IO strangeness continued

Hosting Support
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Hello folks! I thought you may be interested in my latest update as to the strange goings-on with this “IO overuse” issue that causes our site(s) to be suspended when they go over this daily IO limit. The annoying thing is, yes, I know one can “upgrade to premium hosting”, but, as has been stated by myself and others in the past, its the principle of being instructed to upgrade without being provided with any evidence of this limit being hit apart from a pretty graph, a 50% warning email and a subsequent 100% suspended email.

I don’t like doing things without knowing why, and being given a chance to fix it!

Anyway, what I have noticed is that:

  • taking my Joomla site “offline for maintenance” did nothing to fix the issue.
  • Disabling every plugin did nothing to fix the issue.
  • after uploading my site to another host, and pointing my domain this host for over 24 hours, my infinityfree account is still carrying on being suspended and unsuspended for IO overuse!

I also added in some deny all .htaccess to the /administrator portion of the site, in case it was being bombed by hackers trying to brute force the password…

The only thing that remains are the three alias domain names that I also had pointing to my site - although I moved the A record of my main domain to point to a different host to see if that stopped the error, I left the freenom domains parked with infinity, so I can probably rule out my main domain, I cannot rule these other parked domains out… I think I’m narrowing down the cause, perhaps, to one of those suspects!

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I’ve removed all but one of those parked domains to see if that changes anything - although now that I’ve posted this message, the cynic in me thinks the “issue” might now suddenly be “fixed” no matter what I do or don’t do next :laughing:- not that I’m seriously believing this… but part of me thinks it :smiley:

Interestingly, on my new host for the main domain, there is a similar IO use blocky thing-a-majig, and since that’s been hosting the live site, it hasn’t been triggered (which would make sense if it wasn’t hits to that domain that is causing the issue, to be fair)

For those who are not familiar with this issue that was recently discussed in the support forum, this started happening immediately after a big outage several weeks ago, and lots of sites went offline, there was a massive massive spike (much bigger, x3, or x4, than any of the subsequent ones) in “IO overuse” on several members cPanel stats, … before that date, I had never had any problem at all, never hitting this 50% useage, let alone the 100% suspension. I had installed plugins after that date, but prior to it, there had been no changes made to my site for several days, so the initial spike wasn’t anything I had done - which tallies with what other users reported, also. It may be that there was no limit, then suddenly there was? I dunno when IO overuse became a thing.

One more thing - although I have moved my main domain to a different host (at least, for now…) that host is not without it’s own issues, such as not being able to send mails from within the CMS because outgoing SMTP connections from the server to gmail are blocked, and the supposedly working PHP Mail… isn’t :laughing: … and connections to remote MySQL DBs also blocked - both things that work just fine on infinityfree (send SMTP mail & connecting your site to remote DBs are fine here - I wanted the remote DB so I could shift hosts without needing to import and export my DB each time. Ahh well…)

So, I’m not moving away from infinityfree (just yet anyway) I just want it to work! without suspending me! So the move is more of a means to an end (to debug this issue with some actual stats and logs being provided) rather than something that is permanent

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Since the last time it happened to me, I’ve been keepin detailed hit logs for my site. That traffic up to now, directly corresponds to my i/o curve. Next time I get suspended for this i/o usage thingy, without a corresponding wave of incoming hits, then there’ll be definitive proof that this is an internal issue, and the only thing remaining to clarify will be whether this is some kind of software bug on the server or it’s done on purpose…

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The first thing I want to remind everyone about is that all usage metrics are measured on the account as a whole, and recorded as an aggregate per day. We don’t know what exactly caused your high IO usage, and we have no way to find out.

But just because we can’t tell you the reason doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

There have been issues in the past where the metrics were not being recorded correctly. One notable issue with the IO usage was found some time ago. That issue was fixed so the metrics should be accurate now. That said, I can’t say with 100% certainty that it’s working perfectly now.

It’s also hard to check whether it’s working correctly. Just because you don’t know of any reason why your IO usage would be high doesn’t mean that there is no reason. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Finally, I do want to make VERY clear that WE DO NOT INTENTIONALLY SUSPEND ACCOUNTS FOR FAKE LIMITS. We never have and we never will. We try to have fair limits for everyone and suspend those and only those who exceed them. Issues can occur and cause undue suspensions, but those are issues, not desired behavior. We’re well aware we’re not building a healthy relationship with people by suspending their accounts for bogus reasons.

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That would not do anything since Joomla will still run its tasks when it is opened.

Disabling WP plugins makes not difference, so I would think the same would be try here. Try deleting them completely, that might make a difference.

If the new host is also MOFH powered, try creating a new IF account (If you have less then three) and upload your site again. Compare the IO limit from the first one to the second one.

I doubt its on purpose, there may be some leftover bug that’s still affecting people, that’s why I suggested the above idea.

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I do wish to apologise, admin, I geniunely was joking about making up an issue to coax a premium upgrade - you guys aren’t related to ifastnet so wouldn’t be benefiting from an upgrade anyhow - blaming a potential internal issue on the client was more what I was getting at :blush:. I know you guys are limited in what metrics you get from the parent provider as much as we would get from you.

Even IF there was some sneaking going on, and as I said, the cynic in me has pondered it even though I don’t believe it, I wouldn’t suspect infinity - nay, I’d blame the parent higher up before I suspected you. One of the reasons I want to stay here and persevere fixing the issue is that you’re one of the better free webhosts, in terms of responding to customer questions and having this forum - most do not reply nor have a forum to raise questions and issues, be it populated by their staff or even just other customers - all you get from most is a wall of silence!

Hope this clarifies​:+1::blush:

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Actually, IF servers are managed by iFastNet, and IF is a reseller of iFastNet. Although independent of eachother, they are related. Additionally, if you buy premium using a link on IF’s website or the control panel, a portion of that money will go to InfinityFree.

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I know IF is managed by fastnet- but just as with anyone using MOFH, if I upgrade, I am no longer a customer of there’s, I pay fastnet directly, hence my statement that they are not related. Its a seperare entity. IF is their customer, and not them

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Oh and yes, I know they would get a commision. So indirectly there’d be a kickback. Hardly worth it though for peanuts

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Thank you for the apology.

We see quite a few people come here and claim that “InfinityFree is a scam, they suspend accounts for no reason!”. And then when you check the account, you see that there was a valid reason, or the account is already back up because iFastNet generally responds very fast to suspension tickets and realized the suspension was in error.

You’re right that I have no control and no insight into the suspensions and the raw data that they are based on. I just have to trust that iFastNet is honest too.

But from my experience (almost six years and millions of websites) and talking to them, I’m confident that iFastNet isn’t purposely suspending accounts to harass people into upgrading. The last time there clearly were undue suspensions, an iFastNet engineer and I basically ended up troubleshooting the issue together and fixing the bug that caused it.

The limits are vague and the metrics provide hardly any insight. But I am convinced that iFastNet really wants to have fair and reasonable limits.

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