I know this came up a few weeks ago, but was it ever resolved? The page load times seem to be getting slower and slower.

I can't imagine that you need a super high horsepower server or connection to run this site... Just playing armchair system admininstrator from the sidelines it seems some database tuning may be needed. I'd be happy to contribute to a fund for a faster server or some DB consultants time or... ?

-Steve

I have noticed it, seems to fly when there aren't so many user's on-line. Like now...

yes. I've noticed -for the last 2/3 weeks

I notice it more after I have been to the shop talk forums, that place as really fast but that's probably because Jake runs it (I think).

dr

Yes, it has been noted and the admins say it not the site, but I have a routine of about 10 sites I check every morning. 914club always has big delays in loading the pages that I never experience at the other sites.

It is really annoying, and absolutely restricted to only this site. I often open another browser and surf another site while waiting for a page to come up.

I load five different sites in tabs as my "homepage". The 914club is always the last to come up.

I don't think that the problem is with bandwidth or server response. From my cursory investigation, those seem adequate. Has the database been optimized using the Invision mySQL Toolbox? (not trying to be a prick, just trying to help)

I was seeing the slowness a few weeks ago but now it's pretty fast for me. Try a traceroute to www.914world.com and see what it turns up.

I aint no computer wiz but, I regularally check from 3 different computers, all on high speed, all of which are new Pentium 4's and are very fast in general, but the 914 club site is always slow....

I just pushed the "back" button from this thread and it took 40 seconds to respond. Came back to this thread to make this post and it took 20 seconds load.


Ken

The page loads have been slow for me also (and I'm only 10hops or so from the server) I do think it is a database issue. Each page is generated.. The box appears to be fine and the connection is fine.

The MYSQL hasnt been touched as far as I know since it was configured and installed.


B

One reason is that it reloads everytime you go back or click on a new page....most sites will not post the newest data when you hit BACK....this one does.

does OC48 sound big enough?

our server connection goes literally straight into a *big* OC48-Pipe the size of my arm.
i don't think we could saturate that pipe, even if we all tried at the same time ...

i've been thinking about moving the site back onto one of my compaq boxes that has dual CPU, 4 Gig RAM, raid-array, blah blah.
right now, the current box and the fairly large mySql DB could be a bottleneck.

Andy

I am noticing the slowness too. This morning the 914 Tech BBS took so long I just gave up (and we are using T1 at my office).

With dial up at home the site seems fine, but some times it's incredibly slow with the T-1.

Ben

> i've been thinking about moving the site back onto one of my compaq boxes that has dual CPU, 4 Gig RAM, raid-array, blah blah. right now, the current box and the fairly large mySql DB could be a bottleneck.

Again, I really don't know what I'm talking about so I shouldn't be offering sys admin advice, but I doubt it's the hardware. Anything better than a P2 should run this site fine, it's probably how the db is configured. Might need an index on a table somewhere or something...

I'd offer to have one of our guys at work look at it, but we're primarly a Microsoft shop, so we'd be fumbling around a lot. It's probably a 2 hour project for the person that knows what they are doing.

-Steve

That fiber is actually less than a mm thick.

:finger2:

I knew Andy was in trouble when he said that... I have stood next to OC48 and OC12 cabinets... the number of T1's splitting off that cabinet require a physical pipe the size of his arm...LOL

I used to do T1 card testing in those cabinets...


B

I've actually thought about this for a long time, and here's my educated guess:

It takes a long time for the BBS to calculate how many pages belong in a thread.

That "Member 914 Pictures" thread now has about 80 pages. It has about 1600 replies and my guess is that everytime you load that forum or redisplay that page it's going to go and calculate how many pages it will take you to view all 1600 of them.

On other BBS's they kill threads (make it so you can't post to them) and start a new one after they are so many pages long, and I'm guessing it's for this very reason. I've done a lot of work with database reporting and one of the biggest performance killers for a report is displaying "Page X of Y" in the footer, since it has retrieve all the records for the report and calculate how many pages long the report will be.

Is there an option so that the number of pages in a thread are not displayed? Maybe move that thread to it's own section, or create a whole new section for member pictures?

It just gives me something to look forward to if it dosn't load right away.

My guess is that that isn't true. The server isn't just serving up static pages. Since the site uses PHP, the server has to process and put together every page from the DB. Is it possible to do some benchmarking to see where the bottlenecks are?

I've suspected the DB for some time now. But I'm no DBA...

I've temporarily moved the "Members 914 pictures" and the "What the heck do you look like?" threads to the Classic Message Threads forum. Let's see what happens now. There is an option to "split" threads. If this temp move helps, maybe we can try that with the biggies.

It's moving even slower for me now than it was before.

OK. I moved the monster threads, backed up the db and rebooted the box. Let's see how it works out.

ok, the "metal tubes" around the FO-Pipe is about the size of my arm ...

geeze, you guys. so, do you think the OC48 is big enough?
IIRC it's about 1600 x faster than a T1 ....

Andy

Really slow today again... What else can be tried to speed things up?

-Steve

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faster now! It really seems okay if you have something to sip while you wait

that's fine and all, OC48, but you do not have OC48 plugged into the NIC card of the server so it's kinda irrelevant.

yeah real slow for me since last night. sometimes it stalls and takes 20 sec+ to load the page.

Watching the 'top' statistics shows that the CPU is regularly maxxed out. As well, the physical memory seems to be maxxed out and 125 mb of swap space is being used. Sounds like the box is being tapped out.

125MBs of swap isn't a lot. How much memory in the box?

Looks like 256 mb. The load average was up to 5 a few minutes ago with 150 mb of swap being used.

On Linux, using ANY swap kills performance. This goes double if it's a 2.2 or early 2.4 kernel. Linux is very aggressive about keeping stuff in RAM, and it performs very badly (relative to, say, Solaris) when forced to swap. More than any other flavor of Un*x, adding memory to a Linux box is a big win.

Is this thing all in PHP? You running Zend?

If any of the admins (Andy) are going to be at the breakfast tomorrow, I'd be happy to chat about the setup. I've run some very high traffic sites on a shoestring before (> 1M/day on < $1000). PHP and MySQL. Or just email me.

Anything would help.

THe thing that bothers me is that the slow down happened rather suddenly several months ago. It was all fine and dandy... and then something happened.

It wasn't like it was a gradual decline in performance.

I think something was tweaked wrong or some code is unnecessarily running some loops it should be doing.

That's consistent with swap being the problem. There's probably been a gradual increase in load as the forum got more popular, which probably causes more threads in Apache and MySQL to linger, which takes up more RAM, until it runs out. Then, suddenly, performance will nosedive as it has to swap. I've seen that time and again on growing websites running Linux.

Memory is so cheap now that unless the box you're using is really old, you should be able to bump it up to 1GB pretty cheaply. I'd be willing to contribute $ (and labor, if necessary), just like in the hard drive buy. Should be cheaper than that was. Even going to 512MB would help a great deal.

Once you have adequate memory, another thing that may help is using Squid or the like to do static content serving. Apache is actually pretty heavy-weight for static content, and putting Squid in httpd-accelerator mode ahead of it, and setting it to only cache certain kinds of responses (basically nothing with .php in the URL, here) can also speed things up dramatically, as Squid is very efficient at stupid things like static content (images, esp).

My suggestion is that we buy something like this or better:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5717352418&rd=1

Since the ecommerce site is close at hand we could do a limited edition club tshirt for say $30/each instead of the usual $20/each. I'm sure the pent up demand for t-shirts is huge.

500 tshirts x $10 = $5000

He mis-quoted... he didn't mean his "arm"

:finger2:

Andy,
is there a way to turn off Avatars at the server?

Based on your Avatar post, there seem to be quite a few large pics being used as avatars.

So either the server is spending time shrinking them before sending, or is sending the whole pic and letting the browser shrink. Either way, its takes time.
(or I have no idea what I am talking about )

I have my personal settings to not show avatars, and the pages generally load within 2 to 5 seconds.

I'll secure more ram for the box this week. The question will be WHEN we can install it.

B

Seems a every so slightly better right now...

Did you add more memory?

Maybe no one's logged on...

it's normal speed at "OFF" hours. I think we're tapping out the resources of the box when we have 100 people checking it out.

I'm trying to talk the guy who built the box for me 5 years ago to "spot" us some ram. He is a Corvette car guy... I asked him to set aside 2 512 sticks for us "if" the motherboard will take it. Worst case scenerio it gets 4 256 sticks.


B

Technically speaking the bits move just as fast through an "OC48" as they do through a "T1" - an OC48 can just move more of them at the same time (and don't say light is faster than copper because while that is true - Telecom doesn't use light for "speed" they use if for "width").

:finger2:

This is fun.

Now...why is it slow? Is it software (db, os, etc?) or do we need to throw some hardware at it and take another collection?

If so - I'm in to throw some cash at it if that's what it needs but if it's software - I'll be glad to help with that too.

Maybe someone should check the server's ground strap? I've had that can cause slow cranking.

-Steve

That's something I can understand!

This is SOOO SLOWWWW. I didn't get DSL for this, Not this.....Not this site!
Felix

I had to bail out for a couple of hours earlier.
SSLLLUUUUGGGISSSHHHH.

It's OK now.

KT

Let me let you guy's in on a little secret:

We know there is an issue.

It will get taken care of.

Constant reminders do nothing but PISS OFF everyone involved with the site.

Remember... this is ALL FREE. We pay for NOTHING.

Hang in there... or go away.


B

Well Sir Brad... the first step is admittance. Thank you for fessing up... ha ha!

Up until now, it's all been denial. (except for the recent thoughts on memory and swap disk).

Andy had been insisting it was a routing issue from the east coast to the west coast.

If I understand correctly, there have been offers to help from non admins.

Heck, I may even have a stick of 512 MB memory laying around I could offer up.

Let us all know how to help (besides not acting concerned).

And as always.... thanks!

Regards,

Qarl

Well said Qarl (and you didn't even include any toilet jokes! ). We are just trying to help, and the response before was that there is not a problem, it's your own fault - rather than "we are working on a problem" or "can't afford to fix a problem" or "need more time to address the problem" or whatever, any of which are fine considering what this site offers.

OK, time for

Problem started when you swapped from Red to Orange Font....prior to that all was good... Us Tech types always go sherlock holmes..... Throwing memory at it may/may not solve.... a little troubleshooting will uncover root of the problem... Thanks for looking into ... I have broadband, so not too bad, but dial-up guys must be real patient!

can we quantify slow?

is it 2 seconds or 20 seconds?


Is it every page? including the Home page?

I had a problem when this thread first came up. It was taking 30 - 50 seonds just to load the Home page. Finally, after checking with neighbors who are using the same cable service (Time Warner) and were not having trouble loading this page, I decided my IP port was hosed some how. I shut down overnight and got a new IP address, now most pages load for me in 2 - 5 seconds.

But it does sound a little low on memory for this type of board and the number of simultaneous users.

do you really think brad is currently working on fixing the server?
that's a good one ...


i'm sticking to what i said earlier, just because the clubsite is slow for you doesn't have to mean that the server itself is slow.
take a crash course on how the internet works.
there have been reoccuring problems with the routing from the east coast to the west coast which are still present today.
do a traceroute from your location to the 914club server and see where the lag is happening.

yes, the server can (and eventually will) be upgraded but there is no reason why you should have to wait 20 sec. for a page to load, even with the current hardware ...

why did i mention the OC pipe? because i know for a fact the bandwidth at the colo is not the issue.
yes, you guys are right, we *don't* have OC48 directly into our server, never claimed we had. we have a 100MBit LAN card into a 100MBit switch into the OC48 pipe.

do i think that's good enough for the 914club website?
Andy