Forum speed issues

[ArtyGamer]

As the speed issues are sporadic with me (mostly slow, sometimes fine) I did a dozen tests with pingdom. Out of the twelve tests, three of them took between 47 and 55 seconds for the domain to be reached but then the site itself loaded in quickly, at around 5 seconds for the forum home page to fully load. The rest of the times it was around 6-11 seconds for the domain to be reached. It could be a DNS issue where a drop in packets getting to the DNS server is causing a delay, but it may still be a queueing issue. With only three out of twelve tests showing the slow-down, however, I don't imagine your hosting company will worry enough to look very deeply into it.

It's definitely not a caching issue with me as I run Crap Cleaner every morning before I start work and again at around 6pm to get rid of any crud I've picked up throughout the day. OS is Windows 7 64 Ultimate, and I use a combination of Firefox (mainly), Chrome, Opera, and Safari. It's actually slowest on Safari, but that's the browser I use the least.

I'll just soldier on.

[ArferMo]

Just run some tests from here and the results were round trip time minimum 22mS maximum 23mS

When you did your pingdom tests where were you loading it too.... the default is New York

[Neil]

Hello ArtyGamer, I'm Neil from GoCreations (we host this site). We've been looking into this problem but unfortunately cannot reproduce the problems you mention. We have tried a Pingdom test as you mentioned and the load time was 2.52s (from Amsterdam) no where near the 40+ seconds you state. It would be useful to know if running this test again you still get the same load times.

You mention possible DNS problems but again I'm unable to find any problems with our DNS servers or the domain that would explain such long delays.

I've also read through all the other responses from users and no one else seems to be having problems either so I can only assume that it's a problem with your broadband connection. It might be worth checking your DNS server settings and changing them to OpenDNS or Google's DNS to test if this fixes the problem.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to ask.

[James990]

Um, Can I point out that your comment is in fact INCORRECT! I have had problems, and I mentioned it on this thread. I went and made a cup of coffee whilst waiting for the forum to load. So YES others have been having problems!!

So to be honest, I don't take much store in your reply!

James

[Neil]

Hi James, there is no need to be hostile I'm only trying to help. I did not realise that others were having problems too, are you still having problems with the site running slow?

[UK Printed Mugs]

Hi. Maybe we look at what other issues could affect speed. So ArtyGamer (maybe your real name would be nice to know) perhaps head to this website and let us know what browser and OS you are using: http://www.whatismybrowser.com. Olly

[James990]

Yes, and it doesn't matter which browser I am using or which computer. I have tried a number and in different locations. All the same, slow, slow, quick quick, slow!! Except there lately has been no quick, quick!

I am connected via fibre as well.

James

[UK Printed Mugs]

Hey James, if it is not local (computer issue) and not server related (based on others including ourselves having absol no speed issues) then it is inbetween. It could be that the fibre provider has filtering turn on thus every website and web page you browse if checked for spam links, viruses... Or it could be that the fibre provider is giving less bandwidth to certain traffic. For instance Skype was a problem for lots of people because ISP's would only give minimal bandwidth allowance for it. When you experience issues head to www.speedtest.net and check that normal download speeds are ok. Olly

[Paul]

have you tried on mobile phone? with and without wifi?

[ArtyGamer]

Hi Neil - I use Google's DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.) and I'll occasionally force a flush if I need to redirect a domain to a specific IP prior to propagation. I'm a software developer and work live on the server, so I need to make sure that my connection is at its best at all times - that's why I was concerned that the forum was loading slowly, as no other sites were performing slowly and my own forum uses vBulletin. I have three monitors on my desk for working on and one wall-mounted large screen that I use for 'non-work stuff' such as forums, and the waiting time for this forum (not all the time, as I've said before) is very distracting even though it's very separate from the other screens. It honestly just means that I don't really come by the forum much anymore and rely on email notifications for anything that I've already participated in.

Olly, I'm not actually witholding my name - I've already given it on my introductory thread, and it's there on my profile... and I've already said which OS and browsers I use But, as Sheryl Crow once said, if it makes you happy (and if it helps)... (apologies in advance if this ends up huge or ugly)...

Web Browser and Platform: [h=2]Firefox 32 on Windows 7[/h]
Their web browser is up to date!

Ip Address: [h=3]86.136.6.38[/h]
Location (approximate): [h=3]United Kingdom, Prestwick[/h]
Browser Capabilities: [h=3]Javascript enabled[/h] [h=3]Cookies enabled[/h] [h=3]Flash: v14.0 Up to date[/h] [h=3]Java: 7 (u67) Up to date[/h]
Computer Screen: [h=3]1920x1200 24 bit[/h]
Detected Addons: [h=4]Alexa Toolbar v2.1[/h] [h=4]Microsoft Silverlight v5.1[/h]
Extra Technical Details: [h=4]Browser Version Full: 32.0[/h] [h=4]Operating System Version Full: Windows NT 6.1[/h] [h=4]Full Java RTE Version: 1.7.0_67[/h] [h=4]Configured Language: English[/h]
User agent: [h=4]Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0 AlexaToolbar/pEw8obhf-2.1[/h]

Web Browser and Platform: [h=2]Chrome 37 on Windows 7[/h]
Their web browser is up to date!

Ip Address: [h=3]86.136.6.38[/h]
Location (approximate): [h=3]United Kingdom, Prestwick[/h]
Browser Capabilities: [h=3]Javascript enabled[/h] [h=3]Cookies enabled[/h] [h=3]Flash: v15.0 Up to date[/h] [h=3]Java: 7 (u67) Up to date[/h]
Computer Screen: [h=3]1920x1080 24 bit[/h]
Detected Addons: [h=4]Microsoft Silverlight v5.1[/h]
Extra Technical Details: [h=4]Browser Version Full: 37.0.2062.124[/h] [h=4]Operating System Version Full: Windows NT 6.1[/h] [h=4]Full Java RTE Version: 1.7.0_67[/h] [h=4]Configured Language: English[/h]
User agent: [h=4]Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/37.0.2062.124 Safari/537.36[/h]