Sites go down, load drops to cero, mysql lost connection errors...?

[Drowned]

This has been happening for the past 2 weeks, at around 7pm mostly, it seems every 2 days or so... all sites go down, the load drops to zero but the server is VEEERY SLOW, like the connection was maxed out... lots of mysql lost connection errors by vbulletin on my inbox... sites go backup after cpanel restarts everything itself...

What could cause something like this? There are ZERO clues in the logs I'm out of ideas

[jayh38]

Check for cronjobs on the server. If you are seeing 0 load in whm then most likely
the load is thru the roof. Monitor in top and or try ps aux to see what is running.

This could be something such as backups or some other system process which
is why it may not look obvious in the logs.

[AndyReed]

lots of mysql lost connection errors by vbulletin on my inbox...

What are these error messages?

[Drowned]

Check for cronjobs on the server. If you are seeing 0 load in whm then most likely
the load is thru the roof. Monitor in top and or try ps aux to see what is running.

This could be something such as backups or some other system process which
is why it may not look obvious in the logs.

I checked last night since it happened again and it wasn't at 0 all the time, but it was too low, like the cpu was just idling there... the server still was super slow.

I'm going to check the cronjobs...

[Drowned]

What are these error messages?

I'm running a vbulletin forum on my server and vbulletin is setup to send you an e-mail any time it gets a mysql error. It gives you a lot of details, like this:

Database error in vBulletin :

mysql_connect(): Lost connection to MySQL server during query
/home/client/public_html/forum/includes/class_core.php on line 273

MySQL Error :
Error Number :
Date : Saturday, November 18th 2006 @ 01:18:06 AM
Script : http://website.com/
Referrer :
IP Address : 220.92.24.149
Username : Unregisterd
Classname : vb_database

[Drowned]

My server seems to crash at around 7pm my time, 1am server time, which is exactly when the backup is made according to my crons... I'm going to delay the backup to 1am my time cause at 7pm the server's load is still high... wish me luck...

[jayh38]

You did not mention you had forums an probably a very large mysql databse.

When the backup runs, it will shut down mysql so that it can dump the
databases. This is why there is no response from the pages and the
load is low.

Schedule your backup for low usage time and perhaps tell your forum
admins to announce server maintenace times.