I've tried searching on this topic, but have not found an answer yet. I'm having issues with site slow-down at peak parts of the day, to the point where the site is rendered useless (won't come up at all). Tried many different things, and as it turns out there's too many database connections going on at once. My shared host has it set to 200 max which isn't horrible, but I think the issue with Zencart in particular is that it leaves the DB connections open even after the pages have been loaded up. My question is first to confirm, does zencart not close db connections at the end of every page load? If not, is there a proper way to add this in without hurting anything else..? And, finally, would there be any other solution around this. I've already talked to my hosting provider and they are not able to adjust the db connection max on shared hosting, so my next move if I can't figure this out, is to go to a dedicated or virtual dedicated server, which I'm trying to avoid unless absolutely necessary...

Would it really be as easy as putting a db_close(); at the bottom of the application_bottom.php file..? ( <--- Wishful thinking )

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you...