Prestashop 1.7.6 Error 524 and many looped processes in HTOP

My Prestashop 1.7.6 shop has started spawning dozens of PHP processes that quickly exhaust CPU, trigger a Cloudflare 524 timeout and leave the storefront unreachable. Every part of the site —gets dragged down, yet the only previous change on my side was adding two simple blog posts.

The steps I took at the beginning after the shop crashed were to change the name of the log module directory in order to disable it. This is probably a coincidence, but the shop started working for a while, but then the processor load started to increase again and I got error 524 again. After all this, I restored the original name of the blog module directory and deleted the var/cache/prod and dev , but this did not work.

What I need now is a clean, systematic repair:

• Leave the store fully operational, with no functionality lost.
• Pinpoint why the processes loop (slow SQL query, runaway module hook, cron, cache corruption, etc.).
• Restore normal load times so pages open without Cloudflare errors.
• Provide a short report of the root cause and the fixes applied so I can avoid a repeat.

You’ll have SSH, FTP and back-office access plus Cloudflare and server control-panel logins if required. Feel free to work with Prestashop debug mode, HTOP, PHP error log or any profiling tool you prefer