Possible Database Connection Issues

[mkubes]

I have been recently having problems with my hosting company, about a month ago they shut me down saying persistant connections to my zencart database were violating my TOS. Their fix was moving to one of their "virtual" servers...supposedly less users etc.

Well since then, the performance is worse than ever. Slow load times, I am guessing that they have too many users on the server. Server load average seems to always be 30-50 which are numbers I never saw on the cheap shared hosting I had with them.

Every time I send in a support ticket, they have blamed other users abusing the server, but always mention my zencart database connections using up more resources than it should.

I get approximately 3000 visitors a day and have about 3000 items in my database. With the slow load times I am seeing users staying less time and sales are off about 1/3.

My question is, how can I determine if there is a problem with my zencart database connections.

Thanks in advance.

Mark Kubes
buymilsurp.com

[Marg]

I'd start by turning on the admin/configuration/logging/Display The Page Parse Time

[mkubes]

I have turned that on.

Just to maybe better state my question.

How can I determine if my zencart database connections are causing a problem, as my web hosting company tells me that there are excessive "persistent" database connections.

Mark

[Marg]

I am no expert at this one, but your :
Parse Time: 8.689 - Number of Queries: 341 - Query Time: 6.672176448349

Means that the database took 6.7 to parse the request and 1.9

I woul be less worried by your host's complaint and more concerned about how long it took your database to run the query and php to parse the script.
I'd move... sorry for not having a better answer;. I'm sure someone else will chime in.

[DrByte]

Unless you've customized your database-connection code to change the normal behavior, Zen Cart does *not* use persistent connections.

It sounds like your host is confused about what they're seeing and maybe they want to throttle the number of queries you're allowed to use per hour (a common approach used by lower-quality hosting companies so they can load up more accounts on one server and line their pockets with the hosting fees, rather than tuning their servers more efficiently).

Rather than going to the expense of a dedicated server etc, why not check out one of the hosting companies recommended for use with Zen Cart? (See the "hosting" link at the top of this page.) They understand the need for database access and have their servers and database setups tuned for stronger performance, and certainly without the limitations your host has placed on you.