Hi, we’re experiencing this issue with OJS 3.3.0.21. What happens is that the SQL query I’ve copied below starts running, and MySQL ends up consuming all the CPU. I assume it might be a problem caused by bots ‘overloading’ the server, but suspect there’s an underlying issue. We haven’t been able t…

Hi, @AndresS This is a well-known “query of death” performance issue in OJS 3.3.x, and your suspicion is correct: it is almost certainly caused by bots. Of course, without full access to your server logs, this is just a diagnosis based on common patterns, so my opinion isn’t an absolute truth. How…

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SQL query uses all the CPU and OJS stops responding

Software Support

mpbraendle October 24, 2025, 6:49am 3

Looks like this is caused by the recommend similar articles plugin. See this thread.

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