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[on:]

this has got to be the slowest forum ever. Are you guys poor?  Need help with a server?  Is the code garbage?  to much traffic?  Throttled? 
Why is it so slow? 
I would think a campaign for donations for a proper setup would be in order.  I remember it being sluggish on the old forum but the new one is worse.  Its actually fairly aggravating.

[Reply #1 on:]

I agree, it is slow, but it is also free and doesn't push ads at me, so I cut it some slack.

[Reply #2 on:]

true on the no ads.  But to be honest if a couple ads would make it load faster I'd take it.  just me though.  My eyes gloss right over ads so they dont bother me.

[Reply #3 on:]

I'd go along with that, provided they're just static ads. Flash based ads do bug me though, and get blocked.

[Reply #4 on:]

Its not slow all the time tho. Often the site is bombarded with spam attacks. I think that may cut into response time as the system deals with those.
Maybe being worldwide now too affects it.

[Reply #5 on:]

Can't say I've noticed any occasions of "Oh My God! This forum is unusable" recently.
Maybe it is a time-zone thing.
Work on GMT/BST, and everything will be fine is my motto du jour.

[Reply #6 on:]

It is mostly U.S.  time zones. When America wakes up it gets a lot more slow.

Just prior to 8:00 central time and Lunch Central time seems to me to be the worst.

In the middle of the night central time it is pretty quick.

I am not sure if it is bandwidth or just too many hits on the database. I know sometimes it just loads with an internal server error so I suspect too many hits on the database at once.

[Reply #7 on:]

Here in central EU, at about 17:35 the forum _is_ slow... Like: I'm reading a topic, I hit "replies" and it works fast, then I hit the back button and... 5 to 10 seconds! Not always, but often enough to make me look for topics like this :-)


(edit)
PS: are there any public stats about this site ? Anything one can take a look at and try to help ?

(edit2)
Found this old post: http://arduino.cc/blog/2008/05/02/web-statistics-at-arduinocc/

[Reply #8 on:]

Yes, the site has had some very slow response times in the last couple of days, but somewhat intermittently. No matter what the cause for the latest problems, this site has 'outgrown' it's traffic several times in the past requiring an upgrade in server capacity, etc. As membership and postings seem to continue to be growing (that's a good thing really) there will come a time once again when more/better resources will once again be required? This usually takes several weeks (or months?) of poor performance before it becomes as issue that actually gets the attention needed to determine if server improvements are required or not.

Lefty

[Reply #9 on:]

Thanks for the reply, lefty.

Entering "statistics" in the search box of this site has returned quite a bit of information. Specifically, this post:

http://arduino.cc/blog/2012/01/16/arduino-servers-or-why-were-slow/

which is quite recent and explains it all very well.

Popularity is good, but comes at a cost. And most of us have it all for free. And that is amazing. Thank you guys!

[Reply #10 on:]

I would like to bump this thread to support an upgrade in the (hopefully) in the near future.  I believe there is enough support from members that asking for donations would be a viable option if money was an issue. 

Early EST is where this site is the fastest, and by mid-morning the site slows to a crawl.  When I first came here around 4 months ago, the site loaded with in 5-10 secs, now it's close to 30 secs or above during the evening hours.  I often find myself changing tabs until the forums have loaded.

Thanks to the Arduino staff for giving us a great site to come and learn for free.  That is something that you don't see everyday.

[Reply #11 on:]

To the website staff: I can give my support with a small donation too. Just ask.

[Reply #12 on:]

I don't find this forum slow - anyone remember the old forum before they switched over? Slow days, fast days, weirdness all around...

[Reply #13 on:]

I don't find this forum slow - anyone remember the old forum before they switched over? Slow days, fast days, weirdness all around...

I've been seeing the slow and fast periods for about a week now. Today has been mostly fast.