Don't know if this is the right forum to ask this, but what percentage of failed requests should a client be having before suspecting a serious problem with his host's server (assuming client has double-checked site to make sure all links are working)?

I don't think there is a certain percentage, but if you notice the screen coming up often, then it needs to be looked into.

Failed requests may indicate a few things:

1. The server is overloaded, and Apache is swarmed by requests and doesn't have the spare processes to deal with your particular requests.

2. Your routing to the host may be bad, and as such, some of the time, just fail to reach their server (and thus a failed request)

3. Apache may be crashing intermittently.


To check it out, try:

1. Troubleshooting to see that it isn't just a problem with your client's routing to the server. Try www.traceroute.org to check from various locations. Also try it from your client's location.

2. Use a free monitoring service like siteuptime.com or even the trial from Alerta.com or websitepulse.com and check whether the site is up at all for a period of time. If your client gets a lot of down messages, it means that Apache being down (or the whole server for that matter) may be a possibilty. Then you can have statistics to back your gut feel as well.

3. Lastly, if routing is not a problem, and neither is the server/services actually down, then you would have to look into the possibiliy of it being overloaded. Check the loads on the server during peak times for example.

Just some simple steps to get started.

You can also post your client's url and good folks around here may help you troubleshoot further.