Website very slow - what's your platform?

[g__day]

Just a note guys and gals, this website as it get increasingly popular has gone from slow to crawling when it comes to loading pages.

What servers are you running this on? Is it a too narrow comm's pipe issue, a server memory issue, a database connections limitation or a CPU bottleneck?

Most websites I visit load forum overview pages almost sub second and clicking on a forum thread loads it in well less than 2 seconds. For IceinSpace it can take 7 - 15 seconds to open a thread - at home or at work - both on broadband and the same to load the overview page.

What is the future likely to hold?

PS

Why do all threads appear in reverse chronological order - newest first and how do I fix this so I can see the oldest posts in a thread first?

Thanks

[acropolite]

g__day wrote If you click on the thread text hyperlink you will get chronological order, you probably have been selecting the green arrow which gives newest post.

[janoskiss]

sometimes the site is slow. it's hosted in the US somewhere and i think it shares bandwidth with other high-traffic sites. lately it's been pretty good though.

[stinky]

User CP - Edit Options....

Yeh - I find it slower than other places too. Wonder if it's page size or server performence? Note there is also a wysiwg editor loaded too.

[fringe_dweller]

it got a fair bit slower after the side bar was added thru site - but generally i dont find it too bad at all - could be its popularity? too many emoticons and animated avatar's? ;)

[asimov]

It's always been slow for me, but I put up with it because I like coming here.

As far as I know we're going to a new server soon?

[iceman]

There's no way it's taking 7-15 seconds to load a page, not for me for the last 4-5 months.

It went through a slow period in October or so last year, but it's been good lately. Pages load within a second or two for me.

Whenever slowness issues arise, it's due to bandwidth on the server - as janos said, it shares bandwidth with other high traffic sites, and of course this site is being high traffic as well with loads of page loads, refreshes, images etc.

If the progress bar doesn't start moving within 2 seconds, usually I click again and it appears instantly.

It's also true that we hope to move to a new server soon - will chase up when it's likely to happen. It hasn't been as high a priority for the last several months because performance has been good, for me, and to my knowledge, for everyone else as well because there's been no complaints.

As for the thread order, you have options in your user profile and also at the bottom of each thread listing.

[stinky]

Refresh of this page took 29 seconds despite search completion in 0.07s. Conection is 128K ISDN. Other Vbulletin sites currently load in 2 - 3 seconds max. Page size appears to be 87K.

Would be reasonable to expect a load in 5 1/2 seconds. So ther certainly is a bottle neck somewhere....

[asimov]

I just tested how long it took to load this particular page: 23 seconds, which is normal for me....I'm on dialup though.

[janoskiss]

8 secs for me on the optus cable, but that's a full refresh with all banners, sidebar graphics and flash counter. The thread content loads in 1-2 seconds.

[stinky]

Up to 30 seconds for me still - how do you refresh thread content only? It would certainly help not reloading everything. BTW banner always loads first - within 1 - 2 seconds, so thought it might be the generation of the page that was slow..

[[1ponders]]

Banner loads 2-5 sec, rest 15 sec +. Some days are quicker, some days are slower

[asimov]

The more replies in this thread, the longer it take to load the page for me: 28 seconds this time. But it's always been like that for me. Heaven forbid I load a 20 reply thread/page, takes over 40 seconds usually.

[Starkler]

18 seconds for a control-f5 refresh of this page.
Im on 512k netspace adsl

11 seconds to open the page from the 'new posts' link.

[janoskiss]

You can't, normally. I just fired up a different browser that I don't use very often and cut-n-pasted the link and the page loaded in under 2 seconds. Obviously all the banners and stuff were in cache. I hit refresh and then it took about 8 secs. If it is really intolerable you can use a text only browser. I used to do it often when I was on dialup. It's weird at first but you get used to it pretty quick. Links2 is the best one I know of. Lynx is not bad either, but cannot render highly structured content so well, e.g. tables.

[stinky]

Got me thinking - so fired up Opera. The page is around 350k (first look so nothing in cache) so on my connection would normally load in 22 seconds, and indeed it's not far off that. So I don;t think there is a bottle neck now - they are just big pages!
Looks like a text only browser may be the go!

[Striker]

5 seconds to refresh page....i'm on 512 ADSL

[33South]

No problems for ages here, usually less than 5secs to refresh.

[ving]

at work its quick as, but at homeon dailup i expect slow :)

[rumples riot]

12 seconds for a complete refresh for me. 2gig adsl line for me.

[cjmarsh81]

This site has always been so, I am on 128K ISDN. It is well worth the wait though.

[gaa_ian]

I am on a Telstra 1.5meg ADSL, 6 seconds to refresh the page for me :)

[RAJAH235]

On 512, ~ 12 secs to reload... :D L.

[Thiink]

The IIS forums are some what of slow to load threads when compared to other vBulletin forums, but there isnt much in it. I visit a few forums and this is only a little slower than aveage. Mojo could always add something like this hack (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=35811) if he was worried about page load times. Then again hacks arent always good!

Takes ~5 seconds to load at work (2/2mbit connection) and at home (1500/256 Internode).

[rumples riot]

I keep getting this message today for some strange reason. Never seen it before.

There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.

An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.


Any Ideas guys?

[ving]

yup, getting that too paul... siik

[stinky]

Ditto guys

[iceman]

Looks like there's either a DB error or the host ran out of disk space. I got about 300 forum-related emails from the forum system. Will let you know.

[rumples riot]

Seems to be ok now though. Was bad for around an hour and now it has stopped.

[Neilzstar]

FCS. The site is free, courtesy of Mike