CPU Over Usage Dolphin 7.1 with flash/XML.php

I just got this message:

This message is to advise you of a temporary block placed on your account. This account was found to be consuming an inordinate amount of processor time, to the point of degrading overall system performance. While we do limit each account to no more than 25% of a system's CPU in our terms of service, we do not actively disable accounts until they greatly exceed that number, which is what happened in this case. 

Requests to this scripts under this account may become degraded by limiting the ability for scripts to run for a limited amount of time, or if the issue persists, we may be forced to restrict how fast processes can be spawned until the issue has been resolved. 

We recommend taking steps to reduce the overall CPU usage for the account, which may be as simple as generating a flat HTML page for popular content, or enabling caching that is available through many popular scripts, or disabling high CPU usage features such as searches or Ajax refreshes. Although we may not be able to help in all cases, we would be more than happy to assist if you are unable to determine any cause, or if you need help interpreting any of the information. 

CPU seconds used in the past hour: 5968.70999999944, 166% CPU 

/flash/XML.php?module=im&action=updateInvite&recipient=8&_t 

Please Help

Get off of shared hosting which is about as much use for Dolphin as a chocolate fireguard and get at the very least a VPS.

I am not sure why everyone bashes shared hosting packages when it comes to Dolphin. You can most definitely run Dolphin on shared. I know cause I did it for years before Zarconia was created. 

On the other hand I will say that it really depends on the 'hoster'. Yes, there are some out there who would rather have you pay a higher payment for something like VPS or Dedicated then to be on shared. If the shared environment servers are configured/optimized properly, there is absolutely no reason you can't run Dolphin on a shared host. So I have to disagree that running Dolphin on a shared hosting is 'useless'.

@rhinorob, you just may be on one of those 'hosters'.

Yes, you very well may be on a hoster that has over sold the server, or the server is low end or they are just being pricks.

Anyhow. A number of things could be causing this. Spammers trying to hit the instant messenger, even search engines crawling the site.

You may want to start by adding flash/XML.php to a robots.txt file to prevent the search engines from trying to crawl it.

How many active members are online at the time this happens may also provide a clue. If you have a lot of active members it may be time to get off of shared.

My Hosting company is Hostgator and they have excellent support. I have been using them for years.

I only had 3 active members online ... 

Where do I enable caching ... all the forums talk about admin/advanced settings/templates  ... this is not the path for 7.1. Please help.

Also, I could not find any info on flash/XML.php ... for 7.1 ... This file seems to be the problem

Host Gator is not only fantastic they are brilliant when tasked with helping.  IMHO if you do not have users or content I am sure while building your site a shared hosting will work all an until the first part of this is no longer true. 

The question and riddle is knowing the time the first point no longer is valid.  IF and I stress IF you grow your site the shared hosting package is out of the question.  EVEN though 7.1 helped on this matter when you factor in so many variables that you may not be aware of yet it can make an enormous difference.  Video uploads for one and the task of dealing with the processing of those video's can be eliminated if you only allow youtube viewing or IOW no uploading of your own video's.  IF you want your clients to be able to upload their own video's then there is math to be done and a theory of how many at once...

• Video's
• MP3's
• File's
• Chat Feature
• Video Comment's
• Picture Uploads
• Type Communication MOD or Stock Dolphin
• SQL searches

Now for the mystical calculation of math that asks you to understand what each signed in user will do why online and will they do it collectivity and at what point in the time they are there.  Good Luck with that one.  ONLY and I stress only can time and prior activity for each given site even approach such a calculation and it can change in a moment by a simple addition of a new mod!

No matter how you approach this having the most extreme machine will only deal with even an average site or simply search and pay attention to the countless posts over the years about services that canceled stopped or threaten to do both by the host of Dolphin shared server accounts.

It is as simple as this if you want to play, play with a shared server if you are serious about what you want to do and how you want to do it step up when you can and get a race horse.  Unless you understand the mystical calculation of math and can tweak every setting that you are not allowed to tweak on a shared server...    

Yup, ffmpeg eats resources like I eat peanut M&Ms.. (Note: I really enjoy peanut M&Ms). Seriously uploading videos is normally what is causing these warnings.

It might come down to resources. Shared hosting is obviously limited, but vps is almost just as limited in some cases. A little more is allowed, but I have seen a shared host out perform a vps minus the root access. So it really depends from one situation to the next.

xml.php is causing the same problems on my server.  It basically causes a DoS attack and the site falls to its knees in agony.  Error logs during the time interval indicates xml.php

One mentioned blocking the crawlers from accessing the file.  Anything else?

congrats on out growing shared hosting!!.. means you are moving up!

Interesting; a report 1079 Days Ago. and the final answer was, go read the wiki.  Now here we are with a brand new release of Dolphin and it is acting as its own DoS attacker to bring the server down.  Isn't that just peachy?

Meant to hit to hit the quote button and instead hit the report button; this is the second time.  Boonex, move that report button somewhere else than beside the quote button; I am not the only one hitting it by mistake.

Now, my quote was going to say that I am on a dedicated server.  When you have a built in DoS attacker, it does not matter what server you are on.

 me and newton and pranshank was working on a ded i bought this weekend, a brand new one that was just fired up and getting its first band new install with brand new ips and everything.. soon as it was turned over to us it was under a doss .. true story!

was told "uhh if that srver you just got is getting dossed minutes after you get it, it might be a sign" 

 Yes this is a big thing, i had a client who purchased one of our pre configured dolpin hosting packages that started to get a lot of members (unaware she was purchasing member lists), this started to slow her site, but the tickets from her it was always a server issue, the server admins helped to optimise her site, but still laged the server, so i suggested she upgrade to a VPS ( not a great deal more than she was paying for her account), but got back 'cant afford a VPS' but she continued to purchase more members.  it got to a point that cpanel could not do a backup of her site and an FTP backup would time out. this even effected our daily backups as these would fail when it come to her site.  she was not happy when i told her we could no longer host her site

 Just so I understand you correctly.. someone setting up Dolphin and then using a database of fake profiles lagged your server, so much so that backups wouldn't even work? 

I'm on Zarconia with a dedicated and I see the result of the xml file as well. It comes as reports to me in my cron emails from the server. Constantly spiking. It always has since 2009 when I joined and set up my first Dolphin site. There have been dozens and dozens of members who have complained about this issue since I've been here, one notable post caused a flurry of attacks against Arvixe that got completely out of hand. (I'm not defending Arvixe by any stretch, just pointing out what started it).

This is an issue that has been long ignored by the Boonex team.... It's in the cabinet with all the other 'forgotten and ignored' issues.

We have other options now. Maybe it's time to completely dump Flash from Dolphin.

Yes, the server logs are peppered with the xml error.  However, this past instance was the worst and it took the site down; I thought we had been under an attack but it was xml.php instead.  This should be a "stop the presses" thing; a part of Dolphin that can take your site down; basically as a DoS attack would, is not a good thing.  This is way more important than an alert box that pops up or some css that is out of whack or even double posting in the Chat.