Fix WooCommerce Site Crashes & CPU Saturation on Cloudways (Action Scheduler, Caching, Performance)

OVERVIEW I am a small business owner running two WooCommerce sites on Cloudways. Both sites have been experiencing recurring instability that has affected customers and daily business operations for several months. I am looking for an experienced WordPress/WooCommerce developer to resolve the root causes and restore normal, stable operation. I am a non-technical site owner. I rely entirely on the developer to assess the environment, identify what needs to be done, and implement the correct solution. I will not be defining the technical approach — that is the developer's responsibility. THE PROBLEM The sites go offline frequently, often triggered by normal backend activity such as navigating wp-admin or processing orders. The instability has also caused customer-facing errors during checkout and disrupted order confirmation workflows. Performance in the admin area has been severely degraded for an extended period. My hosting provider has conducted a full server-side investigation and confirmed that the server infrastructure is not the cause. The issues are application-level. Diagnostic logs from the hosting APM, database analysis, and full support transcripts are available and will be shared privately with the selected developer. Additionally, the site is currently receiving a very high volume of bot and crawler traffic, with only approximately 28% of requests being served from cache. This means the majority of traffic is hitting the origin server directly, compounding the CPU instability. ENVIRONMENT - Hosting: Cloudways (2 CPU / 4 GB RAM) - Two WordPress/WooCommerce sites on the same server - Theme: Uncode (premium theme with custom configuration) - Caching plugin: Breeze (Cloudways native cache plugin) - DNS, CDN, and security: Cloudflare (free tier) - Cloudflare Turnstile currently implemented via plugin — replacement with native code integration preferred - Traffic: moderate (~9k sessions/month organic, currently elevated due to bot traffic) - Redis: available (Object Cache Pro enabled) WHAT I NEED I need a developer who can: 1. Review the hosting APM logs and diagnostic data already available from my host 2. Identify and fix the application-level causes of the recurring instability and crashes, including WooCommerce background job processing (Action Scheduler) currently running via admin-ajax/HTTP instead of system cron 3. Ensure the sites remain stable during normal wp-admin usage and customer activity 4. Configure Breeze and Cloudflare caching correctly for WooCommerce so that dynamic pages are properly excluded and static pages achieve a cache hit rate above 60% 5. Replace the current Cloudflare Turnstile WordPress plugin with a native code-level implementation that protects WordPress registration and WooCommerce checkout account creation without requiring a plugin 6. Fix slow product image loading. On some single product pages, the gallery is loading full-size original images (1300x1300px) instead of the correct WooCommerce thumbnail size (600x600px), causing images to take 10+ seconds to appear. Thumbnail regeneration has already been run. The Uncode theme's custom product gallery appears to be bypassing WooCommerce's image size system and requesting the original file directly. 7. Fix the WebP image caching issue with Cloudflare. WebP versions of product images are currently not being cached/served correctly through Cloudflare, so image requests are reaching the origin server instead of being served from the CDN edge. Image delivery (including WebP variants) must be properly cached so repeat image requests do not hit the origin. 8. Provide brief documentation of what was changed and why The selected developer will have access to Cloudways server credentials, WordPress admin, and Cloudflare settings as needed. KNOWN PROBLEM AREAS FOR DEVELOPER REVIEW The following have been identified through hosting APM logs and database analysis as contributing to instability. These are provided for context, not as a prescribed fix list. The developer is expected to assess and address these as part of the engagement: - WooCommerce Action Scheduler background jobs executing synchronously via admin-ajax.php (individual executions taking 8-28 seconds, saturating PHP-FPM workers and CPU during wp-admin usage) - High-frequency WP-Cron events (some running every minute); background jobs processed via HTTP instead of system cron/CLI - Database overhead: 746 MB database, autoloaded options exceeding the 1MB threshold (~1.3MB), bloated action scheduler tables, session tables, and WooCommerce transients; individual slow queries recorded at 10-144 seconds - Uncached WooCommerce AJAX endpoints (wc-ajax get_refreshed_fragments, ppc-simulate-cart, admin-ajax.php) receiving heavy traffic from both real users and bots - Bot traffic hitting uncached WooCommerce endpoints; low overall cache hit rate (~28%) - Heavy plugin stack generating excessive background tasks (WooCommerce, WooCommerce PayPal Payments, WooCommerce Payments, Wordfence, Yoast SEO, Google Site Kit, Facebook for WooCommerce, and others) HOW I WILL EVALUATE APPLICANTS Because I am not technical, I cannot evaluate developers on technical credentials alone. I will be looking for the following: - You can explain what you believe is causing the problem based on the environment description above, before I share any logs - You have specific experience with WooCommerce background processing, cron systems, and server-level performance on Cloudways or similar environments - You have experience configuring Breeze and Cloudflare caching together for WooCommerce, including image/WebP delivery - You can work on a live production site carefully and with proper backups - You treat stability as the goal, not speed scores or generic plugin recommendations DEFINITION OF COMPLETION This project is considered complete only when the following real-world conditions are met and verified, not simply when technical tasks have been checked off: - The sites do not go offline during normal wp-admin navigation - The sites do not go offline during normal customer browsing or checkout - No CPU saturation or server restart events occur during standard daily usage - Cloudflare cache hit rate is above 60% for cacheable pages - Product images (including WebP versions) load promptly and are served from cache, not the origin, on repeat requests - Product gallery images load at the correct WooCommerce thumbnail size, not full-size originals - Cloudflare Turnstile is functioning on registration and checkout account creation without a plugin - The developer has confirmed stability through testing under real operating conditions I am a non-technical client. It is the developer's professional responsibility to translate the symptoms I have described into the correct technical solution. Scope gaps that arise from my inability to specify technical details are expected to be identified and addressed by the developer. WHAT THIS PROJECT IS NOT - A theme redesign or visual changes - Installing generic cache plugins without fixing root causes - A recommendation to upgrade the server as the primary solution - Advisory guidance only — I need hands-on implementation BUDGET AND TIMELINE - Looking to start immediately - Open to fixed-scope or hourly pricing - Please provide your proposed approach and pricing when applying