.infy.uk"],
		"pubkey_sha256":"13f1cc9b47ffe14f6a0d83b325842fc7e5e1bd1e312e0515988d5c4b6a539279",
		"issuer":{"friendly_name":"Google Trust Services","pubkey_sha256":"c83bbda20db9e4d3791847fe0706bdad3aea150d04c9d674af514287d4dd016e","name":"C=US, O=Google Trust Services, CN=WR1"},
		"not_before":"2025-01-28T02:38:44Z",
		"not_after":"2025-04-28T02:38:43Z",
		"revoked":false,
		"revocation":{"time":null,"reason":null,"checked_at":"2025-02-01T22:47:29Z"},
		"problem_reporting":"[email protected]",
		"cert_der":"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"
	}
]

And know about your site. You also posted it at the top of this thread as well.

That could have caused it. As I said previously, backup plugins are heavy and require a lot of server resources to run.

Also, if you try to use that backup on free hosting, you will find it fails every time because it is too large. Please backup your website the recommended way on free hosting:

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The Updraft plugin did not fail the backup. As I say, it worked beautifully, and it backs up everything. But if it was the cause of the MySql suspension, then I guess I have to do it the hard way. I presume that means downloading the front end files via FTP software, and exporting the PHP database on the back end. (The article you linked says at the top that it can also be done via plugins).

The CPanel message says “Please take action to ensure you do not hit the limits of your account again. Accounts that keep hitting the daily limits may be terminated.” But it does not say what that action should be, or just what caused the issue in the first place, or how to even find out if you’re getting close to your “MySQL usage limit”, to avoid it happening again. In fact, I don’t even know what the “MySQL usage limit” is, or where that’s indicated.

So is there a way to find out if my “MySQL usage limit” is getting near that limit? I thought I read this was “unlimited”, if its related to “bandwidth”. As I say, I could not find anything in the client area or VPanel, that clearly indicated an over-usage of any resources, since the suspension.

When I get access again, I will start by removing plugins I don’t need, and disabling others. But it’s hard to know which of my plugins might have a significant impact on “MySQL” resources.

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Well, a poorly written plugin could have caused this as well.
I had this encounter before

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I had a brief look at the list of plugins you have installed, and I noticed you have at least 3 different backup/migration plugins, and at least 2 different caching plugins. We recommend against using any backup/migration plugin because they use a lot of server power, and using multiple caching plugins also just causes both plugins to start fighting each other.

This article explains more what this limit is about:

You should also see the link to this article in the client area while the suspension is active.

The thing is that the MySQL Overload suspensions are not strictly resources. It’s more that we track when the database server load gets too high, and then look for the accounts responsible for that high load. As such, there is no usage counter, or specific limit that we can show you, because there isn’t really a set limit.

As with most resource limit suspensions, the limits are measuring low-level things that affect server load. It doesn’t care what your website does, what software is uses and what functionality those have. So it’s generally very difficult to link resource limits to website functionality.

Sometimes we know from experience that certain features cause high load (chat scripts generate high EP usage, backups generate high IO usage), but only when analyzing many suspensions we can sometimes find a common cause. And MySQL overload suspensions are pretty rare.

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Please read my post, I never said anything about its ability to back things up.

The problem is that backing up uses a lot of resources. The other problem is that you can’t use the backup. Try restoring it, you’ll find it impossible using just the plugin alone.

Do backups manually. WP stores most of its stuff in the database, you only need to make file backups when changing themes/plugins.

But it does not recommend it. If I recall correctly plugins are only mentioned in passing, both us and WordPress do not recommend using backup plugins.

Backups plugins are a great place to start.

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Then I’m not sure what you meant, but when you wrote "Also, if you try to use that backup on free hosting, you will find it fails every time because it is too large. ", I believed you were saying the Updraft plugin will not back up my files successfully on free hosting, because of the size of the backup. Because it did, and the size of the backup was nearly a gig.

I restored that backup on another web host today using the plugin alone, and it did restore my posts. But for whatever reason, it did not automatically restore the rest, nor give any errors. Maybe there was something I missed… In any case, point taken, I will use something like FileZilla to do my backups and restores, as well as PHP export, if that helps to avoid the MySQL issue.

I will also research which plugins are heavy users of MySQL queries. I know I have some cleanup to do with plugins. There are multiples because some are deactivated, and some I was just testing similar plugins to see which I liked best. Thanks for the assistance.

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I have an unrelated question, because I’m not sure where to find this info…

I read that some free hosts will permanently suspend the user’s site if there isn’t enough human traffic in a month, or if it hasn’t been accessed in ‘x’ time. Is this the case with “InfinityFree”? If so, are there clear rules about how many visitors you need in a month/year, or how often you have to visit the site to avoid deletion?

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You site can be suspended if there’s no traffic (I believe) but you can reactivate it from your account page

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You need 5 visits a month, but that can be you reloading your own page 5 times.

If you don’t reach that, you’ll get an email and can reactivate your account.

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My personal blog site (advancedaudiophile.infy.uk) was suspended again (due to high CPU), and I’m even more at a loss to understand why.

This time, I avoided doing any backups since the last suspension. I didn’t do file transfers. I put the site in “maintenance mode”, to avoid visitors. I deactivated all backup, SEO, and spam plugins. As well as a bunch of others I didn’t strictly need. I did not disable the caching plugin. Basically all I did in the last 24 hours+, was work on the layout of my site. ie. organizing articles into categories. Now I’m hit with this:

“Please take action to ensure you do not hit the limits of your account again. Accounts that keep hitting the daily limits may be terminated.”

I sure would like to take action. Because at the very least, I don’t want to lose all the work I did on my site, due to a sudden termination, for something I can’t seem to predict and don’t know how to avoid. I’d appreciate any insight, that helps resolve the problem.

Because my site has been suspended twice this week, and I haven’t even opened it to the public, yet. So if I can’t identify the problem now, there’s no chance it will stay up once it’s opened.

I did read the article on CPU limits. But it either does not apply to me (ie. website traffic, multiple accounts, Cloudflare), or I am doing what it suggests that does apply (remove unnecessary scripts and plugins).

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Try to disable that.
Aggressive caching can also cause CPU spikes

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