I have a php script with ajax. Few days ago, without making any changes, the script stopped working. The script is working sometimes but it is very slow. Other times it doesn't load completely. Yet other times it loads and empty page or it shows a "The connection was restarted" message. We have tried loading the page from 4 different computers in two different countries (two different ISPs). There is nothing relevant in the server's log.

We contacted iPage.com hosting support. We sent screenshots. And all we manage to get from them was an incomplete screenshot and the message 'We tested. The page loads'. So, they won't admit the fault. It looks like they loaded the page once and declared it is working and went back to playing solitaire. I know their support. We had all kind of problems with iPage hosting.

My questions are:
1. There is any way to make this error more easy to reproduce? I mean instead of fixing the error to get it appear more often.
2. There is any way to test a server response, to see if it drops connections?