Everything freezes for 2.1 minutes before returning

Since early November we have had trouble, everything seems to work as normal on the website until you try to log into admin or place or delete an order - at that point everything freezes for 2.1 minutes before returning (also sometimes resulting in "MySQL server has gone away" errors). When it's frozen nobody can access the website they need to wait as well. Using OC 2.0.2.0 with Journal theme.

Didn't make any changes and I went so far as deleting our entire store and database and restoring from early October backups from well before problems started. Talked to Hostgator Tier 2 support and they claim nothing has changed on the server. Searched through everything I could find with no luck, really desperate for any advice on what could be wrong.

For instance when I go to login I enter the username and password and the using developer console I see this result:
https://windycitycabinet.com/admin/inde ... mmon/login

Queued at 0
Started at 23.49 ms

Resource Scheduling
Queueing 23.49 ms

Connection Start
Stalled 0.74 ms

Request/Response
Request Sent 0.23 ms
Waiting (TTFB) 2.1 MINUTES <===== !
Content Download 1.30 ms


HEADERS

General
Request URL: https://windycitycabinet.com/admin/inde ... mmon/login
Request Method: POST
Status Code: 302
Remote Address: 192.185.58.93:443
Referrer Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade

Response Headers
cache-control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
cache-control: private, no-cache, no-store, proxy-revalidate, no-transform
content-length: 0
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
date: Wed, 13 Nov 2019 17:23:06 GMT
expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
location: https://windycitycabinet.com/admin/inde ... d60cf04736
pragma: no-cache
pragma: no-cache
server: Apache
status: 302
vary: User-Agent
x-powered-by: PHP/5.4.45

Request Headers
:authority: windycitycabinet.com
:method: POST
:path: /admin/index.php?route=common/login
:scheme: https
accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3
accept-encoding: gzip, deflate, br
accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.9
cache-control: no-cache
content-length: 422
content-type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundaryzbAMyBJIi7LRot5W
cookie: PHPSESSID=319a20d0d5b72f95a322cac4b7e3f2f4; _ga=GA1.2.247165866.1536677763; __utmc=181760289; __hssrc=1; hubspotutk=0603b3a70ea9a2486be90509a8c964d7; language=en; currency=USD; __utmz=181760289.1572882235.11.3.utmcsr=ads.google.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/aw/overview; __hstc=90687557.0603b3a70ea9a2486be90509a8c964d7.1537802221990.1572882235164.1573235057651.12; _gid=GA1.2.429408237.1573594661; __utma=181760289.247165866.1536677763.1573597853.1573664840.17; jrv=66%2C7%2C28%2C68%2C58%2C15%2C25%2C47; __utmt_UA-66410899-1=1; __utmb=181760289.15.10.1573664840
origin: https://windycitycabinet.com
pragma: no-cache
referer: https://windycitycabinet.com/admin/inde ... mmon/login
sec-fetch-mode: navigate
sec-fetch-site: same-origin
sec-fetch-user: ?1
upgrade-insecure-requests: 1
user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_12_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/77.0.3865.120 Safari/537.36
Query String Parameters
route: common/login

Form Data
username: storemanager
password: XX- My Password- XX
redirect: https://windycitycabinet.com/admin/inde ... mmon/login

P.S. I had a old Hubspot account that recently expired. Could that have anything to do with it? I took out everything I could find in OpenCart related to it and it didn't help but I don't know if theres something lurking around still.

There's a pretty high chance, that you've been hacked. MySQL error sometimes has nothing to do with issues with server. The only way to find the root of issue is by debugging and checking your files.

I replaced the entire public_html with a backup and went through the sql database. What else should I look at? Is there any way to figure out what is happening just before those two minutes that would give me some direction? Thanks for the advice

There's absolutely no point to restore backup. You could've been hacked a year ago and issue only started to happen now. The only way is to use malware scanner and scan your files. Then you have to remove malicious code, but this requires some understanding and skills.

I finally gave up, nothing would fix it.
Went away for the weekend and now everything is back to working perfectly.
Hostgator claims they didn't change anything over the weekend.
So I don't know what the deal is, some cache problem or something.

And the problems back. Afraid I'm giving up on opencast and going to Wordpress.

WindyCabinet wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:40 am

And the problems back. Afraid I'm giving up on opencast and going to Wordpress.

If you can't solve the issue yourself due to the lack of skills, you can always pay a developer to do it for you. WordPress can produce issues as well and you will have to solve them one way or another. Every framework requires some management.

That's true but it seems that my hosting company doesn't have any experience with OpenCart, so if I switch at least I would get better support on that end. It's been a few years since making our site and really needs a redo anyways. OpenCart development doesn't seem to be very popular, around here at least.
I assume my problem has to be on the server side since it comes and goes, and not being able to get help from HostGator leaves me without many options.

WindyCabinet wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:58 pm

and not being able to get help from HostGator leaves me without many options.

maybe swap hosting ?