Take a look at these screenshots of server CPU usage as a result of a problem with ActiveForums. 

What appears to happen is that ActiveForums corrupts the indexes (or moves many records) of its posts table, resulting in *each* click on a thread requiring near 100% CPU usage for several seconds.  When multiple users are clicking on  threads, the CPU is continuously stressed as it churns through 200,000 records with no index.  Users complain (and I have witnessed firsthand) *extreme* slowdowns in viewing individual threads and posting message, but not in topic listings. 

You'll see in the pictures the dramatic difference reindexing and defragmenting *just* the ActiveForums "NTForums_Posts" table has on the server:

ActiveForums_3pm_Sunday1.jpg
ActiveForums_3pm_Sunday2.jpg
ActiveForums_7pm_Sunday1.jpg
ActiveForums_7pm_Sunday2.jpg
ActiveForums_7pm_Sunday3.jpg

Notice that the first 2 snapshots were taken only 4 hours before the second 3 snapshots.  I've had this problem reoccur within an hour.  I've had the DNN forums running fine on this server for 2 weeks prior to switching to ActiveForums. 

As a temporary fix I have the ActiveForums NTForums_Posts table being reindexed and defragmented every 15 minutes to reduce the time the server is "broken".  For example, if it breaks at 9:09 PM, it will only be broken for 6 minutes, at which point the reindex/defragment script shown in the first picture runs and fixes the table.

The server is a brand new dual core 3.2 Ghz Dell with 4 GB of memory running enterprise Windows Server 2003 and the full SQL server 2005.  I've had no problem like this on any table besides the ActiveForums NTForums_Posts table, including the DNN forums I was running previously with the same posts.  

I've emailed with ActiveForums for more than a week now, but they have offered no possible fixes, and refuse to tell me which performance counters I should log or which stored procedure is used for the ActiveForums search (a possible cause of the problem).  Can someone here offer me some debugging advice for determining the cause of this problem?

Regards,

Mike

Mike,

We offered, on more than one occassion, to look at your database.  We asked for a backup of the database or for access to the server.  We also provided you with links to articles on performance tuning your indexes.  Instead you wanted us to tell you how to troubleshoot the problem, which we can't until we could get a full picture of what we are dealing with.

My offer still stands.

Will