Hilary,
I hope to the sky that someone offers you better suggestions than they had for me when this happened to my WP-powered sites a year ago. Then, I was told my best option was to disable comments entirely.
The only solution I was able to find was to buy my own co-located servers (mucho deniro) so that I had dual-core processor chips and a lot of RAM dedicated solely to running my sites.
Shared hosting providers have to limit each site’s CPU and RAM usage to protect all the other sites on the server. Spammers know how popular WordPress is, how easy it is to automatically attack, and they do it often.
I genuinely wish you the best of luck.
Let me amend that. You can try installing Bad Behavior (a plug-in). For some sites, it does the trick. It didn’t help my sites against the spam onslaught, however, because, though the spam didn’t get through, Bad Behavior itself overloaded my former hosting company’s servers.
I’d second the BB plugin suggestion – it has come a LONG way and saves me a lot of grief.
Okay thank you I will try the BB plugin. 🙂
Can someone explain to me exactly what is happening though? Is it just because there are so many comments at once?
Hilary
Also, can this be used in conjunction with Spam Karma?
It’s because every comment requires wp_comments_post.php to execute and write to the database. So many comments, so close to one another, demand more CPU cycles and more RAM to make it work.
Spam Karma stops the spam from SHOWING on your site, but it doesn’t defend against spam getting INTO your site. SK only does its thing after the spam is already in the db.
Okay, got it.
I tried installing BB but it caused an error. I’m going to try it again tonight from home and see if I can get it to work. I’m having trouble ftping from my office.
Thanks for all of your help!
I was able to install BB properly from home. Apparently I needed to upload it using ascii. I activated the plugin, so cross those fingers.
Thanks again for your help!
Usually, every text (code) file should be upload as ascii and NOT binary. Most ftp client have the feature to recognize it automatically.
Gotcha.
I’m learning as I’m doing.
Will BB help with the trackback spam as well?
Okay, more questions.
What are the odds of BB blocking real comments instead of spam? Is there a way to see what was blocked? Etc…
Okay, strangely enough, I had been successful with the BB plugin, but earlier this week, it stopped working. The number of “access attempts” hasn’t changed in a few days, and my Spam Karma folder has been filled again.
Today, I noticed an update was available on the site, so I installed it, but it’s still not working.
Any ideas?
Hilary
I know this is an old topic, but until about a month ago, I was using Bad Behavior with no problem. Now my dashboard takes a good 30 seconds to load, commenting lags, publishing lags, and deleting/approving moderated comments also lags. At first I thought it was my hosting company’s problem, then I disabled and re-enabled each plugin individually, and lo and behold, the problem only existed when I had BB enabled.
Any thoughts? The lag is driving me nuts.
