December 15, 2025

5 Signs Your Website Is About to Crash

The Titanic didn't sink instantly. First came the hit, then water in the holds, and only then — disaster. Your website is the same. It "screams" for help long before it crashes. Do you know how to read these signals?

Checklist: Symptoms of Imminent Death

                        🔴 CRITICAL WARNINGS:
                    
                        [WARN] TTFB rose to 800ms (avg: 120ms)
                    
                        [WARN] DB Connections: 98/100 used
                    
                        [ERR] Out of Memory: Kill process 'postgres'
                    
                        [ERR] 502 Bad Gateway (Rate > 2%)
                    
*If you see this in logs — call NineLab.

1. TTFB Growth (Time to First Byte)

If the server thinks longer than 200ms before giving the first byte — this is the first bell. It means code or database is already working at the limit.

2. "Too many connections" in DB

Every SQL request requires a connection. If the pool is full, new users just get an error. This is a classic scaling problem.

3. Disk Swap

The scariest sign. When RAM ends, the server starts using HDD/SSD as memory. Disk is 100,000 times slower than RAM. The site turns into a pumpkin instantly.

4. Growth of 5xx Errors

One 500 error per day is an accident. Ten errors per hour is a pattern. 1% errors of total traffic is a fire.

5. Log Silence

Sounds strange, but if logs suddenly stopped writing, maybe you just ran out of disk space. This is "silent death".

Advice: Configure alerts in Zabbix or Prometheus. Learn about problems before your users write an angry tweet.