Why does my site keep crashing?

[alisonellerbrook0]

Hi everyone,

Some of you will be familiar with the problems I've been experiencing with my web developer/website and it's something I'm going to meet with him about next week.

Can I ask for suggestions as to why my site might crash/go down?
I thought it might be a bandwidth problem, but apparently my hosting company (which I think is pipex) just charges me extra if I exceed my allowance, which I have not yet, so it cannot be that.

Quite often when I try to access my site -like right now - I get 'The page cannot be displayed' message... my developer has suggested it might be because I have a database driven site which might cause it to lock up.

Before I meet with him I would like to be able to go in with an educated opinion to the problem, I would like to work with him if possible, but if I decide to go elsewhere I want to give him a valid reason.

I'm just getting really frustrated with my site not being available and not getting a valid explanation as to why.

Thanks in advance,
Alison :)

[openmind]

The site being unavailable could be down to any number of reasons, a few are listed below:

The webserver has stopped - Can happen if it becomes overloaded or someone on the server runs a bad script

The application pool has stopped - Most shared hosts who run a lot of site on IIS6 dump all the sites into one application pool, kinda like a coral for cattle except in this case sites. If the pool stops, so do the sites. Happens a lot on shared servers where there are a lot of sites.

The database server has stopped - Would normally create an error message rather than a page not found though.

The DNS server has stopped - This is simply a server that handles all the domain name requests. If it stops it won't know where to send the request so you get a page not found.

The server is rebooting - Should only happen when patches are applied and even then at off-peak times

Your internet connection has failed - Can happen ;)

In short, if your hosting company lumps loads of sites onto one server, which Pipex are likely to do, then the chances of your site not being available do increase, and will further increase if the box is not managed correctly.

[alisonellerbrook0]

Phil - That's really helpful, thank you very much indeed!
I'm likely to be in touch with you in the future regarding my options for hosting etc...
Just want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt first!

[openmind]

No worries :)

I'm sure you won't but don't go in guns blazing as if this chap is a reseller there is nothing he can do about most of the problems as they are down to the provider.

If he runs his own dedicated servers though, as we do, then it his responsibility entirely to ensure the smooth running of the sites.

May well be worth finding out if he's a reseller or not. It's not a bad thing if he is, just that there will be less he can do to alleviate the issues...

[alisonellerbrook0]

Thanks for the tip, I'm going to be very gentle ;)

It's not just the hosting situation though, there's a few php/oscommerce issues I need sorted too, you don't happen to be a whizz kid with that as well do you?

[openmind]

Kid? Me?? Jeez I'll take that as a compliment! I thought I was over the hill at 33! :D

Can't really help on the osCommerce stuff I'm afraid but you might want to try Chris McKay at www.blackfusion.co.uk

He did the www.1st-for-furniture.co.uk site using osCommerce. I build all mine from scratch you see ;)

[sapphirewebdesign.co.uk]

We specialise in osCommerce developments if you are still interested?

Regards

Ryan

sales@sapphirewebdesign.co.uk