General Forum Performance

[The Wise Monkey]

It seems to take me a lot longer than it used to to open threads and make new posts, and more often than not creates a double post even though I only click the button once.

Is this happening to anyone else?

[RickyTick]

Same here. Very slow indeed. No problems with double posts, just overall slowness of the forum.

[Rob]

Oh, I thought it was just me. Ok, I'll see what I can find out. Thanks for the heads up.

[zburns]

I see the same problems mentioned by Wise and RT. The long posting times are definitely "time of day" sensititive. Back when Rob's "Web Host" went thru some changes and there was an interruption, the delays existed before then.

I guess the delays are really much longer now. Web Host server loaded up at certain peak hours?

[Rob]

I telephoned iPower.com support and spoke with a tech.

I can think of two possibilities for a slow board. One is that the underlying software (vBulletin) and the database queries it must do have gotten slower as more users and mesages have been created. The other is that the iPower server has gotten busier and it takes longer to get message board processing done. And, of course, both reasons could be working together to make things slower.

I've asked them to compare their server to see how busy it is as compared to one month ago and two months ago (basically, the percentage of time the server is idle). They opened a trouble ticket to do this, so we'll see.

What you (by this I mean everyone using the board) can do to provide insight is compare your message board responsiveness to the responsiveness you get accessing the main site (i.e., www.mysuperpc.com (http://www.mysuperpc.com)). If both are slow then that indicates the server is slow.

You can also verify if performance is slower at certain times of day, which would be expected for both of these suspected causes.

I'll keep you updated. Thanks again for the heads up and any feedback you can provide.

[The Wise Monkey]

OK, the time here is 9am GMT and I've just tried clicking on the MySuperPC homepage and trying a few random links, and they all took a long time to load.

[Rob]

Below is the response from iPower. I think the next step is up to us to do like Wise Monkey and record our observations. For the main site and the forum site, it would be helpful to know what kind of responsiveness you encountered - was it good or was it bad? Right now at GMT -5 (the GMT shows at the bottom of the web page on the forum site), the responsiveness seems good.


Hello Robert,

Thank you for contacting us.

We have checked the issue and now the URL at http://forums.mysuperpc.com/ and links are loading fine. The load time of MySQL driven Web sites may be high when there is high load on the server. We have checked this at regular intervals of time and were unable to duplicate the issue with slowness. This seems to be temporary issue, might be due to the web traffic.

We have also asked one of our Network Operations team members to verify if there is any issue with the MySQL machine, in which your databases are hosted. They were unable to find any load on the MySQL machine. Also, our Network Operations team will take necessary action, if there is any load at the server. Some Web sites may load slowly for a couple of minutes during this process.

The Web site is loading fine now. We would hence request you to verify this from your end now.

If you experience the same issue in the future, please get back to us, so that we can further investigate this issue.

If you have any further questions, please update the Support Console.

Sincerely,

Cristopher Kelly
Technical Specialist

[The Wise Monkey]

I'm getting much better performance now, but I don't know how long it will last. :D

Time is 1:40pm GMT.

[RickyTick]

Its now 9:53AM EST and everything is very quick. No problems at all right now.

[chunkylover53]

3:06PM EST. Very slow. This page has taken 30 seconds to load. Other internet is fine, so it can't be traffic on my end.

[zburns]

9:25 pm, jan 16. Pretty slow getting to this page; at least 30 to 45 seconds.

[Rob]

1040pm Eastern Time and the site is very responsive, just zipping along. Two nights ago it was really dragging.

[RickyTick]

Its 1:00am and its very slow. Over 30 seconds to open some threads.

[The Wise Monkey]

I'll be honest - I'm not seeing a pattern here... XD

9:30 GMT, and all is well.

[Rob]

Yeah, so far it's all over the map. Possibly server back ups are kicking in during the early morning hours to slow things down? We'll just have to keep collecting data.

On Saturday at 9:07am Eastern Time, responsiveness is very good, but not zipply like is was in my last post. If last time when it was zippy was a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, then right now I'd say it's a 9.

[chunkylover53]

Super speedy at 9:31am EST.

[zburns]

2:15 EST Saturday, Jan 17, 09. Four seconds to go from general forum page to this page. Took "longer" to log in than to switch pages, but did not time it.

[Rob]

The last few days have probably not been a real good test of responsiveness since it was over the weekend with Monday being a holiday. However today, Tuesday at 12:37pm Eastern Time, responsiveness seems quite good. I'd give it a 9 out of 10. By the way, this is during Obama's inaugural speech, which should mean the internet as a whole is quite busy streaming video to desktops to people at work. This is good evidence that the slowness is not due to the internet as a whole.

[zburns]

Differences thru out the day are dramatic. I also see general slowness due to Charter Cable and their service at specfic times during the day, even tho I pay a little extra for 10 mbs speed. So the problem can, at times, be Charter servers plus the effect of Super PC host servers added on top of Charter. (I use "servers" as shorthand for the problem)

If I am alert enough when I observe the problem with Super PC I can time it, and, then go right to Charter and one or more several different non related sites and time that speed.

But no question, something has become slower!!!

[Rob]

Responsiveness is fine this morning, Wednesday 9:07am Easter Time zone. Give it a 9 out of 10.

[The Wise Monkey]

It's fine at the moment, 3:20GMT - 10/10

[RickyTick]

Its Noon EST, and the website is painfully slow right now. All other websites I'm visiting are snappy quick. Very frustrating.

[The Wise Monkey]

8:30 GMT and its very quick.

[zburns]

Around 8:05pm I was doing a reply. Took me 80 seconds to log in and about the same to submit the reply. This time, right now on this reply, lighting fast.

[The Wise Monkey]

4:40pm GMT and super slow - 1/10

[RickyTick]

I was on at the same time as WM, and my browser acutally timed out trying to load a page. Here's the message. btw, I'm using IE8 Beta.


Database error
The database has encountered a problem.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:
•Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
•Open the forums.mysuperpc.com home page, then try to open another page.
•Click the Back button to try another link.

The forums.mysuperpc.com forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

[The Wise Monkey]

8:10 GMT, and really slow here - double posting on everything because it takes so long... :/

[Rob]

At 9:00am Friday morning Eastern time, it is very responsive. I'd give it a 10 out of 10. The comment from RickyTick could be a clue. If anyone else is seeing this then please post.

[Rob]

Responsiveness is a 9 out of 10 on Monday at 10:30pm Eastern Time.

[RickyTick]

Wow! It has taken almost 5 minutes just to post this reply. Many times clicking on a thread title does nothing at all, and I have to click a second time. And then it takes more than a minute to open a thread.

Its Noon on the East Coast. I think Rob and I are in the same time zone. At this point I can only give it a 1 out of 10 for responsiveness.

I guess my major concern is for newcomers. If they experience this kind of problem, what's the likelihood they will close it out and move on.

Would pruning the old posts make a difference?

[The Wise Monkey]

That might be a good idea - maybe prune inactive users as well, although that could cause problems.

[Rob]

I've pruned hundreds of users. Those with 0 posts that look like spam bots.

[RickyTick]

I've logged on 4 different times since you've done that, and its faster than ever. Maybe a coincedence, idk. I'll keep checking in several times a day and let you know if it changes. Right now its a 9 out of 10. :D

[The Wise Monkey]

9am GTM and all good here - 10/10

[Rob]

10 out of 10 on Thursday 3:54pm Eastern Time.

[RickyTick]

I've logged on several times today and it was great every time.

[The Wise Monkey]

Speedy here - 9/10

Perhaps we've cracked the problem? Just checked the bottom of the page - Members: 1194, Active Members: 68... XD

[Rob]

9 out of 10 on Sunday, February 1 at 8:48am.

[The Wise Monkey]

The forum is starting to feel a bit sluggish for me again - anyone else noticed this?

[RickyTick]

The forum is starting to feel a bit sluggish for me again - anyone else noticed this?

Yes sir.

[Rob]

Yes, I noticed it, too. Last night at one time it was a 0 out of 10. Let's keep an eye on things.

[Rob]

Aha! I checked my e-mail and I see that over the last few days there have been batches of "VBulletin Database Error!" messages sent to my e-mail. There were several instances over the last few days with 10 or so such messages with the same timestamp. The slowdown is probably related to that. I have not seen these messages recently, but they did occur in a similar fashion not that long ago - probably the last time we all noticed the board was getting slow.

I don't know why these errors are occurring, but that's the lead I'll follow if the problem persists.

[The Wise Monkey]

I occasionally get a 50x error when trying to access this page, so I guess it is related.

[RickyTick]

Over the past several days, the forum pages have been extremely slow to open. Anyone else?

[The Wise Monkey]

Yeah, same here.

[Rob]

I see I received about 10 Vbulletin Database Error e-mails since I checked my e-mail yesterday (I should have noted the time or how clustered they were, but I just deleted them). It looks like the slow-down is related to these errors.

[The Wise Monkey]

0.01/10 performance for the past 2-3 hours... :/

[The Wise Monkey]

0.01/10 performance for the past 2-3 hours... :/

[RickyTick]

Over the past few days the Forums have been very slow.

[zburns]

Very slow. I was about to mention it. Everything you click on on the forum is slow. About 3 days now?

[Rob]

Yes, I've noticed it, too. And once again it coincides with my getting e-mail notices of a bulletin board error. But I haven't received any notices in the last 24 hours, so hopefully things are getting back to normal.

[RickyTick]

Incredibly slow. :mad::mad:

[The Wise Monkey]

Same for me - has been pretty poor for the last couple of days. Usually results in a double post... :s

[Rob]

Yes, my e-mail is getting spammed with VBulletin Database Errors. Monday was really bad, but it started about two weeks ago. I don't know why it was good for so long and now a lot of errors are happening. I may check with my host provider about it. Or I could upgrade to the latest version of VBulletin to see if that helps. Glad I didn't upgrade just before this started or I'd be blaming the upgrade.

[The Wise Monkey]

Yeah, it seems OK now. What benefits does the latest version have?

[Rob]

Offhand I don't know. I'm mainly hopeful it doesn't break anything because the functionality it offers now is fine. Better security from 'bot spammers would definitely be at the top of my list. The reason I would upgrade is keep the message board off an obsolete version. But I'm not rushing in. Version 4.0 was launched in February I think and was proclaimed the "Gold" version, but since then it has been up-versioned at least 3 times to version 4.0.3, with hundreds of fixes. I'm not sure that all or even most of those are related to the message board, or maybe some other packaged functionality I don't use. In any case, I'm pretty much using my "six month rule of delayed acquisition" before upgrading.