Hello,
I often noticed slow down of this forum, sometimes I have to wait several seconds (also over ten seconds!) for loading a page. It isn't a issue related to my ADSL, my client, my browser, etc and it happens always. I done a brief analisys with Firefox+Firebug+YSlow I can see some pages that take too much time to load.
I have the impression (no data) that it is slower when the "US is awake" possibly because there are more users logged in ?
When I get to work in the morning (2AM Pacific Standard Time), the forum is much faster than later in the day. Around 8, it gets really slow. About 2 PM, when I get home, it is much faster again. So, yeah, I'd agree that the US is to blame.
That may be the case, but cannot the hardware be "sized" to handle the load? For the forum to take many seconds to process posts, when the USA is "awake" doesn't seem satisfactory to me (even though I am not living there, I am still affected by it).
And if the number of users doubles every year, surely things will only get worse, much worse? Now is the time to take action. Whether that action is improved hardware (server) or better forum software.
Now is the time to take action. Whether that action is improved hardware (server) or better forum software.
I agree. It took >5 seconds to load up the page displayed when I click "Reply to post" or whatever it says. Loading the actual forum takes in excess of 10 seconds. My ISP is incredibly slow, but still not enough to cause the observed effects. To keep the forum usable in the future, it would make full sense to upgrade...
On the other hand, upgrading would most likely be a time consuming and expensive matter. More time and money spent upgrading the forum is less to be spent developing cool new boards and software. It's all a balancing act.
Add to the fact that the nef forum looks good, as I'm sure others will agree, and we have a hard decision. Usability vs. cost & time.
The forums, in fact the entire site, has been getting slower and slower over time. During the day it's slow for me, to the point where I start getting timeouts. In the evenings it tends to clear up a bit but by 1-2am (mountain time), it completely falls off of the planet. Can't reach it, doesn't respond, nothing. I don't know how long that lasts because I usually go to bed around that time and don't check back for another 7-10 hours later.
Couple of things to keep in mind though. It may not all be the web server's fault. When it comes to the forums, there's also an SQL server serving data. If that gets bogged down, everything goes to hell in a hand basket. In my experience running web sites, forums, blog, whatever over the last 16 years is to make sure all your failure points are covered. I do see messages where SMF can't communicate with the SQL server. I don't know if they have both on the same physical machine, or if things are split into multiple machines.
Personally, I'd start looking at the SQL logs, and start capturing queries that take forever to run and deal with that. If both the web and SQL are being served from the same machine, split them up. Lastly, check that the physical machine(s) can still handle the load (and it doesn't seem like they can anymore.)
It's a shame for something so popular to suffer like this.
To be honest, it is getting to the point where I don't open threads that don't have an "interesting" title, because I don't want to waste the 30 seconds the page takes to load (and repeat for a whole lot of other pages). And then when I type a reply, it takes another 20 seconds for the reply to appear. It's getting unworkable.
Sorry... I DO appreciate all that is done to make the forum work at all... but I have to add a "me too".
My system runs fine with most sites. It is just when I try to use the Arduino forum (and other Arduino.cc pages?) that I have problems... often my browser just gives up, times out. And no, the setting is set too tight.
Has taken me several tries just to post this. I'm in southern England, if that matters. Problem happens frequently, different times of day. Often if I get one or two slow loads, I'm going to get lots more... but I don't try more than a few times any more, based on prior experience. Maybe some forum readers will be glad I'm online less! Who knows!
Today, whilst my own forum loaded in under a second, the Arduino forum took about 40 seconds, and then stopped loading and showed an empty page. This happened repeatedly. And no, my own forum isn't local, it's hosted in the USA, and I am in Australia.
So any delays in responding to posts is because this forum went from slow, to unusable.
Just a quick message to report that we are aware of the slowness and we have a laundry list of things that we are doing to remedy the situation.
First of all the number of users is increasing really fast, this obviously calls for more computing power that we are buying right now.
There is a lot of optimisations that need to go into the design of the website and forum.Something that can be done quickly will be applied in the following weeks. We're working on a new IA for the site so any major modification will be delivered when we launch the new site.
if you google for "write_anything_here slow" you'll get millions of hits... that is not a good indication that a particular piece of software is bad.
Arduino is popular and we are becoming a lot of people, and this is good!! clearly everytime the family grows it takes a bit to adjust
