I run a high traffic site, hundreds of nodes, typically several hundred visitors are on at any given time.

My problem is with drupal cache. I can't remember where, but I remember reading that Drupal cache is completely cleared everytime any node is added/edited..etc

This is exactly when my site will hang up. During peak hours, if one of our writers contributes a node, our server will overload and crash.

What are my options? I've heard about file based cache, will this help me enough to fix the problem.

Also, why does drupal cache work in that way. I can understand taht one node being added can affect a lot of things, but why clear the entire cache all at once? Why update entire cache once a day (set time to some off hour with low traffic, and then only update homepage + node, not all the hundreds that exist.)

Thanks for any information,

Tom-E

Comments

Tom-E’s picture

this issue is extremely important, my site is going down regularly, i dont know what to do.

Could someone please advise me of anything I could do to fix drupal cache? is this something thats planned for the future?

Tom-E

mudanoman’s picture

Tom-e,

Have you found any resolution. We are having the same issue on our site. Trying to find a solution.

Thanks,

Ivan

PS. feel free to email me

kbpair’s picture

I am designing a site where users will be adding lots of small content. Do anybody know when they started to see the problem? How many nodes?

Also does adding a comment cause the problem or just nodes?

mudanoman’s picture

For the site I am working on, we have ~20k pages and seem to get the freeze/stall when editing/deleting/adding nodes. Still trying to investigate the problem and will definitely report back. Best, Ivan

Vako’s picture

It's been 4 years since this post was posted and I am having the same issue now with version 6.19. Am surprised to see that this still is an issue and this post didn't get a proper solution.
I am sure Drupal.org is getting a lot of hits per day and wonder how they manage the DB size and all...
Is this a well-kept secret? why isn't there a solution for high-traffic sites??

pyshgavak’s picture

You're not alone, I have exactly the same issue. Thousand of nodes, tons of visitors but the site is now crashing during every peak. My hosting team blame my cache system, especially my ad module (ad module + flash module). Is anybody can help or refere to some solution somewhere...

DIMSKK’s picture

Hi,

I have found this article:

http://2bits.com/articles/drupal-core-caching-and-contributed-content-ca...

Hope it helps.
momi

mattwmc’s picture

mikeaja’s picture

I would also recommend looking at the hosting. This type of problem sounds like a side-effect of cheap hosting. 100's of visitors at a time shouldn't be a problem on a decent VPS or dedicated. Many people try to run such sites on overloaded shared hosting.

DIMSKK’s picture

Use Boost and authcache module (With cache router module and file system) to remove caching system from database, because they use file system for cache.

I have experienced 5000%+ performance increase by using these module. Page load time has increased from 5000+ milliseconds to just 20 to 50 milliseconds.

Boost can be configured in a way that cache does not clear on any node add/edit operation. I think work is also in progress on this feature for authcache.