Note: The solution presented in this post requires a core modification. As you may probably know by now, core modifications are delicate and may be wiped out with the next Joomla update. Please proceed with caution if you elect to implement the below.
If you’re running a high traffic Joomla website, then you probably have already noticed that a huge number of queries are actually updates to the #__session table. This is because every page load on the website creates/deletes/updates a row in the #__session. Naturally, these heavy write activities (again, we are talking about websites with a considerable amount of traffic) may cause load issues on the server.
Of course, you can always switch the #__session table’s storage engine to Memory instead of MyISAM or InnoDB, which is a good practice that we encourage, but this won’t solve the issue completely, because all these write activities, even on Memory tables, can still cause load issues (this is because every time any table is updated, all the MySQL query cache related to that table in any way will be wiped out).
Now, in order to reduce write activities to the #__session table on large websites, we have devised a quick, but very efficient, solution that requires a core modification. Here it is:
- Open the file database.php located under the libraries/joomla/session/storage folder.
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At the very beginning of the method write (which is defined around line 68 in Joomla 3.4.4) of the aforementioned database.php file, add the following code:
if (JRequest::getVar( 'view' ) == 'article' || JRequest::getVar( 'view' ) == 'category'){ return true; } -
Save the file and upload it back.
Once you do the above, you will notice a slight-but-not-very-slight drop in the load of the database server, since Joomla will no longer write to the session table when someone is just viewing an article or a category. Not too bad for a couple of lines of code, huh?
If you want to implement the above solution and you need help (or if you implemented the above solution and you noticed that it didn’t work for you), then please contact us. We will implement it for you for a very affordable fee, we’ll make sure that it really works, and you will gain new friends!