HTTP503 error message

Good afternoon,

Since a month or two I have been having problems that my website (www.protito.com) is not accessible at certain times, The result is an HTTP503 error message.

Explanation 503 error: indicates that a hosting package has a number of limits (CPU & RAM), we have set these limits so that not one customer can load an entire server to the point that other customers experience problems. Once a web hosting package hits one of these limits, the server will display an HTTP503 message to temporarily ‘cool down’ your package for a while. Once this has dropped to a normal point your package is released again. You can also view the limits yourself via Plesk under the heading ‘Resource Usage’ (See screenshot).

In the end, my hosting company indicates the following: "Just had a quick look and last night there was another spike. So the adjustment did not have the desired effect, although I did block another IP address which I see a lot passing by at the time. But still I would advise to take this issue to the makers of this software. www.steehouwer.com (befriended photographer who also works with BL 5) also suffers from this but to a lesser extent. So it is something in the operation of the application.

Who is right? Hosting company or does the problem lie with BL-5?

Hi @HTito, Backlight should run quite efficiently. It may be the case that the server limits aren’t provisioned adequately or you’re experiencing a lot of traffic, such as from bots or scrapers. Or a combination of the two.

Do you think the limit causing your host to through 503s is the “Io operations” in the second chart? Do you have access to server logs to see if you’re getting a lot of automatic traffic?

Hello Ben,

Thank you for your feedback.

The Bots & Scrapers are already blocked by the hosting company. In the meantime I have access to the log files to see for myself if there are any IP addresses that might be messing things up.