Back office login timing out

[r00tb33r]

Today I started having a weird problem.  I can't load the admin (back office) login page, and if I clear cookies I can load the page but the login with credentials will time out.  Since I haven't made any platform or content changes to my store in months I contacted the hosting company to see if there is a problem on their end.  They have identified that the SQL query during login runs for 60 seconds and then times out.  Normally this shouldn't happen, it takes 3-4 seconds to login usually.  What might be the cause of this?

I run PS 1.6.1.4 with default theme, PHP 7.0, and MariaDB 10.0.36, LiteSpeed V7.1

I get the following at the admin login page:

Quote

Request Timeout

This request takes too long to process, it is timed out by the server. If it should not be timed out, please contact administrator of this web site to increase 'Connection Timeout'.

 

What can I do to resolve this?  I can't do anything with my store if I can't get into the back office.

Edited October 11, 2018 by r00tb33r (see edit history)

[r00tb33r]

Per suggestion in another post, gamification module is the culprit.  Since I the back office is not working and I can't get in there to disable the module, renaming the module directory did the trick.  I then reinstalled the module and disabled it properly without ill effects.

This needs further investigation.