"SMF cannot connect to database" errors

[mikeselectricstuff]

Been seeing this error  quite a lot in the last week or so.
It tends to come up pretty instantly when it happens.
Usually OK on the  first retry though.

[EEVblog]

I see it occasionally.
No idea of the exact cause, but assuming it's the shared server getting temporarily overloaded.

Dave.

[patb]

Yeah, same here. I get also page load time-outs from time to time (not so uncommon).

[Joshua]

I concur with Mike. I also have had this same message frequently within the last couple of months. It usually goes away on the first refresh as well.

[Jimmy]

I haven't seen it once on this forum

It may depend on how many connections you can have on the database at any one time as the eevblog forum gets more users there is a better chance someone is using the forum at the exact same time as you. 

[Chet T16]

I've seen this a few times aswell but can't remember ever having a page timeout so it points to something internal between the forum and database.

Is the database on the same server or a different one? My current host uses a different server for databases so no more default 'localhost' in setting up. Generally it works fine but its another variable into the equation when tracking down problems

[EEVblog]

The forum is on the same server, using LocalHost

Dave.

[Neilm]

Ironically, I got the message when trying to view this.

Neil

[ndictu]

Dave: I'm not familiar with SMF but maybe there is an error log somewhere with more info? "Cannot connect" is too vague, could be that the databse doesn't respond to the request at all, or it could actively deny it for some reason.

Also, the database server probably keeps its own logs, maybe you could find something there. Depends on what you are using (MySQL?) and the settings.

It would probably help to know the time so you can search the logs easily, so next time this happens to me I'll post the exact time here. I suggest everyone would do this, a few timestamps should be enough. Also, make sure to use the server time (shown under your name on the top of the page) since it can be a little different from your local time.

[Kiriakos-GR]

The server has lots of slowdown issues the last 48 Hours,  CPU usage issue again ?
Dave check the logs .