Starmometer has been down for approximately 14 hours (or at least down from time to time) from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. because it has exceeded server load. Prior to the exceeded server load error, the site has also experienced PHP error and CPU exceeded error. If you have noticed or if the said errors were displayed while you are accessing the site for the last 7 days, it means there are a number of scripts running at the same time (due to the flow of traffic) that the site has reached the limit as set by the server hosting it.

I don’t get these technical stuffs easily but here is the message sent by my server’s customer support:

You are limited to 40 cpu seconds of cpu time in a 1 minute window. This is cumulative. So within 60 seconds if you have 400 tasks taking 0.10 seconds each you will exceed your quota. Then ALL tasks will fail until after the tasks stop for a five minute window. Then the error will clear.

You must limit your usage to less than 40 CPU seconds for each 1 minute window. (A CPU second is a normal second for each process. IE: if you have 10 processes running all at the same time for one second its not one second, it counts as 10. One second for each process. Everything is cumulative.)

I apologize for those times that you should be accessing our site but the error messages were displayed instead. Rest assured that i’m doing my best to resolve this matter. I am also considering to transfer to a more powerful server so that everyone of you, our most valued visitors and avid followers, will enjoy Starmometer without delays and without further interruptions.

Chris