Bandwith problem.

[F.C.Dosh]

Hey all,

When I am working on my site, I need to refresh the browser very often to see the results of my work.

Now my site got blocked by the host(hostbig) for having to much bandwidth?!
And I should have unlimited bandwidth, so I don't understand why the host would block me for having too much traffic.

It is is already unblocked now, but I fear I'm gonna have more trouble with my host in the future.

Costumer support said to optimize my site.
I told him that it is optimized(sort of) and he ignored my comment about me refreshing very often.

Now my question is this:
Is there a way to edit WordPress sites offline?

Don't know what to do...Might go to a other host.

Not happy at the moment about the host.


Cheers,

[universal4]

F.C. drop me a link in pm please.

If you have already had issues, you may also in the future, unless they had your site flagged wrong and wasn't in an unlimited bandwith category.

Also, there are some hosts out there who advertise unlimited bandwith, until a client comes along that uses real bandwith and then they have a chat with them.

Bandwith is a LOT more expensive than web hosts and service providers want their clients to know, and what they do NOT tell clients is that (usually) hundreds of non-successful or little to no traffic clients actually pay the bandwith bill of larger clients.

Also with many of the changes in ip's and the fact that they are virtually sold out bandwith charges have become a more prevelant line item on most service providers bills.

You can't really edit a word press site offline, except for editing the database directly, and you would need server access for that, and I do not recommend performing edits that way unless it is absolutely necessary since one wrong move or edit in a table and you could render the entire site unusable. (I know there are a few workarounds and ways to do this, but only advanced users and tech's should even consider it)

If they did in fact cut you off for BW, I would be extremely interested in knowing what the threshold was when they flipped the switch. To reach it by the 15th-20th of the month, you could jeopardize this happening more frequently.

Rick
Universal4

[BlackjackInfo]

This sounds quite odd. I cannot imagine that even the most refresh-happy developer could use enough bandwidth for a host to become concerned.
Are you sure that your site isn't delivering audio or video files that you are unaware of? If the site was hacked for example, that could cause something like this.

You definitely should follow up with the host to see what kind of usage you actually incurred. Something doesn't sound right.

[F.C.Dosh]

F.C. drop me a link in pm please.

Pm send.

[F.C.Dosh]

If they did in fact cut you off for BW, I would be extremely interested in knowing what the threshold was when they flipped the switch. To reach it by the 15th-20th of the month, you could jeopardize this happening more frequently

Well, as far as I can see, I think the threshold is around 500Mb, which is odd, because the forum on the same server(forum.bla-bla) has used up even more than the site has, and the forum was never blocked.

I do have latency issues also to my site, since the beginning of this year, and I can't really see anything out of the ordinary on my site.

Cheers,

[F.C.Dosh]

This sounds quite odd. I cannot imagine that even the most refresh-happy developer could use enough bandwidth for a host to become concerned.
Are you sure that your site isn't delivering audio or video files that you are unaware of? If the site was hacked for example, that could cause something like this.

You definitely should follow up with the host to see what kind of usage you actually incurred. Something doesn't sound right.

Indeed, something is going on here...Wish I knew what...

Cheers,

[universal4]

Well if they cut you off for 500MB then they need to explain why, especially if you are on an unlimited plan.

If I had a client that had a single site that did that in BW I certainly wouldn't be cutting them off, I would keep an eye on it, but no reason to go into panic mode. If you also have other sites on the same server it could be the combined BW put you over the limit.

I have entire servers that do approximately that per month, and I usually know when a box sees an increase of more than that any given day, but these are good indicators for hacks, and hack attempts. In fact a serious hack attempt could easily eat up a few hundred megs a day and large attempts can be a few gigs a day.

The really serious attacks can throw 100megs (or more) at a box per second, but those kinds of attacks usually are followed by requests for 5 figures to stop them....but those are usually thrown at banks and insurance companies now a days.

Now if your figure was 500GB that would be a whole different realm and I would have noticed that kind of traffic spike days into the month not weeks.

And, none of this excuses the fact that they have all your contact details and they turned your site off with first contacting you. They are a semi-large host, but that is no excuse for not kicking out an email with a warning of some sort before just turning the site off.

It might not hurt to get a tech on the phone or chat and get them to verify the actual BW that triggered this, as well as find out if the bulk of this was incoming or outgoing traffic. If it was incoming, it was either incoming spam or was a syn/ack attack.

If it was outgoing, was it accross the entire 16-17 days or was it mostly a short period of time.

Is email on that box also?

Is the server shared with other sites?

Was the high BW usage only YOUR site?

I took a look at the site and although I see some images that could be optimized, without some answers to at least some of the questions it really isn't enough information to make a determination on the course of action. It wouldn't hurt to know the answers since if you plan to move the site, you wanna make sure to pick a host that can handle your needs well.

They should honestly not have a problem answering the questions, you do have a right to know the answers as a client.

Also, if you have site stats, especially Smarterstats or awstats, or google analytics you should be able to see if traffic has spiked recently.

Rick
Universal4

[F.C.Dosh]

Also, if you have site stats, especially Smarterstats or awstats, or google analytics you should be able to see if traffic has spiked recently.

Hi,

First, thanks for your extensive reply, really appreciate it.

I do have awstats and stuff, and after looking in the bandwidth stats, I found out the site is close to using 500MB a day....Some day's even more.

I have to teach myself these things, so I don't know everything...Yet

But looking in these statistic thingy's I should know more in a while.
It just takes a bit longer.

Still looking at all these statistics, hope to know more in a while.

Cheers,

[rak]

Hi,

Totally unusual for your site to be dropped for using too much bandwidth if its on unlimited bandwidth.

Normally, your site would be put into offline mode if you used too much CPU. This is a common problem for webmasters who are on shared hosting (plugins and widgets can do this to your site)

or your IP, can be blocked from accessing the site, if you keep hitting your site while you are developing it. The activity looks suspicious to the host, and they block your IP for some hours, or 24hrs.

[F.C.Dosh]

your IP, can be blocked from accessing the site, if you keep hitting your site while you are developing it. The activity looks suspicious to the host, and they block your IP for some hours, or 24hrs.

Hi,

I did had that problem couple of months after starting the site. I got frequently blocked by the firewall of the host.
But, (and that's a very good thing of the host) the live support always have been very helpful and corrected the problems right away.

Cheers,

[universal4]

OK, 500 megs a day is a different story and this is actually quite a bit of bandwith for a single site.

Maybe not out of line, if the traffic warrants that bandwith.

I would be interested in know the ratio of incoming/outgoing and whether that includes email.

Rick
Universal4

[F.C.Dosh]

I would be interested in know the ratio of incoming/outgoing and whether that includes email.

Http usage was almost 6 Gig for the month of April.
May is up to 1.6 Gig now.

Haven't found in and outgoing details yet....

Interesting fact is: all the months before April had average of 500+ Mb a month.

So I think What Rak suggested about plugins and widgets may actually be the problem here as I do experiment with widgets and plugins now and then.

Did some plugin changes and the latency problem is resolved...For now.
Can't change too much, or I don't know what caused the main problem.


Cheers,

[universal4]

If http traffic is only 1.6 GB and you are doing 500MB a day in total BW, there is a lot of BW being used somewhere and I would want to know where that BW is going.

If it is a plugin, I would be very wary of any plugin that caused a lot of bw that wasn't visitor traffic, which means some sort of data has to be going in or out.

If a plugin is sending data out and it isn't sending it to your visitors, where is it going?

Rick
Universal4

[universal4]

Bytheway, if you are using a lot of ftp BW and it isn't you, someone may have compromised your ftp, hopefully that isn't the case.

Considering the numbers you posted, there is 400megs a day not accounted for.

Rick
Universal4

[rak]

I think universal might be onto something in regarding FTP.

I think you need to make sure anon FTP is disabled
and you also need to change your cpanel / FTP password.

I would also change your WP password.

[F.C.Dosh]

I think universal might be onto something in regarding FTP.

I think you need to make sure anon FTP is disabled
and you also need to change your cpanel / FTP password.

I would also change your WP password.

Looked at the bandwidth data and saw that ftp is hardly used at all, only me as far as I can tell.
Also if I log in to cp, I can see the last ip that has logged in, and it is always my ip.

So I don't think my cp password is compromised.
However, changing the password is still a good idea.

But in cp, awstats gives different numbers than the bandwidth stats.

Also I see that the forum pulls way more Gb,'s, I wonder why that wasn't blocked.

Well, gonna change some pw's and keep searching, hope to know more in a while.


Thanks and cheers,

[F.C.Dosh]

Just found out that the search widget for my site generates quite some requests from spambots.
Removed it..See what happens

Cheers,