Thread:Project:Support desk/No database connections left anymore on busy days

Hi,

For DeurneWiki we have every sunday afternoon and evening the problem that the site is often not available. I strongly suspect that the number of databaseconnections left is zero.

Some backgroundinfo:
 * on sundays appx 500 too 600 unique visitors a day.
 * in myphpadmin: max databaseconnections = 200
 * mysql database is non-peristent (persitent is not allowed acc. to phpinfo)
 * connect timeout is set to 10 seconds... (The maximum number of seconds before a connection to the MySQL server will time out. Possible values range from 2 to 999999999 seconds.)
 * extensions I use that probably use extra connections: catagorytree (a lot on mainpage); randomimage; whoisonline (the new one)
 * the provider is convinced the max_connections of 200 is sufficient; he is convinced the problem is is mediawiki code not closing connections; myself find this hard to believe since mediawiki has evolved to extreme quality nowadays.

My questions are:
 * 1) given the info above, could it indeed be that nr of free connections is zero?
 * 2) when is a mysql connection closed: instantaniously or after "connect timeout" seconds?
 * 3) any suggestions how to solve this?

versions:
 * mediawiki 1.16.0
 * php 5.2.9 (cgi-fcgi)
 * database: MySql 5.0.77-log