• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

webslave.. fauna seems awefully slow lately

R

robin d.

New member
Joined
Feb 14, 2003
Messages
3,710
Reaction score
5
Points
0
Age
90
Location
San Antonio, Texas
and i dont think its just me... other users, using DSL have been having the same proble. whats the deal? what kind of coding you have in there to slow it so much?
 
Yeah, I've been clicking on posts, and it took so long to load, that I was waiting for a picture to show up, only there wasn't any pictures. It was running so slow that I did a virus and spyware sweep. Thought it was just a bad connection (dial-up), but maybe it's something else if others are having problems also.
 
Hmmmm....

I was having trouble with it seeming slow a few days ago, but it seems to have been OK here the last couple of days. I figured it was just me, lol.....my ISP sucks.
 
Yeah, I had some problems with Comcast a few days ago myself. I found that it was pretty much across the board for all Comcast subscribers, apparently. Maybe there is something going on, because I see problems that appear to be DNS related in that certain groups of websites are having problems. Maybe it's the equivalent of brown outs on the net. Perhaps the ton of spam mail clogging the net is finally beginning to take a toll.

As for Fauna, it has not been slow for me. Just recently I did a server upgrade of the PHP module which seems to have SPEEDED up things quite a bit. Server load has been pretty modest after some of the server parameter changes I made. I do check the stats constantly to try to head off any problems.

One thing that can be an issue is the inclusion of the topsites banners on the site. They CAN slow down a system dramatically because each one makes a call to an external server before being displayed. That kind of puts your own site at the mercy of the servers those topsites programs reside on. Some browsers will go on without the topsite banner, but others will WAIT forever for it to show up before displaying the rest of the page. In all cases it CAN cause a delay if that remote server is slow to respond.
 
I've noticed the same problem. For the past four or five days the board has been loading VERY slow from my end..... We have a business class cable connection and this is the only site i've noticed any recent lag with. I too thought it was the computer I was using so I tried my laptop as well as my home machine, both were the same...
 
I just did some testing myself and found that it takes 4 seconds from the time I click on a link (forum or thread) and the text is displayed on the screen. It takes longer for all of the side graphics to load, of course, because some of those are coming from other remote servers, so lag time does prove to be an issue.

I have Comcast cable with their professional service.

This site is running on a dual Xeon 2.8 gHz processor system with 2 gigs of main ram and dual VERY FAST SCSI hard drives. They just don't MAKE servers much faster then that, so I don't know what else I can do to make it any faster. Probably cutting out the topsites links would help, but I'm not sure that would be a smart decision on my part.
 
I just did a check and found quite a few threads about problems at Comcast concerning slowness and DNS servers dropping out. The first dates I see mentioning the problems are right around April 7th. Don't know if this is related to this issue or not, but it is worth considering.

BTW, if you want to check in on an interesting forum that keeps tabs on network outages and server host problems, this is worth taking a look at: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=59
 
Well, I do not know what to say. I do know that it is not on my end, and I have talked with a few people in recent days and all have stated they've experienced the same issues...

A big indicator is the failure to load images as well. The side graphics you refer too load fine, but when the pages load images such as the icons for online\offline, the reputation scale, the report icon, and other similar images.... They sometimes fail to appear and a white box the size of the graphic displaying a "x" will appear in its place.

I'll be more than happy to take screenshots if you like, perhaps you're one of the lucky ones not affected?
Hope this helps...
 
Well that didnt take long to duplicate the issue! :)

Average page load on my side takes about 20 seconds, sometimes less, sometimes ALOT more. Yet the bottom indicator states a figure like "Page generated in 0.29650211 seconds (75.03% PHP - 24.97% MySQL) with 14 queries." at all times...

And nearly a third of all page loads are accompanied by little image errors as pictured below. Many people may not notice, but when combined with the recent lag it becomes a bit more obvious.

I've tested page loads and got these lags and errors on every machine I have tried. Four desktop machines now and my personal laptop.

Hope you track down the problem!
 

Attachments

  • errorexample.gif
    errorexample.gif
    4.2 KB · Views: 85
The more you get into internet technology the hairier it seems. There can be all kinds of problems that would be localized, global, or specific in nature. Trunks can have problems that will affect everyone below that junction. DNS servers can have problems that affect only certain domain names or IP addresses. Sometimes email will work find but HTTP files will not.

I once had what looked like a DNS problem (from Comcast) whereby I could not view any domain names that started with letters between "D" and "M"!

All I can say is that I monitor my servers constantly, have the fastest server for this site that I could get at a decent price, in a network center that has excellent throughput and management, have all the latest security and performance patches in place, and have done performance tweaks until I am blue in the face to make this site run as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Yeah, I could definitely make it faster by removing ALL graphics, including banner ads and topsites links, but would that really be a smart thing to do?

Heck, maybe the new classifieds and the photo gallery sections are the problem? Server loading is minimal, so I'm not seeing that as the culprit. It doesn't appear to be related to active visitors to the site, since sometimes I can see slowness late at night with very few visitors but it will rip right along during peak traffic times.

I could cut out the search function, since that is a definite resource hog, but would that make everyone happy if I did that?

I just don't know.
 
I was just trying to enlighten you to an issue and help just like theo thers who have chimed in. You seem as if you're taking the defensive however, not needed at all. We know you do your very best with the forum, Just thought you may like to be notified of such an issue.... Sorry.

Good Luck
 
Server load right now is a measily 0.28. I have seen it MUCH higher, particularly before I put in the MySQL tweaks, and the site was just chugging along.

My suspicions are that the server is holding it's own and doing it's job, as indicated by the page generated stat that Chris showed. There is just something BETWEEN the server and your system that is causing the slowness.

Probably a network issue somewhere. A lot of these things you don't hear about until after the fact.
 
Actually the classifieds and photo galleries load flawlessly. It seems to be to board itself. The main index loads quickly, but everything else is lagged... But thats just my end. I guess you would have to ask the others....
 
TopShelfExotics said:
I was just trying to enlighten you to an issue and help just like theo thers who have chimed in. You seem as if you're taking the defensive however, not needed at all. We know you do your very best with the forum, Just thought you may like to be notified of such an issue.... Sorry.

Good Luck
Click to expand...

Well, it's tough NOT to get defensive after all I have put into trying to make this site as efficient as possible. Just as you are not intending it to appear to be an attack on me, I am not intending what I am saying as being a counter attack. I'm just laying out the cards on the table for you all to look at. I have no control over some things, and those things I do have control over are often compromises of one sort or another. I try to make the best decisions I can, where ever I can. And in many cases, it is just darned tough trying to figure out exactly what is causing particular problems. I just don't like to tell someone that I can't do anything about it until I am real sure that this is the truth of the matter.
 
It most definitely is slow. I don't believe it has anything to do with banners but rather its most likely a DNS issue. I sometimes get ONLY the green background for 30 seconds or more.
 
Well I wasnt blaming you, so dont think that for a second. :)

Given the lags recent constant nature I figured you were aware of the situation or would like to be informed. Every provider has issues here and there, the only reason I felt it necessary to bring it up is that it has been a steady issue and seemed like it could have been a software issue.

And you're right, it could be just about anything between the board and individual users. A proverbial needle in a haystack....

Something to look into, thats all. Good luck!
 
Back
Top