Is anyone else getting very slow responses from the HJ site?
It's not my computer or link (other sites unaffected and I have a permanent LAN connection to the www).
cheers
Ian
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No, I'm afraid its us. It should be getting a little better but the problem won't go away until new machines arrive in a couple of weeks.
Sorry.
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Same problem here. Need new elsatic band Mark.
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Mark
Thanks for confirming that.
Will try pedalling faster.
Ian
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Haha we\'ll all have thighs the size of Mr Universe by the time the next 2 weeks are up!
It\'s pink fluffy dice frustrating, posting in here has taken on a whole new meaning now - log in - site unavailable - finally get in - post unavailable - finally read post - reply - site becomes unavailable again. Etc etc etc! Takes some staying power! But you\'re not getting rid of me that easily lads, sorry! ;)
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Really pleased to know it's not my machine as I was suspecting. I did a 'defrag'and 'scandisc' to see if it improved things (and it didn't).
Kept meaning to post an enquiry but felt too much of a wally.
Wish you'd mentioned it before Mark.
KB.
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KB - Dave did actually mention it a few days ago.
M - sorry for not inserting my own PFD. Oversight.
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I have just checked it all out and can't see why it should be slow.
I have looked at all processes running, load averages etc. The server is running an average of at most about 20% and normally hovers around the 10% mark. Memory occasionally gets to a low 3MB spare but virtual memory swapping seems to rarely occur.
I have asked our connection providers to have a look. They seem to get around all pages pretty well instantaneously - so the server is OK. They also have checked the network traffic to it and this is hovering around a low average of about 150kbits/s - ie nothing compared to the 100Mbits/s connection it is on.
Having said all this, I did do a big data retrieval this morning of a database at around 11.30am - so that would have wallopped the server for a few minutes. Next time I will reprioritise the job so that it doesn't kill the server so much. However, that would have only been for a short while and you guys are reporting slowdowns right now.
It may be that your connection is slowing down. Certainly if our ISP can connect very quickly now then there isn't really any problem with the server.
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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I am accessing many different sites. Everything, with the exception of this one, is running fine.
To post a reply a little while ago took 7 minutes after I had hit the post button.
It comes and goes though.
M.
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Having the same problem and getting error messages when trying to post. Have just had a problem resulting in an error message and duplicate thread so appologies for that.
Is the 'system' starting to acquire artificial intelligence and trying to tell us all to stop going on about motors and 'get a life' :-)
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It is dreadfully slow, unlike any other site.
Unlike HF, I am afraid I am impatient - I will depart for a couple of days and see if service improves!
Back soon!
Andy
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This afternoon it doesnt seem so sloooowww....between 0.5 and 1 sec to download a page then suddenly it can be anywhere between 10 and 30 sec or even (as Mark said) several minutes to even get the HJ home page.
If I give up and try another page (eg BBC or uk.diy) then these come up immediately, back to HJ and sit there waiting.
Not my connection...I have checked that, its a permanent university connection so easy to check.
Ian
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Glad you brought this up - it's exceptionally slow for me.
Our telephone connection also slows us down as against our wishes BT have put a Dacs box on the line, never the less I am persevering with the Back Room cos it's a great site and you've all been helping me out with good advice.
I am, however, getting worried now about my thighs ;)
Also, I try and try to save the view to thread, in my settings, but it wont have it, and always comes up flat view. Can't see I'm doing anything wrong as it tells me it's saved my change????? GRRRR
ps incase you wonder about the thighs I am a woman!
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It is dreadfully slow, unlike any other site.
>>Unlike HF, I am afraid I am impatient - I will depart for a couple of days and see if service improves!
>>Back soon! Andy
Hmm that is what I meant and what I was a little bothered about.
I know there\'s nowt anyone can do till the new machines arrive, but I would really hate to see loads of people walk away from here purely because it is almost impossible to access/post at the mo. (eh-hem which is obviously why there are 18 replies already to this thread.)
Please keep patient, people - I know it\'s PFD maddening but it\'s worth hanging around for.
Dave - please take note. Went up the pound shop earlier and bought my own PFD. So no more need to share yours with me.
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Ug I meant mine to come right below Andy\'s post
Sorted.
- as it stands mine makes no sense whatsoever. Sorry.
No change there then ;o) DD.
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Thanks to Stephen for his thoughts and suggestions but it's 8.48pm and it's definitely not working right at the moment. Sufficiently so to discourage continued use of the site. It's so, so slow.
KB.
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Just to prove the value of using murphys law - it seems that the moment I sent the above note regarding slow performance it speeded up and now, 5 minutes later, it's back to normal.
Dohhhh.
KB.
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But, having said that.............it's just taken 5 minutes to get rid of the message page when posting the previous message. Something's not right
KB.
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It was very slow today when accessing via a high speed link at work, and this evening on a 52kbps modem at home. Access to other sites is fast so it is definitely the HJ site not the users.
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All - just to confirm that the HJ site has been noticeably slow for a few days now, and I am on broadband so it may be more obvious.
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What database are you using? It could be that that is slowing things up. Early in the morning the site is pretty quick but by the end of the day it is like walking through treacle. Luckily in opera the timeouts are set quite long so as long as it gets a response within a few minutes then the page will appear eventually.
I have tried it on both a university connection and broadband and there is definitely something amiss as the site used to be pretty quick. It is only in the last week or so that it has slowed down.
teabelly
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It's since I've been here - I must talk too much
;)
LEAVE IT!!! (I know I do)
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I think as the slowdown has occured in the last 2 weeks or so the only thing that has changed is the presence of the popup ads. As some of you have noticed these are loaded by a script to come from another site. i.e. every page that is loaded now on this site queries the ad serving site. Now if this server speed + link to our server is crud, then this site will appear to come to a complete crawl as your page.
I can't understand it to be our server as it is on a really, really quick 100Mbit feed and its peak use is only around 50% - averages around 15%. So even though we are replacing the hardware it isn't really sweating.
Now, of course if loads of people get jammed in the queue waiting for our good friend the ad server to dish the next ad, then our server will top out with too many people waiting in the queue. We only allow for 100 concurrent users and 200 concurrent database connections. The other day it happened to hit the database limit momentarily.
Just this morning we got rid of one of the ad server banners - the BMW one - so that will have helped.
I accept that this is nonetheless unacceptable and so will talk with HJ when he is back in the UK about what to do with the ads.
BTW if you have any doubt that it is this site then just look at our website www.khoosys.net as this is also hosted on the same server and requires a lot of database lookups.
Clearly this should only go slow if we have the queuing reason I explained above.
Cheers
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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I've noticed this too, but can live with it. My only real gripe is that the BR is incompatible with my firewall - I have to disable it to log on, exposing my PC to anyone who's "looking". BTW I'm using Zone Alarm Pro 4 - any ideas anyone?? Not noticed the problem on other sites (yet).
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Cyd, I am using ZoneAlarm Pro version 4 and I don't have to turn it off to view the BR. Email me your ZA settings and I will take a look.
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Back to its usual self this morning Stephen. Thanks for the prompt attention.
Happy Motoring Phil I
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All appears in order with me as well, thanks.
KB.
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Still slow this morning, and so slow last night that I gave up trying to post. This is not a complaint, as such, as I'm sure it's just as frustrating for the HJ and his team, but rather a reply to Dynamic Dave's post about 'trigger happy' users.
The problem for Windows users is that any absence of response usually signals a crash or 'application error' (which is the same thing, but tries to imply that it isn't Windows's fault), so users naturally assume that Microsoft's finest has frozen again.
It looks like HJ is a victim of his own success...
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While the small ads are vital to the future of HJ and the backroom, they may also be the cause of the slow down, many times I get a 'loading XXXXXXXXXX' where XXXXXXX is the link to the ad (which is network and other hardware dependent) and it is not actually loading the HJ page at this point, but it will not display the HJ page until it has all the ads to put in their place.
Ian L.
After Stephen's message the BR seemed to improve for a while, but it is back to its slow self again now
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FWIW I think the problem is down to slowness accessing pages from disk on the server rather than speed of delivery of pages over the connection.
On slow connections you will often see the page building bit by bit whereas here it seems to go away for a while but deliver the page to you pretty quickly once it's found it.
Of course I my be talking out of my exhaust, and also being on a high speed link may be giving me a misleading impression. If it were me I'd be doing a defrag by now :-) but that probably isn't suitable for a server
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rather ironic its just taken 2 minutes to access this thread,im also having problems going back to forum.i have broadband some threads load in a flash others take for ever.think i will give it up for tonight try again tomorrow,hope it improves soon.
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As a frequest visitor and sometime 'poster' I have to say the whole site seems to have been very slow for about 2 weeks. Sometimes I even get the broken server error message and can't get thru at all. It is such a good site that I keep trying though!
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Just an observation, but this morning I am again getting very slow responses, when I click on a thread to view it the frame clears to white then I get a message that the webserver is awaiting a response from oz.valueclick.com this can last for several minutes before the page loads properly. Presumeably whatever oz.valueclick.com is, it is their network/hardware response time that is slowing down access to the HJ pages.
Ian L.
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It's finally speeded up for me since the first time I joined the site, and it's also finally saved my preferred view for the first time too.
Phew!
Was paying by card in a shop yesterday, and the woman on the till was moaning about how long everything was taking to go through, and the chap in the queue behind me said it's a worldwide problem (presumably only yesterday?)
Thought it might have been the heat :-D (or the thunder) LOL
"Appearances can be Deceptive"
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"how long everything was taking to go through"
Not surprising, given that almost every electronic transaction ties up a phone line somewhere. I notice that authorisation seems to be called for all the time, whereas it used to be only for larger amounts. I've no doubt that computer/internet use is also increasing faster than available bandwidth, broadband notwithstanding, so it will be interesting to see that happens in the next year or two!
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Are we getting overloaded with spammers?
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Not specifically associated with Back Room performance, but as this thread has become a more generalized look at web performance, interesting reading:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3077629.stm
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What's going on here ?
All of a sudden what had been a rickety rickshaw is a low slung sports car with performance to match. The BackRoom appears to be back to normal or, in the words of dear Mrs V., am I being 'premature'. ;-)
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It would be most appreciated if Stephen/DD/Mark et.al could give us an update on how the hunt for the fault/cure is progressing. Is there anfything we can do assist? - eg. last time round, Martyn/Stephen had requested we made changes to the cache settings of our own PCs while the problem was sorted.
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We are trying to track it down. Stephen is on the trail of something right now, which might lead somewhere.
As soon as I have something valid to say, then I'll be right back.
I do apologise for this, but that's life with electric computers.
We'll get there in the end.
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Just in case it helps - my first impression this (11) pm was that the site was back to speed, but after looking at a few threads and returning to Discussion, response lapsed again. Is it possible that this is a real observation, not an accident?
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Just a wee thought here, chaps (and chapesses),
It may be slow. It may be annoying. But we have had assurances that the matter is in hand. So, while we have a site that can potentially solve our problems for nowt, shouldn't we be putting up with the temporary inconvenience?
Like I say, just a thought.
Cheers
Rob
"Lord of Lard"
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it is certainly faster this morning also last night lets hope its solved.
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Mark: Thanks for your reply at 21.47 on 18/7/03
Stephen: Apologies as I had missed your update at 18.38 on 18/7/03.
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