Intermittent slow page loads - Page 3

711 · 02-17-2008, 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etopia

Same here , but was very slow for almost 24 hour..
It is very strange behavior...
Seems like som crapy task behind the scene....
defrag , auto save , redudant php process...

No, as I explained before, it is an apache webserver issue (child processes not dieing as they should when requests are complete).

The issue should be sorted very soon, once I have time to install a more stable version of apache. Unfortunately this requires taking down the server for a short time, so I will probably wait until the weekend is passed to do it, since the forum is pretty busy on the weekend with all the events and such.

Dorsai · 02-17-2008, 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by 711

I described the issue as 'intermittent' because it seems to happen in waves: for several hours at a time, pages will be noticably slower to load than normal, while most other times pages load very quickly.

Right now, EF is responding very quickly for me.

While overall the "slow-page-load storms" seem to be fewer and fewer, I am still working on a definitive resolution.

Thanks again for your patience.

It seems your "tweaking of the settings" is working.
For the first time for a long time, pages are loading in times measured in seconds, rather than minutes.

matopos bushman · 02-17-2008, 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by 711

No, as I explained before, it is an apache webserver issue (child processes not dieing as they should when requests are complete).

The issue should be sorted very soon, once I have time to install a more stable version of apache. Unfortunately this requires taking down the server for a short time, so I will probably wait until the weekend is passed to do it, since the forum is pretty busy on the weekend with all the events and such.

Props to 711...this isn't easy work, and the fact that it is professional and made available to us all to use, I and hopefully everyone else appreciates your efforts.

711 · 02-21-2008, 19:38

After several hours of research and tinkering, I believe I have tracked down the cause of the random slow page-loading issues. I have modified some server settings and configuations accordingly.

EF seems now to be as fast as ever. I will continue to monitor the situation, but hopefully it is resolved now.

Venus · 03-01-2008, 11:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by 711

Recently, EF members have experienced random and intermittent periods where forum pages are very slow to load, sometimes lasting for several hours.

These issues are related to the configuration of various software packages (Apache, MySQL) on the new servers to which EF was relocated a couple months ago, and have nothing to do with bandwidth, ping speeds or suchlike. EntropiaForum is hosted on very powerful servers, with multiple redundant, burstable fiber-optic backbone connections. Again, the slowdowns are caused by specific software settings on the server itself, not with routing or bandwidth.

More info on the server move:
Upcoming EntropiaForum Server Upgrade/Move

I was in the midst of tracking down the causes of these issues, but alas real-life has delayed this work (I am currently in the process of moving to Miami, from over 2200 km away), thus my ability to be online has been less than usual for the past week or so. The move is nearly complete (cable, phone and internet were installed only yesterday) just some unpacking and furniture shopping to do, so I plan to give these issues the required attention in the next few days.

I apologize for the inconvenience these slowdowns have caused any members, and wish to assure you all that I am aware of the issues, and will hopefully get things sorted very shortly.

Thanks for your patience!

Intermittent my ass!

This forum is fubared since months now.

Your incompetence is awesome and its a fuckin pain to visit this site.

It makes me damn angry and all i want is to have MB back as admin.
At least he had the skills to run a forum properly.

Sincerly, yours V

Merl · 03-01-2008, 12:19

TO 711:

While perhaps not as "angry" as Venus, she has a point about the inconvenience this has been. I access EF while at work and at home. I find the forum is fairly informative, if not entertaining. Lately, the issues with the intermittant page loading has been, well, bothersome at best and downright frustrating in its worst case.
Yesterday I went to reply to a post and could not. The page despite trying to refresh it several times, took 45 minutes to load.

I was thinking about becoming a paid subscriber, but, that is out of the question now. I will not subscribe until I am sure all technical issues are resolved and I honestly don't see that happenig next week, at least to my satisfaction.

I understand that with change comes growing pains, but, the lack of timely response to problems is very disenchanting. The current page loading issue has been happening for nearly 24 hours! (at least for me on several computers) Professional forums are monitored constantly and any issues that arise are responded to immediately. I think you should consider hiring a monitor or monitoring service. You are obviously a very busy person and unless you get this issue resolved you will find that people will just stop visiting or worse for you, someone will start their own forum, a grass roots project, that does not have the problems you do or, they are able to react to issues more quickly.

Merl

PS: I edited this post twice and it took over 2 minutes to load the page each time. This is pure nonsense

andyzammy · 03-01-2008, 12:26

yup, dead slow again today.

irony: connection timed out when i tried to post this

Etopia · 03-01-2008, 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venus

Intermittent my ass!

This forum is fubared since months now.

Your incompetence is awesome and its a fuckin pain to visit this site.

It makes me damn angry and all i want is to have MB back as admin.
At least he had the skills to run a forum properly.

Sincerly, yours V

From what i have read here , MB is still admin , he still manage code and server here , and , i havent see him much blabla about anything ...

As for having him back , from what i know , he does not have anymore enought money to pay for the amount of player using that forum...
It seems many forget run a forum or a site cost money when you whant it for as many user as EF...
And i dont think , the member who did pay a bit as donation " prenium , mod and all rest" cover much of the cost , neither the advert does imho.

If you are way more competant , then run your forum ...

For the slow down , it was smooth for me since last 711 post , but it is again slow since yesterday.

safara · 03-01-2008, 12:43

Kick the server with a reboot 711 please

Taking between 3 minutes and "The server you are trying to connect to did not respond in time" to load a page.

Dorsai · 03-01-2008, 12:52

Yes, very slow here also.
This time it took 72 seconds from the time I hit "reply" to the time the reply box arrived, and that was faster than what passes for normal ATM.

Pinging the site gave an average of 141ms, and my connection averaged 2.75Mb from two on-line speed tests.
It seems that I am connected to the net fast enough, and am getting through to here quite well.
I can confirm the problem is not This PC, as i have just tested EF using my other PC, and a randomly selected page took 202 seconds.

I am also getting "server is taking too long to respond" errors as often as I get a page.

711, have you considered that someone (or more than one) may be trying some form of DOS attack?

I am not going to Flame you, or EF, as such behaviour would not be constructive. I am just saying that it's slow, very slow.