SQL Error: 1040 - Too many connections

[Laird]

Another update:

For some time I had been inactive and hadn't followed up on this issue with Hostgator. They had, though, acknowledged that there was a problem - to the extent of crediting me with a month's free hosting due to their 99.9% uptime guarantee having been not been met in November due to this problem (I am seeking the same outcome for December). They had also told me that they thought that the problem was due to a client whose excessive count of database tables caused excessive database connections during scheduled backups, and that they hoped that they had done what was necessary to solve the problem. Then, when I let them know that that hadn't worked, they told me that they'd identified another client who had been abusing database resources. The problem, however, as many of you have noticed, continues.

When I got back in contact at the end of December, they simply ignored me, even when I sent a follow-up email a few days later. The forum founders have discussed the situation privately, and, as Ian shared in the other thread related to this problem, we've decided for the moment to just let it be and see what transpires over the next few months - the alternative is to switch hosting providers, which would be a real pain, but which could be considered if forum members feel sufficiently inconvenienced and/or aggrieved by this issue.

Needless to say, whereas I once would have recommended Hostgator based on both price and reliability, I can now only recommend them based on price...

However, I have been monitoring this problem, and based on my analysis:

1. It affects the forum acutely roughly 5% of the time, where by "acutely" I mean pages taking in the realm of 30 or more seconds to load or not loading at all.
   
2. Its acute occurrence begins at fairly predictable daily times (which thus is fairly consistent with Hostgator support's contention that the problem is related to backup procedures, which presumably are scheduled at regular times). Its two predictable daily occurrences begin, in my local time zone here in Tasmania, Australia (with Daylight Savings in effect), at roughly between 2:30pm and 3:15pm, and at roughly between 9:30pm and 10:30pm. In the UTC/GMT time zone, that's roughly between 3:30am and 4:15am, and roughly between 10:30am and 11:30am.
   
3. After beginning at roughly between those times, its acute stage lasts for somewhere roughly between 15 and 120 minutes (but usually for fewer than 60 minutes).
   

So, based on this analysis, here's a guide which should allow you to fairly reliably predict the period within which the worst of the problem will occur in some local time zones, which hopefully covers most members (if you notice an error or would like a time zone added, please just say):

• The East Coast of Australia (Queensland excepted since it does not observe Daylight Savings):
     Beginning and ending sometime between 2:30pm and 4:15pm, and sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm.
  
• New Zealand:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 4:30pm and 6:15pm, and sometime between 11:30pm and 1:30am.
  
• The UK plus Iceland:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 3:30am and 5:15am, and sometime between 10:30am and 12:30pm.
  
• Western Europe (Spain, Germany, France, Italy) and parts of Northern Europe (Denmark, Norway, Sweden):
     Beginning and ending sometime between 4:30am and 6:15am, and sometime between 11:30am and 1:30pm.
  
• South Africa:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 12:30pm and 2:30pm, and sometime between 5:30pm and 7:15pm.
  
• The West Coast of the USA (California, etc). PST - Pacific Standard Time:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 2:30am and 4:30am, and sometime between 7:30pm and 9:15pm.
  
• The Mid-West Coast of the USA (Utah, Colorado, etc). MST - Mountain Standard Time:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 3:30am and 5:30am, and sometime between 8:30pm and 10:15pm.
  
• Central USA (Texas, Arizona, Illinois, etc). CST - Central Standard Time:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 4:30am and 6:30am, and sometime between 9:30pm and 11:15pm.
  
• The East Coast of the USA (Florida, New York, etc) and the West Coast of Canada (Ontaria, etc). EST - Eastern Standard Time:
     Beginning and ending sometime between 5:30am and 7:30am, and sometime between 10:30pm and 12:15am.