I emptied it, but it hasn't made any difference to the speed of the forum, it's still incredibly slow. I did make a mistake of the previous post, I am on linux. just got to see if my host will sort out the error logs, maybe that will solve the problem out

TCF wrote:
I emptied it, but it hasn't made any difference to the speed of the forum, it's still incredibly slow. I did make a mistake of the previous post, I am on linux. just got to see if my host will sort out the error logs, maybe that will solve the problem out
Of cause (but you can talk to your host helpdesk and tell them, that it didn't help...), data on hdd don't make difference in speed
Maybe that mambot is slow (try to disable that mambot for a while), or something else in joomla. But as I already said, running php over cgi is wrong (in means of performance and memory consummation).

I got rid of the bad behavior bot ages ago, didn't realize the stuff was still in the database.

I'm not sure what you mean by running PHP over CGI, how do I find out if that is what is happening in my case?

TCF wrote:
I got rid of the bad behavior bot ages ago, didn't realize the stuff was still in the database.

I'm not sure what you mean by running PHP over CGI, how do I find out if that is what is happening in my case?
Look at your error log. It's your case. That's why i am talking about it.

I have taken a screenshot of the Web panel where I can change things. So give you an idea of the settings I am on,

TCF,

You can go for FastCGI but I doubt it will help.
I'm no expert but I know that php code is translated by the server in 3 ways :

1 - CGI
2 - ISAPI
3 - FastCGI (implemented in IIS7 and also IIS6)

Either way, the modules are reading the settings from an .ini file. (php.ini)
If you can't access that file (and I bet you can't) there is no way to tell the server "Hey, give my PHP module more memory!"

I don't know why you're so stubborn and don't CALL SUPPORT.
They can provide the solution, we can provide a good talk

Please excuse my english as it's not my native language.

I have been talking to support. They just keep telling me that it's either me not optimizing the website properly, or I'm not using enough memory. I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall. I increase the memory to 838 MB but it still didn't make any difference, so I've proved them wrong on that count. And to rub salt in the wounds, all the other websites I have hosted with dream host are down at the moment with an internal server error. I'll advise anyone to steer well clear of dream host, they're absolutely useless.

In this case backup your files, db, etc and run away from this provider.
I can't guide you to another hoster but I saw sombody mentioned about GoDaddy.

Good Luck!

this is the latest development, a message from support, what do you reckon?

I was actually looking up your account due to a huge mysql problem, and I
think this would explain your problems with memory and slowness. The
problem are these queries below being ran on the "oscarlover" database.
They are taking over 2700 seconds (over 45 minutes) to run, causing your
oscarlover database to be locked and not usable, causing high load on the
tachibana mysql server which effects your databases and all other
customers on it, plus due to the slowness it makes your memory usage on
the web server go very high. We cannot allow such long running queries
on the shared hosting mysql server to cause high load. When I found the
mysql server, the load was in the high 20's (normal load is 1 to 3):

tachibana: 11:47 AM# uptime
11:47:33 up 388 days, 13:12, 1 user, load average: 26.90, 28.99, 23.73

after disabling the jos_fb_messages and jos_fb_messages_text tables the
load dropped dramatically:

tachibana: 11:55 AM# uptime
11:55:58 up 388 days, 13:20, 1 user, load average: 2.01, 11.26, 17.86

The problem is due to this database and the plugin or option in this
software that is using the jos_fb_messages table. As I mentioned I had
to disable these 2 tables by renaming, please disable this option or
plugin on all joomla installs and it will help your memory and cpu usage
on all sites and increase speed. If you absolutely must run the below 45
minute queries, you will need to move this database to more powerful
hosting as it has outgrown what shared hosting mysql can provide. You
can write me about the mysql usage issue at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

# User@Host: pennwood[pennwood] @
apache2-oscarfishlover.oscarfishlover.dreamhost.com [67.205.23.187]
# Query_time: 2704 Lock_time: 871 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 0
use oscarlover;
SELECT a. * , b.id as category, b.published as published, c.message as
message
FROM jos_fb_messages AS a LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_categories AS b on a.catid = b.id LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_messages_text AS c ON a.id = c.mesid
WHERE a.hold = 0 AND b.published = 1
AND b.pub_access = 0
ORDER BY a.time DESC
LIMIT 10;
# User@Host: pennwood[pennwood] @
apache2-oscarfishlover.oscarfishlover.dreamhost.com [67.205.23.187]
# Query_time: 2572 Lock_time: 739 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 0
SELECT a. * , b.id as category, b.published as published, c.message as
message
FROM jos_fb_messages AS a LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_categories AS b on a.catid = b.id LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_messages_text AS c ON a.id = c.mesid
WHERE a.hold = 0 AND b.published = 1
AND b.pub_access = 0
ORDER BY a.time DESC
LIMIT 10;
# User@Host: pennwood[pennwood] @
apache2-oscarfishlover.oscarfishlover.dreamhost.com [67.205.23.187]
# Query_time: 2662 Lock_time: 829 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 0
SELECT a. * , b.id as category, b.published as published, c.message as
message
FROM jos_fb_messages AS a LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_categories AS b on a.catid = b.id LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_messages_text AS c ON a.id = c.mesid
WHERE a.hold = 0 AND b.published = 1
AND b.pub_access = 0
ORDER BY a.time DESC
LIMIT 10;
# User@Host: pennwood[pennwood] @
apache2-oscarfishlover.oscarfishlover.dreamhost.com [67.205.23.187]
# Query_time: 2683 Lock_time: 850 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 0
SELECT a. * , b.id as category, b.published as published, c.message as
message
FROM jos_fb_messages AS a LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_categories AS b on a.catid = b.id LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_messages_text AS c ON a.id = c.mesid
WHERE a.hold = 0 AND b.published = 1
AND b.pub_access = 0
ORDER BY a.time DESC
LIMIT 10;
# User@Host: pennwood[pennwood] @
apache2-oscarfishlover.oscarfishlover.dreamhost.com [67.205.23.187]
# Query_time: 2552 Lock_time: 719 Rows_sent: 0 Rows_examined: 0
SELECT a. * , b.id as category, b.published as published, c.message as
message
FROM jos_fb_messages AS a LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_categories AS b on a.catid = b.id LEFT JOIN
jos_fb_messages_text AS c ON a.id = c.mesid
WHERE a.hold = 0 AND b.published = 1
AND b.pub_access = 0
ORDER BY a.time DESC
LIMIT 10;

TCF wrote:
I have taken a screenshot of the Web panel where I can change things. So give you an idea of the settings I am on,


Try FastCGI, not the best, but much better then CGI.