I'm getting no answers from my host, but I suspect their DB servers are compromised.
I was getting some ridiculous page loads for requests to a standard WordPress installation – upwards of 30 seconds, and always multiples of 30 plus a normal load time, so it might be 32 seconds, or 122 seconds, or 211 seconds for example. This was even for ajax requests for the simplest of tasks.
I then started getting Mysql has gone away errors, sometimes, but not always, in addition to max_connected_users errors.
After querying SHOW STATUS WHERE Variable_name LIKE '%onn%' I noticed that the Connections variable was increasing at the rate of 10 a second.
My question is, is this normal? Would there possibly be hidden host processes that would increase the Connections by this much, constantly, and take up active connections and processing power that limit my access to the DB?
Best Answer
10 Connections per second is rather high. Still, about 1/4 of production servers I have looked at (WP and non-WP) show a higher value for Connections/Uptime.
Check the web server's log files -- you may find that a hacker is trying to break through your passwords or security flaws in WP.