WordPress MU

Hi, hope you can help with a problem on http://www.threesheetsnorthwest.com/devblog.

It is taking a very long time to load the site. I'll preface my question with the admission that I'm very new to php and sql.

I looked at the error log and this is an example of what I'm seeing:

[17-Aug-2009 20:17:59] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_1_posts.* FROM wp_1_posts INNER JOIN wp_1_term_relationships ON (wp_1_posts.ID = wp_1_term_relationships.object_id) INNER JOIN wp_1_term_taxonomy ON (wp_1_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id = wp_1_term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id) WHERE 1=1 AND wp_1_term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'category' AND wp_1_term_taxonomy.term_id IN ('0') AND wp_1_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_1_posts.post_status = 'publish') GROUP BY wp_1_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_1_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 4 made by require, require_once, include, WP_Query->WP_Query, WP_Query->query, WP_Query->get_posts 

[17-Aug-2009 20:17:59]
WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT FOUND_ROWS() made by require, require_once, include, WP_Query->WP_Query, WP_Query->query, WP_Query->get_posts [17-Aug-2009 20:17:59] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT t.*, tt.* FROM wp_1_terms AS t INNER JOIN wp_1_term_taxonomy AS tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id WHERE tt.taxonomy IN ('link_category') AND tt.count > 0 ORDER BY t.name ASC made by require, require_once, include, get_sidebar, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, WP_Widget->display_callback, WP_Widget_Links->widget, wp_list_bookmarks, get_terms 

[17-Aug-2009 20:17:59]
WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT DISTINCT p.id AS id, post_title, start, u.user_nicename AS author, allday FROM wp_1_ec3_schedule s LEFT JOIN wp_1_posts p ON s.post_id=p.id LEFT JOIN wp_users u ON p.post_author = u.id WHERE p.post_status='publish' AND end>='2009-08-17 00:00:00' ORDER BY start LIMIT 5 made by require, require_once, include, get_sidebar, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, ec3_widget_list, ec3_get_events

I'm wondering if this is related to the slow loading time, or if I have another problem.

One point to make clear which could be causing some of this (or not). I created /devblog to work on a new theme for primary blog. To populate the content, I imported posts from the main blog. Also, the theme I'm using uses thumb.php to dynamically resize images. Per the support forums on WooThemes, I hard coded the path to the image files as a work around.

All that said, any ideas what's going on?

Its a MySQL error, is the DB on the same server? Is it a shared or dedicated server?

I'm used Bluehost as my host. So I believe the DB would be on the same shared server.

Sanity check:

- turn off all plugins
- set it to the default theme

Then see if you have the same issues.

Wisdom. Thanks. I didn't have any plugins active on the site. But with the default theme it works just fine -- not very nice looking though :)

I'm guessing it is an issue with the theme. I'll check with those developers for any ideas. Thanks!

Okay,

So I spoke with the support folks at WooThemes and this is what one of their lead folks found:

I tested it with "Net" function in Firebug and it's not the loading of the theme that is slow, it's the main GET which comes before the actual loading of the theme.

http://www.jepson.no/u/xmtss3.png

That being said, I have no idea why it is loading fast on your default theme, but what this suggest is that there is something with WPMU that holds the loading for some reason.

This is beyond my skills. Would appreciate any thoughts on fixing this.

I would advise you to look into the theme and check for any SQL queries being fired to the DB. It probably causes the slowdown and the other SQL queries to fail.

Hi all.

@andrewgerssen. Thanks, but the theme developers say the slow down in in the main GET, before the theme loads. Still think it could be a theme issue?

It sounds like I have a similiar issue as noted here: http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic/11210

But I would like to find a solution that doesn't require me to switch providers :)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There's a plugin that may help find stuff:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-debug/
or
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-devel/