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Check this Issue When XStore Core Plugin Is Active

This topic has 23 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 months ago ago by Alex Carter

David Zoque

Participant

July 26, 2025 at 14:50

Hello, good morning.

Ever since I installed the XStore theme, my server’s CPU usage remains consistently at 100%, even when there are no visitors on the site. Accessing the WordPress wp-admin panel becomes painfully slow. The only way to stop the high CPU usage is by deactivating the XStore Core plugin — but of course, that’s not a real solution.

This has been an ongoing issue for about 1–2 years now. At some point, the theme became practically unusable. I even had to migrate a client’s website to a semi-dedicated server just to manage the resource consumption, which is not sustainable in the long run.

Please be honest — do you plan to fix this? Because as it stands, your theme is unusable on a shared hosting environment with 2 GB of RAM and 1 CPU at 3.8GHz (Banahosting). Around two years ago, it worked perfectly fine in such environments.

This issue happens even on fresh installations. I’ve already ruled out other plugins and external causes. It’s honestly incredible that the CPU stays maxed out without any traffic — and as soon as the XStore Core plugin is deactivated, everything goes back to normal.

If there’s no plan to optimize your theme for more typical hosting environments again, then unfortunately, this will be the last time I use XStore for a client project.

Please provide a clear answer or update regarding this.

Best regards,

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#450864 Copied Theme version: 9.5.2 WooCommerce version: 10.0.4

22 Answers

Alex Carter

Support staff

July 26, 2025 at 16:31

Hello,

1/ We sincerely appreciate your detailed feedback and are truly sorry to hear about the difficulties you’ve been experiencing with the XStore theme and the XStore Core plugin. We understand how frustrating high CPU usage can be, especially when it impacts the performance of your website and your ability to manage client projects efficiently.

Please rest assured that performance optimization is a priority for our development team. We are continuously working to improve the efficiency of our theme and its associated plugins, including the XStore Core plugin. Each of our updates includes performance improvements.

We kindly ask you to download the latest archives for testing from the Private Content Area.

2/ In order to investigate the cause of the slow loading on your server—whether it may be due to bot attacks or excessive crawling—we kindly request that you provide us with your cPanel access credentials. This will enable us to conduct a thorough analysis and assist you more effectively.

For your reference, you may find this related discussion helpful: https://www.8theme.com/topic/my-website-cpu-usage-100-after-this-xstore-theme/#post-450472

We appreciate your cooperation.

Best Regards,
8Theme’s Team

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#450872 Copied

David Zoque

Participant

July 26, 2025 at 19:04

Thank you for your response. I’ve already installed the files you shared, and I’m providing access to the cPanel. I’ll stay attentive, and thank you so much for taking on this issue — it’s something that has happened to many of us, as I’ve read through all the forums about the high CPU usage caused by the theme.

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#450882 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 26, 2025 at 20:33

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you very much for providing access and for your prompt response.

We have thoroughly reviewed your website and attached the results in the images for your reference. Upon investigation, we found that your site is currently experiencing a high volume of traffic—approximately 135GB and over 50,000 queries per day. A significant portion of this traffic appears to be generated by crawling bots.

This level of bot activity can heavily impact your server resources and contribute to the high CPU usage you’ve observed. Many of these bots, especially AI-based crawlers, have become increasingly aggressive and often bypass standard crawling rules such as nofollow links and noindex tags.

To mitigate this issue, we strongly recommend integrating Cloudflare with your website. Cloudflare offers robust protection features that can help filter out malicious and unnecessary bot traffic, which should result in a noticeable reduction in server load and improved overall performance.

We appreciate your patience and cooperation, and we’re here to support you further if needed.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 28, 2025 at 14:42

Hi Andrew, thank you very much for getting back to me. I’m sorry, but allow me to express some doubts about the server load being at 100% solely because of bots. I manage websites that receive similar or even higher traffic, and they never reach full CPU usage.

I’ve read through all the forums regarding the high CPU usage — even the ones that have been restricted (yes, there are threads that redirect to the homepage when clicked) — trying to find a solution. Please, don’t try to cover the sun with a single finger. This is clearly a serious CPU usage issue.

Stop using bots as a scapegoat. I’m sharing another website in the private area, along with full access to cPanel and WordPress, so you can help me understand why the CPU is constantly at 100%. At the moment, it’s not showing 100% because the hosting provider had to kill the WordPress process to stabilize the server. But as soon as I reactivate the theme or plugin, the CPU usage spikes again. What’s happening — do the bots realize the theme is gone and just leave the site?

I’m sorry if I come across as frustrated — I’m not angry, just concerned and exhausted after dealing with this issue for nearly two years. I trusted this theme to build websites for my clients, but it has only made their stores slower and more expensive to maintain, forcing me to use semi-dedicated servers just to handle the CPU load.

Again, if there is no real solution, please be honest and let me know so I can begin migrating all the stores to a different theme. That would be a shame, because XStore truly has the potential to be the best eCommerce theme — but with this serious CPU issue, it’s simply unmanageable.

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Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 28, 2025 at 16:18

Hello David Zoque,

Thank you for your detailed message and for sharing your concerns with us — we truly appreciate your patience and the time you’ve taken to investigate this issue thoroughly.

First and foremost, we want to assure you that we take your feedback seriously, and we understand how frustrating and exhausting it must be to deal with high CPU usage, especially when it affects your clients’ websites and your business operations.

After reviewing your website and server statistics, we’ve identified that a significant portion of the traffic appears to be generated by aggressive bot crawling. These bots often bypass SEO rules and crawl dynamic URLs extensively, which can lead to excessive server load. You can view the crawling activity and affected pages via the following links:

As you’ll notice, many of the URLs being accessed are dynamically generated shop pages, which can result in an almost unlimited number of crawlable links. This behavior is often exploited by bots, especially those collecting data for AI training or other purposes. (see private content)

That said, we absolutely understand your point. This is why we are not dismissing your concerns, and we are committed to investigating this further.

To move forward constructively, we kindly recommend the following steps:

1. As a test, please temporarily switch from the XStore theme to the default Storefront theme. This will help us determine whether the issue is directly related to the theme or something else in the environment.

2. We also suggest installing a security plugin such as WP Simple Firewall (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-simple-firewall/) or using a service like Cloudflare. These tools can help mitigate bot traffic and reduce server load significantly.

We want to be transparent with you: if we identify that the issue is indeed related to the XStore theme, we will prioritize a fix as soon as possible. Our development team is actively monitoring this case, and we are committed to resolving it.

We truly value your trust in XStore, and we’re sorry to hear that this experience has caused you to reconsider using our theme. We believe in the potential of XStore as much as you do, and we want to work with you to ensure it performs as expected.

Please rest assured that we are not trying to shift blame or avoid responsibility. We are here to help, and we will continue to investigate this issue until we reach a clear and honest resolution.

Thank you again for your patience and for giving us the opportunity to address this properly.

Best regards,
The 8Theme Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 28, 2025 at 18:41

Thank you for your response and for taking the time to look into this issue.

As requested, I’ve installed the WP Simple Firewall plugin and temporarily switched the theme to Storefront. I’ve kept everything else exactly the same.

Once again — and as I’ve mentioned several times before — the CPU usage immediately drops to 0% as soon as I deactivate the XStore Core plugin. I’m attaching a screenshot that clearly shows this behavior.

This confirms that the issue is directly related to the XStore theme (more specifically, the Core plugin), and not external bot traffic or my hosting environment.

I hope this new test helps you better understand the scope of the problem. Please let me know how your development team plans to move forward with this.

Best regards,

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#451013 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 28, 2025 at 20:09

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you for your detailed response and for taking the time to perform additional testing. We truly appreciate your efforts in helping us better understand the issue.

We have recorded a video to demonstrate how the CPU usage behaves during our internal tests. In our environment, the CPU usage does not drop to 0% — it remains at a minimum of around 40%, and often stays above 80%. This suggests that the plugin is functioning within expected parameters under normal conditions.

We recommend the following steps to help improve performance and further isolate the issue:

– Switch back to the XStore theme to ensure full compatibility with the Core plugin.
– Temporarily disable widgets in the header such as Cart, Wishlist, and Compare, as these can contribute to additional resource usage.
– Continue working with your website under these conditions to observe whether performance improves.

Additionally, please ensure that your backend is being actively used during testing, as idle states may not provide accurate performance metrics.

We understand your concerns and are committed to helping you resolve this issue. If the problem persists after following the above recommendations, please let us know, and we will be happy to escalate the matter to our development team for further investigation.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

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#451015 Copied

David Zoque

Participant

July 28, 2025 at 20:21

Hi Andrew,

Thank you again for your response and for taking the time to share your test results.

When I mentioned that the CPU drops to 0% after deactivating the XStore Core plugin, I was indeed referring to an inactive state. However, this detail is important — and I want to clarify why:

Even during inactive periods, such as at 3 a.m. when no admins are logged in and no users are browsing the site, the CPU usage remains constantly at or near 100% whenever the XStore Core plugin is active. This behavior is not normal, and it clearly indicates that something in the plugin is causing unnecessary resource consumption, even in idle conditions.

So while I understand your point that active usage affects performance metrics, the fact that CPU usage stays maxed out even when nothing is happening on the site is exactly what confirms that the issue is real — and serious.

Therefore, I respectfully insist that this matter be escalated to your development team for further investigation. The problem is reproducible and clearly linked to the plugin, and I’ve done my part in documenting it with multiple tests and data points.

Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to your next steps.

Best regards,

#451016 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 29, 2025 at 13:30

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you for your detailed message and for the time you’ve taken to thoroughly test and document the issue. We truly appreciate your efforts and the clarity you’ve provided regarding the CPU usage behavior.

Please rest assured that we have been actively working on your website throughout the day, and our team continues to run tests and investigate the matter further. We fully understand the seriousness of the issue you’ve described, especially the high CPU usage during idle periods, and we agree that this warrants a deeper technical review.

We have already escalated this case to our development team, and they are currently analyzing the XStore Core plugin to identify any potential causes. As soon as we have any updates or findings to share, we will reach out to you immediately.

Thank you again for your patience and cooperation. We are committed to resolving this issue as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Best regards,
8Theme Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 29, 2025 at 13:51

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your thoughtful response and for taking the time to look deeper into the issue. I truly appreciate the effort your team is putting into testing and analyzing the situation — especially now that it’s being reviewed by your development team.

It’s reassuring to know that the abnormal CPU usage, even during idle hours, is being taken seriously. I remain hopeful that your team will be able to identify the root cause and implement a solution. That said, I also want to express that I’m not taking anything for granted — my expectations are high, and I’m trusting that your investigation will lead to clear and effective results.

Thanks again for keeping me informed, and I’ll be waiting for your updates.

Best regards,

#451061 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 29, 2025 at 15:59

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you for your message and for your continued patience as we work through this matter.

Please note that when the storefront is idle it still consumes ≈ 60–80 % of server resources. We’ve been watching the metrics all day:

During quiet periods (few bots) usage drops to ~20 %.
Once crawler traffic picks up, it spikes back to 80–90 %.

We’re still monitoring the storefront to understand the pattern. We share a short video as proof and a link to the live dashboard where you can track bot activity yourself.

Additionally, we’ve identified an area within XStore that can be optimized, which we estimate could improve performance metrics by approximately 10%. Our development team is currently working on implementing this enhancement, and we believe it will contribute positively to the overall efficiency of the site.

We truly value your trust and high expectations, and we remain committed to delivering a thorough and effective resolution. We’ll keep you updated as we make progress.

Best regards,
8Theme Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 29, 2025 at 16:52

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the update and for continuing to monitor the issue closely — I appreciate the transparency and the video + dashboard access you provided.

It’s good to hear that your development team has identified an area for optimization and is already working on improvements. A 10% performance gain is a step in the right direction, though I must say that given the levels of CPU usage we’re seeing, I believe the issue may require more than just incremental fixes.

That said, I’m glad to see active progress, and I’m hopeful that this is the beginning of a more comprehensive performance enhancement. I’ll continue to monitor the dashboard and look forward to testing the updated version once the optimization is released.

Thank you again for your efforts — I remain optimistic, but I’ll reserve judgment until we see the results in real-world conditions.

Best regards,

#451076 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 30, 2025 at 08:21

Dear David Zoque,

We have checked your server today and noticed that the CPU usage is currently at 75%. Please find the screenshot attached for your reference.

Thank you once again for your continued collaboration and valuable feedback. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work towards further performance improvements.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 30, 2025 at 13:27

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the update and for sharing the screenshot.

Just to clarify — was the 75% CPU usage recorded during an idle period (no admin activity, no user sessions, and minimal bot traffic), or was it under active conditions?

This detail is important for context, as I’ve observed that CPU usage remains unusually high even during completely inactive hours. Understanding the exact conditions during your measurement will help ensure we’re aligned in our analysis.

Looking forward to your clarification, and I appreciate your continued support.

Best regards,

#451153 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 30, 2025 at 14:30

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you for your message and for your attention to detail.

Yes, the CPU usage was recorded during an idle period — no one was logged into the admin panel, and no browsers were actively accessing the site. The only activity observed at that time was from bots scanning the website.

We hope this clarifies the context of the CPU usage measurement. Please let us know if you need any further information.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

#451160 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 30, 2025 at 14:57

You may now check the idle position. Please note that there are currently no active users— only a meta bot is crawling the site. (Screenshot attached)

Best regards,
The 8Theme Team

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David Zoque

Participant

July 31, 2025 at 01:39

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for confirming that the 75% CPU usage occurred during an idle period with only minimal bot activity. That definitely helps clarify the context.

Given that level of usage in a non-active state, could you please let me know:

Whether this is considered expected behavior for XStore Core, or

If your development team has identified this as a performance issue that will be addressed in an upcoming update?

I appreciate all the monitoring and support so far, but I just want to be sure whether a fix is being planned — or if this is the expected baseline for now.

Looking forward to your guidance on this.

Best regards,

#451219 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 31, 2025 at 09:54

Hi David Zoque,

Thank you for your message and for providing additional context regarding your server’s performance.

Based on what we can see, a CPU usage of 75–80% during idle periods is considered within the normal range for your current server configuration. However, please note that if 2–5 customers access your site simultaneously, this level of usage may cause the server to become unresponsive, even when using the default Storefront theme with XStore Core plugin disabled.

Regarding optimization, we continuously work on improving the performance of the XStore theme with every update. In this particular case, we have identified a potential 10% performance improvement, of which approximately 5% was already implemented in the most recent XStore Core update released yesterday.

It’s important to clarify that this 10% improvement refers to the load generated by the XStore theme, not the default Storefront theme. The default theme includes only about 5% of the customization options and functionality that XStore currently offers.

In summary, the XStore theme naturally requires more resources ( +20%) due to its extensive features — approximately 95% more functionality than the default Storefront theme. As a result, your current server setup may not be sufficient to handle WooCommerce + XStore under real-world traffic conditions, which aligns with the concerns we discussed at the beginning of this topic.

To ensure optimal performance and stability, we strongly recommend considering an upgrade to a more powerful server and implementing a service like Cloudflare to help mitigate bot crawling and reduce unnecessary load on your site.

We hope this clarifies the situation, and we’re here to assist you further if needed.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

#451259 Copied

David Zoque

Participant

July 31, 2025 at 14:47

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your detailed explanation and for the effort your team has put into monitoring and optimizing the theme. I appreciate the clarity regarding the expected CPU usage and the recommendations for server upgrades and Cloudflare.

I understand your position and the reasoning behind XStore’s higher resource usage due to its extensive functionality. However, I want to point out that this level of CPU consumption was not happening before — my client stores built with XStore ran for a long time without reaching this extreme load during idle periods.

While I value the theme’s features, I simply cannot deploy it for new client projects under these conditions. Without a real solution to this performance issue, hosting costs and instability make it unviable for my business.

I appreciate all your support, but until this problem is resolved, I will not be able to build client stores with XStore. I hope that future updates can truly address this, as the theme has great potential.

Best regards,

#451327 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 31, 2025 at 14:57

Dear David Zoque,

Thank you for your message and for sharing your concerns in such a clear and respectful manner.

We completely understand your position and appreciate your long-term use of XStore. However, we would like to clarify a few important points regarding the performance behavior you’ve observed.

As we’ve already tested and confirmed on your server, any theme — even a free, officially developed native WooCommerce theme — exhibits similar performance characteristics under the same conditions. This is due to the server environment itself, not the theme. Even themes with minimal features and no additional functionality showed nearly the same CPU usage patterns. This confirms that the issue is not specific to XStore, but rather related to the server configuration and limitations.

From a technical standpoint — and based on the principles of physics, mathematics, and logic — a more advanced and feature-rich theme like XStore cannot possibly consume fewer resources than a basic theme with almost no functionality. It’s simply not feasible. We want to be transparent with you about this so that there are no unrealistic expectations moving forward.

We truly value your feedback and your business, and we hope that with the right server setup and optimizations (such as using Cloudflare and upgrading server resources), you will be able to continue using XStore successfully in the future.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

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MKGlobo Solutions

Participant

August 4, 2025 at 11:37

Shared Cpanel Access.

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Alex Carter

Support staff

August 4, 2025 at 11:49

Hello, MKGlobo Solutions,

It appears that there may have been a mix-up with the topic, as this is not the one you initially started. Kindly create a separate topic for your inquiry and provide a detailed description of your request there. This will help us avoid any misunderstandings and ensure a more efficient response.

Best regards,
The 8Theme Team

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