# Is it just me???? Or is this Forum is now ridiculously SLOW?



## Triple7

Sorry to winge, and I am sorry to winge about the forum,

but I have noticed that this forum has become ridiculous in the amount of time it takes for a normal forum page to load now. Is it just me ??? :?: 

This is the only forum I subscribe to where I am 'most' of the time waiting 30 seconds for a page to load. The green bar on the bottom of IE8 gets to about a quarter and then just hangs there. Eventually, it flashing across the bar and the page loads, but throughout, I always have a "waiting message" at the bottom.

I confirm............it is ONLY THIS forum that I see this behaviour.

At first I put it down to a "server update" or "server load" or just a slow internet connection, but I have now noted that no matter where I am in the world or at any time, I am constantly waiting for this forum to react.

It is now by far the slowest and "clunky'est" forum I use, sooo, whats happened??  

From a customers point of view it does looks like poor servers. So, whats happening please.


PS
As an aside and admittedly, I have never been a fan of this latest 'look'. Less bells and wistles please and more of the basics, but I stress that it's the speed that is getting me down. :?


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## Zebedee

It does have its moments 8O but just now it is as quick as any other website.

Are you at the end of the line, and have several intervening youths busy downloading illicit films and hogging the bandwidth?

I reckon that happens to me since everything slows down most afternoons, a few minutes after the school bus gets in.

Dave


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## tony645

No, its just this site!


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## javea

Rapid for me, using Google Chrome - perhaps a change to that browser would cure your problem?


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## Triple7

No Zeb,

it happens at all times and last week I was on at 2am.
Just got back from Dubia on a massive bandwidth where everything was flying except youtube (but thats more to do with UAE controlling) and MHF ???


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## lifestyle

Mine is slow too,but i just put it down to my old pc that i am operating. :? :?  

Les


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## peribro

Trying clearing the cache as the problem would appear to be at your end rather than with the site.


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## geraldandannie

It's intermittent for me. Sometimes a page load takes 2 seconds or so (fast); sometimes it's getting on for 10 seconds or more.

Like 777, it's just this site. I'm on some very big and busy forums, but this is the slowest. And it's the same whatever time of the day - sometimes fast-ish, sometimes slow.

Gerald


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## Triple7

Ahhh Tony, Gerald

So it's not just me. Good to know, 

Considering a lot of us do use 3g,(but not using it at the moment, and it's still slow), consequently maybe a motorhoming forum should use less bandwidth and be speedier. No??

:wink:



60 seconds waiting just to edit this post!


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## cabby

I have to admit that earlier I got so fed up with waiting for a page on here to evolve I turned it off instead.
It is slow a lot of the time and I have tried Safary, Opera, ie9,firefox
.there was no difference. on other sites at the same time it was just dandy.

cabby


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## Triple7

peribro said:


> Trying clearing the cache as the problem would appear to be at your end rather than with the site.


I do keep it very clean Peribo, and a very regular user of ccleaner.

Makes very little difference.

I just think that this forum has tried to become too clever and is missing it customer base a little at the moment. I do understand why the advertising, but maybe, it's adding a lot to how slow this forum has become??

Cabby,
Yep, same as me. I have given up a few times recently.


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## KeithChesterfield

If you can't get a satisfactory answer to your problem then have a look at this site - www.computeractive.co.uk
Whenever I get a problem, frequently, I ask on their forums and they always seem to be able to solve it or at least point me in the right direction.


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## peribro

I only have a 3MB broadband connection and an averagely fast PC and laptop but very seldom find much of a delay. That's why I'm sceptical that it is the site that is causing such slowness for you.


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## barryd

Strangly I have always found when on a 2G connection in the van that FACTS is the fastest out of all three motorhome forums I subscribe to. I have for the first time tonight noticed a delay in replying a couple of times.

Dont forget if your on a CL with a naff connection then you can use the mobile text based version here. http://www.motorhomefacts.com/mo/search.php?type=html&search=egosearch Its really fast but you dont always get email replies for some reason. Otherwise its excellent.


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## Triple7

peribro said:


> I only have a 3MB broadband connection and an averagely fast PC and laptop but very seldom find much of a delay. That's why I'm sceptical that it is the site that is causing such slowness for you.


mmmm, I really don't know Peribro.

What I do know is that I have a clean, reasonably high spec laptop, maxed out with memory, centrino dual core, and I run the system with minimum running programmes and keep the resources clean, and sometimes have V V fast business internet connections from various parts of the world and use multiple IP address/servers

and.........MHF is always the slowest forum page load. Recently it's becoming so noticeable that it is distracting from the content and becoming infuriating. Therefore, one switches off, which is a shame.


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## jacknjill

Hi,
I`m also using google chrome and there`s no probs.
would def dump ie.
Peter.


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## rogerblack

I use Google Chrome too, for most things, and am usually in my home wireless broadband, only time everything seems to slow down is in the evenings between 7 and 9 but not just this site. IE can be painfully slow, hence my change to Chrome. 
Tonight I am on my T-mobile stick on 3G and have not noticed any delays on this site or any other, so far . . .


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## DTPCHEMICALS

Like motorhoming it does have its leisurely moments.

Dave p


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## sallytrafic

In 45 mins of surfing around MHF it has locked up 3 times ie longer than I had patience to wait and a half a dozen times has taken 10secs or so.


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## asprn

I recently sorted a friend's computer with this very sanme problem, with a site he frequents. He was complaining that it loaded terribly slowly, and he was using IE8.

When I arrived, I downloaded & installed FireFox in a few minutes, loaded the site, and to his utter amazement, it loaded in less that 2 seconds (contrasted to 30-60 seconds with IE8).

It's clearly not always IE8's fault, but it often is. It'll cost you nothing to do the experiment - download & install FireFox, load MHF, and I'll bet you that unless you have a local computer or ISP issue, it loads significantly faster.

Dougie.


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## MrsW

asprn said:


> I recently sorted a friend's computer with this very sanme problem, with a site he frequents. He was complaining that it loaded terribly slowly, and he was using IE8.
> 
> When I arrived, I downloaded & installed FireFox in a few minutes, loaded the site, and to his utter amazement, it loaded in less that 2 seconds (contrasted to 30-60 seconds with IE8).
> 
> It's clearly not always IE8's fault, but it often is. It'll cost you nothing to do the experiment - download & install FireFox, load MHF, and I'll bet you that unless you have a local computer or ISP issue, it loads significantly faster.
> 
> Dougie.


I use FireFox and my pages are loading terribly slowly here today, sorry!


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## asprn

MrsW said:


> I use FireFox and my pages are loading terribly slowly here today, sorry!


Absolutely no need to apologise. The fact remains that this site does not universally load slowly (it's its normal fast self for me at this time), and the other fact remains that IE8 gives universal loading problems for many, many people. If you took a poll on any day at any time asking if MHF was loading slowly, you would get a load of people saying, "Hey - I thought it was just me - yes, it's rubbish - wot's going on" etc. when in fact there is nothing "going on" except the normal internet performance variations.

All I know is that FireFox changed my browsing life a long time ago, and on the odd occasion I use IE8, it confirms this to me. It costs nothing for the OP to try, and it might fix his problem. Nothing to debate here. 

Dougie.


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## nukeadmin

I think one of the contributing factors here may have been the introduction of the "my forums" facility,

as the coding it does to talk to the database is very query intensive i.e. it slows the database down and bottlenecks it significantly when running

Only 73 people appear to be using the My Forums facility so my initial action will be to switch this facility off for a few days to see if it is having a bearing on site performance as a whole


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## Penquin

It is loading very fast here on my IE8 machine........

Dave


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## jedi

I very rarely have problems with speed on this website. In fact it's better than many other sites I visit where you wait for dozens of adverts and videos to download before you can do anything.

Even my ancient laptop copes. I do clear out temp. internet files, cache etc... on a regular basis which helps a lot.

At home I have very slow internet (0.5) being in the middle of nowhere and it still is rarely a problem.

It seems we are not all experiencing problems.

Jed


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## nukeadmin

the problem is Jed not ALL users have fast access

I can look in the logs and see certain aspects causing slowdowns and so i need to identify which are the culprits, my gut feeling is the my forum code as I knew it was a performance limiter when I installed it but wouldn't know properly until it was up and running in live situation with 200,000 people hitting the site per month


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## geraldandannie

I don't know whether it's what you've done Nuke, or it's a different day, but MHF is flying along today. From <click> to page load start is around a second. Actual page load time is something less than a second, I estimate. Very nice 

Gerald


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## nukeadmin

like i said Gerald its that myforums code (and there is no workaround, it does many joins and twists and turns through the database which causes a slow query)


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## vicdicdoc

Of all the sites i visit, MHF has always been slower [i run the latest Firefox]


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## Triple7

*Much Much better!!*

Hi Nuke,

I think you might have hit the nail there..........

Much, much quicker this morning and reacting substantially better. Have had a play around and all pages behaving as they should.
Furthermore, I have not had any page's stall or crash, and consequently have to be refreshed, which was becoming more and more regular.

Well done.

I knew this was a relatively new problem (for me anyway) and nothing to do with browser or internet connections, having experimented with them all. The difference some might notice is probably all to do with ISP protocol.

Anyway, any chance we could have an "Option" to not have the "myforums" facility back please. :wink:

As an aside, and please it's not a criticism, considering that some of us sometimes access this site when on 'weak' internet connections when away in our vans, maybe we need to keep the code 'light' to enable a more robust page load and also less likely to generate errors. It is very easy to follow the path of continually adding features (done it myself) that the core application and ethos gets forgotten sometimes. A motorhoming/camping/I'm away type forum, IMHO, needs to be able to survive a weak internet connection. I hope you take this as 'user constructive feedback' and is no way meant as a slight on all your hard work or investment.

Well done for looking into this, your reply and for your fix. <clapping smiley>


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## nukeadmin

the site went through some serious consolidation of code and design about a year back ad as such I think you will find our nearest competitor sites are much more "busy" adverts and graphics wise Vs MHF

We do provide a low bandwidth means of accessing MHF called Mobile MHF accessible on the url:http://www.motorhomefacts.com/mo/index.php

which is text only, no bells and whistles at all


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## gromett

I didn't have a problem until this evening. A lot of my page views are now 5-10Sec +. 

Ever since you switched that feature which I haven't heard about until now......

I had to refresh the page earlier this evening and again tonight due to time outs....

Sorry.

Karl


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## nukeadmin

at 2.36am the backups are running Karl


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## gromett

:lol: 

Happened earlier in the evening, but the early morning post was much worse but the backups explain that 

Thanks Nuke.

Karl


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## sallytrafic

Slow to unobtainable for me during the last hour or so and our Facebook group Linda Gerald etc agree

Google
Stargazers lounge 
FB 
Yahoo
John Lewis

all ok


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## geraldandannie

Looking at the times of the latest postings, it seems there was a half hour dead zone.

Gerald


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## nukeadmin

lol Frank, the server has been offline and ram upgraded and there is a knock on effect as server comes back up and plays catch up the same as when you reboot a computer and initially the response is slower.

Give it 30 mins or so


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## Rosbotham

Server went down for 10 minutes (either that or routeing to it). Wouldn't even respond to ping attempts.


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## nukeadmin

http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopicp-1002237.html#1002237


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## Rosbotham

...you need to get yourself some cloud computing/virtual servers mate...


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## rayrecrok

nukeadmin said:


> http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopicp-1002237.html#1002237


If all else fails, read the instructions.. :wink: ...


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## nukeadmin

> ...you need to get yourself some cloud computing/virtual servers mate...


lol the way MHF is growing I need a dedicated sysadmin / and a Cray 

on track for approx 164,000 unique visitors this month !!!!


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## Rosbotham

rayrecrok said:


> If all else fails, read the instructions.. :wink: ...


Fing is, it's a bit difficult to do that if the site's down :lol: . Nuke posted at 0926 and it was turned off about 10 minutes later...

No harm done!


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## jedi

I think Nukeadmin has the patience of Job! :roll:


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## GEMMY

There might be a bit more space on the computer, if he got rid of 6 years of 'dross' by doing a spring clean. :wink: 

tony


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## Jented

Hi.
Every thing is slow on my pooter,my local "Fixer",has told me i should sue Microsoft,and as well as compensation,get a free upgrade to Windows7,and an apology for them ever inflicting Vista Basic,on even a Luddite like me.
Slow?,MHF,goes the same speed as everything else on here,but to me,the computor was only ever a tool to talk to our daughter while she was in Germany,then you get the bug,do a CLAIT?1 class,free to old farts,and a new world opens up,love it at any speed!.
Ted.(In the slow lane for once!)


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## aldra

me

I'm loosing the will to live

It's so slow I've forgotten what I wanted to post

Aldra


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## GEMMY

Feb. 8th 2011 :?: 

tony


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## Penquin

I suspect someone has resurrected an old thread, but it is a good indication that time changes little (other than my waist measurement), similar observations re being made to the current time......

Dave


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## 747

This is no good to me .... I'm a busy man. :roll: 

I suppose everything now has to go through Moose Jaw via Saskatchewan but I'm not a happy Bunny. :?

Of course it could be down to this:


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## rayc

aldra said:


> me
> 
> I'm loosing the will to live
> 
> It's so slow I've forgotten what I wanted to post
> 
> Aldra


When I had slow comms with MHF some time ago I changed my browser to Google chrome and changed the lookup server in my router from the default talktalk one to google's own. 
It speeded things up considerably, why only some sites were effected and others not is unfathomable to me.

MHF is currently running fast for me.

{the lookup server is the one at your ISP which changes the name to the IP address i.e. changes motorhomefacts.com to a numeric IP address. When you select motorhome facts that server has to do some work before sending your request onwards to the correct location.}


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