Ever since I upgraded to WordPress 2.1 I’ve noticed the WordPress administration screen extremely slow. Editing or saving posts is particularly bad.
I don’t know for sure whether the upgrade was to blame, or whether there is some issue with my web host – TextDrive, but the problem has only come to light since the upgrade.
Editing or saving posts can take up to a minute, during which time my entire web site is locked up meaning no one can access any of my web pages.
I’ve turned on debug logging within the Apache server and I see a lot of these messages in the log files:
[Tue Feb 27 15:39:22 2007] [warn] mod_fcgid: read data timeout in 60 seconds
[Tue Feb 27 15:39:22 2007] [error] [client xxx.x.xxx.xxx] Premature end of script headers: php5-fcgi
[Tue Feb 27 15:39:22 2007] [info] mod_fcgid: process busy timeout, take 61 seconds for this request
[Tue Feb 27 15:39:38 2007] [warn] mod_fcgid: can’t apply process slot for /users/home/xxxxxxxx/php-fastcgi/php5-fcgi
[Tue Feb 27 15:39:42 2007] [warn] mod_fcgid: can’t apply process slot for /users/home/xxxxxxxx/php-fastcgi/php5-fcgi
I posted this log file on the TextDrive support forum and someone mentioned that using FastCGI with Apache2 was the problem, and that I didn’t need to use FastCGI for a WordPress blog.
I then asked on the same forum if there was a way to switch off FastCGI to which I got this reply:
“We are using FastCGI for PHP everywhere, there are no general issues with that – it’s mod_fcgid, not the old mod_fastcgi. It works for everybody as far as I know.”
Well, something clearly doesn’t work for me. Anyone out there got any ideas? I raised a support ticket with TextDrive several days ago but I’m still waiting for a reply.
I’m a newbie when it comes to Apache, PHP and CGI so I would really appreciate any comments/ideas/suggestions on how to try and fix this problem. If you don’t want to leave a comment then you can use the contact form. Thanks.
UPDATE: I think some, if not all of these issues, may have resulted from my web host. I have since move this site to a new host so I will monitor things closely.
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14 responses so far ↓
1 Sven // Apr 19, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I had the same problem and fixed it by changing IPCCommTimeout 60 to 600 in fcgid.conf. Now i have a 10min timeout for php scripts.
2 Dean // Apr 19, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for the tip Sven. If I hit that problem again I’ll give that a go.
3 Chty // May 15, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I have the same probleme with WP. I hope changing IPCCommTimeout will resolve the problem !
Chty
4 Marcelo // May 24, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Did anybody manage to solve this problem?
5 Chty // May 24, 2007 at 8:31 pm
me ? no. it’s still so slow !
CHty
6 Dean // May 24, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Marcelo and CHty – are you both using TextDrive as your host?
7 Chty // May 24, 2007 at 9:26 pm
What’s TextDrive ?
Chty
8 Dean // May 25, 2007 at 7:12 am
TextDrive is where I used to host my wordpress blog. Part of me felt that the problems I was seeing were caused by my host, so I changed to another host.
Who is your host? Do you pay for your web hosting or do you use the free service offered by wordpress.com ?
9 Chty // May 25, 2007 at 7:37 am
No, It’s my own host. (http://blog.onbebop.net). the other websites are fast but not for this WP.
Moreover I see my php5-cgi growing up to 100% of CPU when a page is requested.
Chty
10 Dean // May 25, 2007 at 7:51 am
Not sure how to help. It sounds like some sort of Apache problem.
My problems went away as soon as I changed host. If you want to consider that option then let me know. I might be able to help you out further.
11 Chty // May 25, 2007 at 7:58 am
ok, thanks for your help. WP sucks
Chty
12 Ian Justman // Jul 8, 2008 at 2:09 am
I’m sorry this comes a bit late, but I hope this helps.
For a friend of mine whose site I’m hosting, it turns out that the script I use to fire up a PHP5 process via mod_fcgid was owned by the wrong person. I also run suEXEC, so I had the webserver configured to run CGIs (and FCGIs) as the user who owns the site. I’m surprised (and a bit dismayed) I didn’t even think of this. One chown to the site’s owner was all it took and it was golden.
Hope this helps.
–Ian.
13 Eugenie // Jul 22, 2008 at 3:19 am
Hi, may i ask how to change [ IPCCommTimeout 60 to 600 in fcgid.conf ], this might be a stupid question… but i need to solve the issue for mod_fcgid: also as it is effecting my server badly…
thanks a lot~~~
14 Dean // Jul 22, 2008 at 8:11 am
Eugenie,
I did a quick search on Google and found this link:
How to raise connection timeout for FCGI applications
Look at the section where it shows you how to raise the communication timeout.
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