2006 MySQL server has gone away

[dkerfoot]

I am getting very similar replies from SiteGround...

Maybe it is time to dump them.

[dkerfoot]

My website's DB is less than 10MB and my bandwidth is less than 1GB/month, yet they are pushing Virtual Server Hosting at me.

Seems funny that they never consider something radical - like limiting the number of users per server!

Here is the reply I got from SiteGround.


Before we have talked about server load problems and I have confessed that the old server gave a few errors out of a thousand. This has been mainly because of times of higher load during which we stop all scripts (including web scripts) in order to prevent a server crash. This is an explanation but not the excuse. After we have acknowledged the problem your site has been moved to a newer server where there are no such problems. I have officially apologized and offered a small compensation.

Your current problem is with the mysql timeout. It is set to 10 secs on all of our servers. This is critical for fast and reliable performance. This is rather a best industry practice than a whim of ours.

You will rarely find an application which requires higher mysql timeout than 10 secs. Definitely there is no popular application with default setup to have such a requirement. You can try installing any application from Fantastico, for example, and I guarantee that there will be no such problems.

I understand you consider moving your site to another host. Not all shared hosts have such strict limits and this might solve your problem. The drawback is that other users will be also able to run slow queries. It is natural that such a server will be slower. Unfortunately we cannot allow this.

I am sorry but you will have to either optimize your site for better performance, or to look for a more generous and slow host. The current load on the server is less 1.45 unix CPU units and your site continues to be too slow. Most shared hosting servers in the industry operate at load above 7-8, not to mention that the one you will have to look for will operate probably at more than 40-50 unix CPU units.

I have been perfectly honest with you and I do defend our server's setup and company policy. I am sorry that our shared server setup is not suitable in your case. Whatever your decision is I respect it and I wish you good luck with your future activities. I will close the ticket now.