Site slow today?

[tm4tj]

Last couple of days the site has been a bit cumbersome, bit like some of Rossco's tackles.  Most pages taking thirty seconds to a minute to change.  Anyone else expeiencing this?

[CaleyD]

It's been a bit slower, partly due to the fact it's been busy, but I haven't had delays of anything like 30 secs or a minute.

[CaleyD]

I've just run some of the maintenance routines on the site and also note that our host have been doing some Network maintenance work in the last day or so which might be causing intermittent slowness/time outs on the site.

Myself and Scotty will continue to monitor the situation.

[tm4tj]

getting the odd page to turn over quickly but mostly hanging for an annoying best part of a minute

[Johnboy]

I seem to be having the same problems tonight that Mannie was having last night....

I hope I haven't caught anything nasty from him.....

:crazy07:

[kirki]

I Have found the site very slow the last few days. It is taking about 15 to 20 secs to load a page with a few brainfarts now and again. Although since I have updated to version 2.0.0.11 of Firefox I have noticed that other sites can be a little slower too. Is this related or is just me?

[Scotty]

if you have other sites loading slow, it could be you, or more specifically your Internet provider or their DNS servers. Its unlikely to be FireFox.

I use DNS servers from openDNS.com for this at home instead of my ISPs ones and most sites load very quickly - see here for details https://www.opendns.com/start

However, we always seem to have issues at certain times of the day because of our hosting provider - basically, the more people who are on the site at any given time, the slower it becomes as each user chews up some resources on the server as they are viewing the site. Add to this the fact that we "share" the server with possibly hundreds of other sites and their users also slow down this site in the same way as we slow down theirs.

The solution to this problem is "dedicated" hosting where we either get a complete server or a large portion of it to ourselves but that costs a lot of money each month and we simply cant afford it unless someone wants to sponsor us for this type of hosting.

The other factor - one which is under our control - is to make sure we are not putting undue stress on the server with sloppy code in our pages. You may have noticed an apology from Don in another thread for some issues we had last night. This was because he spotted some code that was causing server stress and fixed it. However, in fixing it he made a slight error that caused another little hassle and had to go back in and fix that too. These tweaks (usually without errors) are the sort of thing we are always doing in the background to try and make sure the site loads quickly or without errors.

We are in the process of testing new forum software for next season and if it goes as expected it should hopefully speed up the forum a lot as it handles things a little differently and doesnt put so much stress on the server. (Dont worry, it will still look and feel very similar, and no posts should be lost, but from our point of view - in the background - should perform better)

[SMEE]

Is it just me.....but it seems so far this year the site has been very unstable and very frustrating. The amount of times i have had the server error screen lately has been beyond belief :017:

[Scotty]

trust me - frustration is not the word !!!

I have been laid low with Flu for the last week but have taken the time to go through some of our server error logs and tweak a few things. Our hosting providers have been making changes internally and although they tell us it shouldnt affect things, it has been.

There have been two major errors cropping up in our logs this past week - one internal, one external.

The external error was that the Scotsman seem to have quietly dropped their dedicated ICT newsfeed and we were still calling it in various places. Every time it got called, on the front page or on the newsfeeds page, it would generate errors and put additional pressure on the server. I have removed it.

The internal error seems to have been due to a change in our host's php4 installation. It shouldnt have affected us as we are using php5 but it did as they rewrote a crucial config file and enabled something that we dont have in V5. I have now rewritten that file and disabled the offending command.

Our daily error log is usually 4 or 5Kb and pretty inconsequential but during the last week it has been hitting 15 - 16 Mb on a daily basis  :crazy07: :crazy07: :crazy07: When i fixed the above problems, the log returned to normal and hopefully you should see less problems.

[SMEE]

I know you (Scotty) and the others do a great job in running this site smoothly and that your at the mercy of outside factors. Still can be frustrating as a user tho. But its one of my main sites i visit and would be lost without it!

[Scotty]

I know you (Scotty) and the others do a great job in running this site smoothly and that your at the mercy of outside factors. Still can be frustrating as a user tho. But its one of my main sites i visit and would be lost without it!

We do our best and trust me its just as frustrating for us too. If we **** something up and it causes a problem then at least we know it can be fixed but when our service provider doesnt provide the level of service we want or expect then it becomes a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, as much as we would love to move to a different host or a dedicated server, we simply cant afford it without some decent and long lasting sponsorship.

Although the site is no longer generating the same amount of errors as before, it still seems a little slow so I have submitted a service ticket to our hosts detailing the internal errors i discovered. It is possible that there may be hundreds of other sites generating the same amount of errors and slowing us all down !!!

[Scarlet Pimple]

I have just replied  to Scotty's post and I was sayin g that  the slowness was the only complaint tyaht I had.

The other point I made was that sometimes  the reply just disapperas occasionally. Well it has just happened again and  the reply went into space?

[tm4tj]

Scotty/Don, I am finding the site painstakingly slow tonight.  Every page takes between ten and twenty seconds to change, it is a tad annoying.  I know it's not the worst it has been, but it certainly is not running at optimum speed.  Have the site upgrades been completed or is something needing tweaked?

[Scotty]

i have submitted a tech support ticket to our hosts .... it looks like the load on the server (from other sites presumably as there are not a lot of people on here right now) is very high.

I ran the site maintenance routines a few minutes ago instead of letting them run at 3am - hopefully that will also have a slight effect.

[tm4tj]

Good man Scotty, site is going like a rocket today..............can you slow it down :015: