Hi guys,
I've received a report from a user that the site is taking an age to load.


Is anyone else experiencing these delays?

No problems here, seconds, with IE7 and dodgy NHS internet

Not generally, even from out here in the "colonies".

Sometimes the site apparently (that is, from the point of view of the user) takes a while to respond, but that is usually only during what I presume to be "heavy usage" times of the day (or week).

It is fine right now, for example (approaching midnight in the UK).

Surely this a common experience? I get the same reaction(s) when using Hotmail at "peak" times, for example.

I use various techniques that I have found useful when encountering problems drawing down web pages:- such as disconnecting from the internet (and then reconnecting). I believe that this may be known as "clearing the cache". A bit like the time-honoured (hardware) technique of "switching off, then switching on again"! Now and then during the day I may have to close everything down, and reboot. Sometimes "tricks" like that work, sometimes they don't. It's all part of the fun!

To my way of thinking the whole thing (browsers talking to remote web pages) is "cumulative" - layers upon layers, commands upon commands, an endless series of "fetches and carrys", "requests and responses". In fact it's a wonder that it works at all!

Like many others (I should imagine) I sometimes like to swap *browsers.

At the moment, it's the turn of FireFox (version 3.6.3) once again. I have the Ghostery add-on installed (2.6.01) and it's interesting to note all the crap that this little tool points out.

For instance, right now it mentions:-

1) Google+1
2) Google Analytics
3) Twitter Button

... and gives me the option of blocking these.

But (for perspective on all this) when visiting some of the popular "news sites", typically five or more "trackers" get flagged up.

Surely [censored] like this can't help but slow up the information pipelines? As I say, all that to-ing and fro-ing going on behind the scenes?

* Of the three that I use (Chrome, FireFox and IE8) I would say that IE8 is the worst. It is the slowest of the three, but worse still, gets the jitters when I'm making or editing posts.

OK ... let's go for the hat-trick!

Myself and others have noticed that occasions when the site has not responded as expected have usually coincided with our illustrious Moderator in Chief being absent from the "Who's Online" list.

And then, shortly after the appearance of that same lovely person, the site miraculously returns to "firing on all four".

So we can only assume that the Wizard performs some special magic when logging on.

All well and good. But what some have also wondered is:- does the Wizard throttle the system back, as it were (putting some extra crap filters in place, for example) before switching off the lights for the night?

I would have thought:- yes. Surely it wouldn't be prudent to leave the thing unattended, with the gates wide open, overnight?

So my guess is that it could be those extra precautions (whatever they may be) that sometimes end up putting a damper on performance.

Nope

Looking at the (overnight) logs, it's usually the MySQL server that fails.
Generally from robots spidering the site (I suspect).

I've been speaking with our host to get a beefier server but it's all down to time & money.



Of those three, there is one that does cause problems...

Google analyticals - problems.

Unfortunately, we can't do away with it.

Oh, and the bouncing text is all down to IE as you say. Go Firefox!

Yes Huw I'm having the same problem, load speed has increased from seconds to minutes. It also takes minutes to swap between posts & pages etc.

I have practically stopped using the site as a consequence.

ps It's taken me over 10 minutes to log-on and post this reply!!!!

Thanks for letting me know John.

It's good that you did, because I can now see that you two (experiencing the problem) are working for the same 'group' of hospitals (same email address etc.).

It's almost certainly an issue for your IT dept.

Unless, that is, someone from a different trust has the same problems...?

OK Huw I will ask our IT boffins to investigate.

(I'm losing the will to live here!!)