webslave.. fauna seems awefully slow lately

[Chris@TSE]

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.

Same here! Atleast I'm not the only one.... It will scroll through loading the ad cycle in the bottom of my browser and it seems to fly by. Then it will say "Done" and sit at a blank green screen for quite some time before the rest of the page loads. The reason I said I did not believe it was the topsite banners is because those images and links load quickly in comparison. They're actually downloaded and ready to display before the actual board responds.......

 

[WebSlave]

I just did a few tests at the main page of the forums page of this site. From the time I clicked the refresh button until EVERYTHING was loaded into my browser took roughly 10 seconds, start to finish. My server is located in Michigan (I think), and I am sitting in north Florida.

I just did a TraceRoute from my home system to FaunaClassifieds.com and got this as a result:

Trace faunaclassifieds.com; Start time 04/13/05 14:30:35
Tracing route to 209.59.140.201
50 bytes from 209.59.140.201: time=46 ms
Hop         Avg          Diff           Address
1           	5           	5           	10.119.112.1
2           	5           	-2          	172.30.90.17
3           	6           	0           	172.30.90.46
4           	7           	0           	172.30.89.250
5           	9           	3           	172.30.88.109
6           	17          	9           	12.118.120.109
7           	38          	21          	12.123.21.142
8           	18          	-11         	12.122.12.50
9           	27          	10          	204.255.174.149
10          	17          	-5          	152.63.82.198
11          	27          	8           	152.63.10.102
12          	38          	16          	152.63.70.29
13          	38          	-7          	152.63.68.81
14          	52          	14          	152.63.67.189
15          	49          	4           	65.207.234.198
16          	48          	1           	209.59.157.34
17          	60          	13          	209.59.157.46
18          	48          	-5          	209.59.140.201
End time 04/13/05 14:30:36
host reached
Trace faunaclassifieds.com; Start time 04/13/05 14:30:52
Tracing route to 209.59.140.201
50 bytes from 209.59.140.201: time=48 ms
Hop         Avg          Diff           Address
1           	5           	5           	10.119.112.1
2           	5           	-2          	172.30.90.17
3           	9           	3           	172.30.90.46
4           	8           	0           	172.30.89.250
5           	7           	0           	172.30.88.109
6           	19          	12          	12.118.120.109
7           	19          	1           	12.123.21.142
8           	18          	-2          	12.122.12.50
9           	20          	3           	204.255.174.149
10          	18          	-1          	152.63.82.198
11          	20          	3           	152.63.10.102
12          	41          	23          	152.63.70.29
13          	39          	0           	152.63.68.81
14          	56          	18          	152.63.67.189
15          	48          	1           	65.207.234.198
16          	46          	-1          	209.59.157.34
17          	46          	0           	209.59.157.46
18          	47          	0           	209.59.140.201
End time 04/13/05 14:30:53
host reached

Can't do much better then that, I think.

 

[jglass38]

Rich,

I loaded the main page in approx 10 secs as well. Here is where I see the worst problems (and maybe it is code related):

Clicking on the "this thread is located at:" link in an email from fauna

Clicking reply to post on a thread

Dont know if it helps but its worth checking. I am not bashing you or the site, just notifying you of a problem like I would with any other website I either pay for or visit often.

Jamie

 

[KelliH]

I sometimes get ONLY the green background for 30 seconds or more.

That's exactly what happens on this end as well. It is doing it today but the wait isn't as long as it is sometimes (only about 10 seconds today).

 

[Jeremy Letkey]

I also often get the green screen of boredom. The duration of the screen lasts any where from 10 seconds to indefinately. When the page won't load I can simply go to any other website, they all load just fine, then I come back and try again.

 

[reptilebreeder]

.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.

Normally the site runs pretty fast (relatively, as I'm on dial-up), so I don't think anyone is questioning your set-up or that you need to cut out topsites. The problem just seemed to appear, at least for me a few days ago. Usually when I click on threads or posts it loads as fast or faster than on other similar sites, unless there was photos in the post then it took forever (the blank green screens, as others mentioned) the past few days access to all the posts "acted" as though pics were loading (time wise with the blank green screen) yet there were no pics. Even though it took a lot longer to load, it still showed everything, no missing graphics "x" like Chris? mentioned.
Anyway, from my end it actually seems to be closer to normal today, so I just wanted to point out that it seems to be (or have been) a transient thing and apparently not related to your servers, topsites or banners (assuming you didn't change something in the last few days).

 

[WebSlave]

To try and troubleshoot this problem and see if it is actually originating from my server, I have disabled the search function. This is one of the most resource intensive features of this program, so I want to see if disabling it has any effect. I don't think it does, but it is worth checking out, I guess.

 

[jglass38]

So no improvement on Internet Explorer after search was disabled. I have one page that is still loading 3 minutes later. However, I just installed the Opera browser and its blazing fast. This could be a fluke, but I dont think so.

 

[jglass38]

Still working super fast through Opera! Page loads in 2-3 seconds...Consistently.

Jamie

 

[Intense Herpetoculture]

Well, hopefully you put the search back into effect, because I have no idea how to weed through all the forums to find posts. It took me 4 mins to just find this post! Perhaps the forums need to be yet again revamped, cut down, and easier to find? I know what you're thinking, another damn issue you don't want to deal with right now. I don't blame you on that one bit. I can see how the website can be tweeked to look a little nicer and more user friendly. For example, it seems like almost half the damn page is off the screen and I have to scroll over to see it, including the ads. I use the common 600 x 800 screen size. That is one of the major drawbacks I see in this site.

To try and troubleshoot this problem and see if it is actually originating from my server, I have disabled the search function. This is one of the most resource intensive features of this program, so I want to see if disabling it has any effect. I don't think it does, but it is worth checking out, I guess.

 

[jglass38]

Justyn,

Check out Opera. Its free and it gives you the option to instantly resize the page to a certain percentage. Might make browsing this site easier for you. I have been using it for 20 minutes and I am hooked!

www.opera.com

Jamie

 

[Chris@TSE]

I'm guessing you meant 640x480

And actually thats not very common anymore.... I would have to say 800x600 is pretty much the standard minimum nowadays....

Most of our machines run between 1024x768 and 1280x1024

When I had a 17" my resolution was set at 800x600 higher, I honestly cannot remember the last time I used a 640x480 resolution.....

 

[Chris@TSE]

And with the search function disabled its still loading the same for me, just so you know. May as well turn it back on

Hopefully its just some DNS crap..... with all luck it will clear on its own.

 

[jglass38]

Chris,

After seeing it load without problem in a different, non IE browser, I would have to say it doesnt look like DNS. Have you tried Opera to see if it works for you? Might be a good test..

Jamie

 

[Intense Herpetoculture]

Sorry, I ment 800 x 600

I'm guessing you meant 640x480

And actually thats not very common anymore.... I would have to say 800x600 is pretty much the standard minimum nowadays....

Most of our machines run between 1024x768 and 1280x1024

When I had a 17" my resolution was set at 800x600 higher, I honestly cannot remember the last time I used a 640x480 resolution.....

 

[reptilebreeder]

Well, hopefully you put the search back into effect, because I have no idea how to weed through all the forums to find posts. It took me 4 mins to just find this post! .

I'll say. I hit "new posts" and since it was disabled, my mind just froze I had to reboot myself just to remember how I use to use the site, and then I didn't know which forum this thread was even posted in, finally I remembered to check my history trail (good thing I hadn't logged off) and jumped to this thread.
I hope it does get turned back on, like I said the main slowdown seems to have been the past couple days or more, so I don't think it had anything to do with the search function.

I can see how the website can be tweeked to look a little nicer and more user friendly..

oh man, no offense, but lets not go there, we just went through months of thousands of posts on what everyone's opinion was on how this site should be run, or look. everyone has an opinion of how they think the site should look.

For example, it seems like almost half the damn page is off the screen and I have to scroll over to see it, including the ads. I use the common 600 x 800 screen size. That is one of the major drawbacks I see in this site.

What size monitor do you have? Maybe you need a bigger one, or maybe, try a different setting. My monitor is 17" res. 1024x768 and the screen shows everything. The only time I have to scroll over is when someone attaches a huge picture.

 

[WebSlave]

OK, the search function has been turned back on. Obviously it was not causing the problem.

I ran this past my vBulletin programmer and he feels pretty strongly that it is one of the external calls causing the problem, most likely the topsites links. I am using my FaunaTopSites links on many of my websites and it does not cause an issue with them, so I suspect it is one of the other ones. I'll have to take them out and see what effect that has.

The banner ads are from a program running on the same server as FaunaClassifieds, so I doubt that is causing the problem. Those new text ads I am trying out are coming from a program on my secondary server, so I guess I can't rule them out either. My goal is to eventually move the banner ads system off of the server FaunaClassifieds runs on in order to reduce the loading on the server. Would kind of defeat the purpose of the remote calls wind up being slower then the extra loading on the server. But such things are definitely within the realm of possibilities here.......

 

[WebSlave]

Oh yeah, to address that "tweaks" issue brought up. Sorry, but I do not consider 800x600 as the lowest common denominator any longer. That was the standard I had to use back when I was programming for the State of Florida more then 5 years ago. If you can't use 1024x768 then you either need a new monitor or a new graphics card, or both. Time to do an upgrade, I am afraid....... That's as bad as using dial up when the rest of the world is going broadband. No offense intended, but I do tend to try to use design specs that target the upper end of the spectrum, rather then the lower end. The rest of the world will catch up eventually, and I see no reason to hold back everyone else while waiting.

 

[jglass38]

800X600? Jesus...Only people over 80 use that resolution.

 

[reptilebreeder]

Robin, Topshelf, and any others, are you still having the problem? I was really slow for a couple days (on this site), but today, I seem to be "back up to speed" as it were.