Author Topic: site is sslllooooowwwww.....  (Read 9469 times)

solon

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site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« on: September 14, 2017, 03:10:38 PM »
Has anyone else had trouble with extreme slowness on this site? It seems like in the past month or so, someone just poured molasses in the works. For example, I just clicked on "Show new replies to you posts" and it took a full 1:30 to return. This happens most of the time, not just the one time I timed it.

solon

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2017, 03:22:08 PM »
After I hit the Post button to create this thread, it took 5:00 to finish.

[MOD EDIT: And triple posted. Merged them all.]
« Last Edit: September 20, 2017, 02:52:43 PM by arebelspy »

Eric

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2017, 03:31:54 PM »
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

Bracken_Joy

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2017, 03:49:54 PM »
My "new replies to posts" is MUCH slower, but "show unread posts" is still pretty fast, so I've been relying on that more and just looking for the threads I've been a part of.

But yes, same issue here, and I think similar timeframe although I couldn't say for sure.

Xlar

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2017, 06:07:54 PM »
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

+1 (It being your web browser and/or internet connected device)

Thinkum

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2017, 06:20:18 PM »
I have notice the exact same thing. I thought it was just my set up, even though it has happened with 2 different set ups and addresses. What I do is click on "Show New Replies", then open a tab and do something else. I find that helps to speed it up. In addition, after that, is seems to be just fine. It is the initial visit that is slow, for me at least.

Shinplaster

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2017, 06:54:51 PM »
Yup, all the time!  Not my connection - this is the only place I have trouble with.  I often give up, and come back later.

solon

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2017, 08:41:24 PM »
It's been happening for a good while, about a month or so. I've rebooted all my computers several times since then. It happens at work, home, and the library. It happens on three different computers. So I've ruled out the computer, my routing equipment, and the ISP. That's why I'm asking the question.

I'm glad (and sad) that others are having the same problem.

Valhalla

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2017, 10:14:15 PM »
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

+1 (It being your web browser and/or internet connected device)
Has anyone tried rebooting the entire internet off and on?  I'm pretty sure that will solve the problem.  :)

Monkey Uncle

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2017, 05:24:12 AM »
Same here.

Any mods care to weigh in?

MonkeyJenga

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2017, 07:23:00 AM »
Yep. Show unread posts is fast, new replies drags on forever.

Basenji

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #11 on: September 16, 2017, 08:39:13 AM »
Yep, same. And the big threads like "overheard at work" sometimes take a while

solon

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #12 on: September 16, 2017, 10:37:53 AM »
Is it just because the site has grown so large, and the software isn't designed to handle that much data and traffic?

clackapedia

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #13 on: September 16, 2017, 02:54:50 PM »
pinged and activated!  I pushed some updates to the server running the forum, hopefully will resolve some issues for now.  There was a little downtime applying the updates but should all be cleared up now.

maizefolk

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #14 on: September 16, 2017, 03:49:31 PM »
Thanks, Kevin -- you rock!

+1 Thanks!

I tried to connect a bit ago and got a connection refused message. Figured I might have ended up with an IP ban, but I'm now guessing that was you fixing and rebooting stuff behind the scenes.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2017, 07:53:30 AM »
Wow! Complain and ye shall receive! =D That's some good service.

Thank you!

Wings5

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #16 on: September 17, 2017, 11:21:58 PM »
It's always been slow for me when searching.

I generally search the mrmoneymustache.com domain via Google. Way faster.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #17 on: September 18, 2017, 04:00:09 PM »
pinged and activated!  I pushed some updates to the server running the forum, hopefully will resolve some issues for now.  There was a little downtime applying the updates but should all be cleared up now.
The "new replies" page has been slow for me for a loooong time, but just in the last few days individual threads have been slow, and posting replies has also been extremely slow.  I'm not sure if it coincides with the updates you did, but it's definitely a recent development.

Paul der Krake

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #18 on: September 19, 2017, 03:59:41 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.

MonkeyJenga

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #19 on: September 19, 2017, 07:54:05 PM »
Unread replies is still very slow, and it used to be my primary way to navigate the forum.

maizefolk

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #20 on: September 19, 2017, 07:58:18 PM »
It makes sense that unread replies would be the first thing to lag when the backend database gets overloaded. Unless there is something really clever going on behind the scenes, generating that page is going to require an awful lot of lookups every single time.

I guess I don't have anything productive to add beyond an "I feel your pain" to the various programmers and sysadmins involved. Keep on being awesome.


Paul der Krake

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #21 on: September 19, 2017, 08:07:05 PM »
For funsies I tried to look at the SMF code that generates the "unread replies" page. Noped out of there real quick.

ketchup

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #22 on: September 19, 2017, 09:07:57 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.
Same for me.

Also, the site won't load at all when I'm on T-mobile LTE (has been true for a while).  Maybe an IPv6 issue?

dragoncar

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #23 on: September 20, 2017, 03:23:10 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.
Same for me.

Also, the site won't load at all when I'm on T-mobile LTE (has been true for a while).  Maybe an IPv6 issue?

I have the t-mobile problem too.  It's DNS and works if I plug in the IPv4 address (haven't tried the IPv6).

ketchup

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #24 on: September 20, 2017, 03:43:11 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.
Same for me.

Also, the site won't load at all when I'm on T-mobile LTE (has been true for a while).  Maybe an IPv6 issue?

I have the t-mobile problem too.  It's DNS and works if I plug in the IPv4 address (haven't tried the IPv6).
It's always fucking DNS.

dragoncar

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #25 on: September 20, 2017, 08:24:59 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.
Same for me.

Also, the site won't load at all when I'm on T-mobile LTE (has been true for a while).  Maybe an IPv6 issue?

I have the t-mobile problem too.  It's DNS and works if I plug in the IPv4 address (haven't tried the IPv6).
It's always fucking DNS.

Does Not Serve

amirite?

frugalnacho

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #26 on: December 25, 2017, 07:37:14 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.

I know this is months old, but I'm still having the same issue. It's to the point I usually abandon the unread replies and just browse around sub forums.  I usually get several sub forums loaded up before the unread replies will load...if it loads.  It seems to hang indefinitely about half the time.

Daley

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Re: site is ssllllloooowwwww....
« Reply #27 on: December 25, 2017, 09:01:43 PM »
Another "unread replies" complaint from me too. It's usually the first thing that lags. It's annoying because "unread posts" and "unread replies" are the only way to use this forum effectively.

I know this is months old, but I'm still having the same issue. It's to the point I usually abandon the unread replies and just browse around sub forums.  I usually get several sub forums loaded up before the unread replies will load...if it loads.  It seems to hang indefinitely about half the time.

Yeah, it's been getting pretty bad. The really stupid part of it all is the speed at which the unread replies thread will load up, but will flag any replied to thread with a smiley page icon on the left. So, tagging threads we have commented in with a custom icon when pulling up several orders of magnitude more data than the read replies page lists does nothing to slow it down, but only trying to pull up those threads causes timeout errors?

For funsies I tried to look at the SMF code that generates the "unread replies" page. Noped out of there real quick.

Sounds about right from what I've seen of other chunks of SMF code.

I love FOSS software, I've got a warm spot in my heart for SMF specifically, and I know migrating between forum platforms is a colossal PITA... but I'm not sure SMF was ever meant to handle the loads we're subjecting it to as this is hands down the largest SMF community I've seen. Search has been mostly broken for years now. There's been multiple back-end hardware upgrades necessitated. We're having problems with basic functions that larger communities don't have problems with. I'm not convinced throwing more hardware resources at this will fix our problems at this point.

There's no shame in admitting that the community has been so successful that it's outgrown it's initial forum platform... but it does present its own unique set of issues if proven true.

Paul | pdgessler

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #28 on: December 30, 2017, 08:46:10 AM »
Daley's comment about migration being a PITA is true, but the slowdowns in the past few months have been really bad.

If things ever do come to a head and the powers that be want to migrate, I'd humbly suggest Discourse. It's free and open-source, so you can host it wherever you please. Or, they have their own hosting plans or hosting partners if you want to be hands-off of the details of the servers' management, etc. It's a little more complicated to host Discourse because it runs on Ruby instead of the ubiquitous PHP, but I'm unsure of the details of the current hosting situation.

They have an import script and migration instructions for moving from SMF sites.

There are also a few communities larger than ours running Discourse: Biggest/busiest Discourse forums. I hopped on a few of those sites and performance seems to be good, though I'm unsure of the backend horsepower those communities use in their hosting (I'm also unsure of the current forum's hosting specs).

dragoncar

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #29 on: December 30, 2017, 09:22:43 AM »
I do like discourse, but have only used it on smaller sites with usually a single "category"

Paul der Krake

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #30 on: December 30, 2017, 12:09:40 PM »
Pretty sure the p90 latency of /unreadreplies is now in the minutes, not seconds.

It is apparent that MMM does not webscale.

maizefolk

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #31 on: December 30, 2017, 12:41:11 PM »
It is apparent that MMM does not webscale.

+1 for writing to /dev/null to decrease wait times when flushing data from memory.

katsiki

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2018, 06:05:19 PM »
For those experiencing the problem with unread, have you tried marking the journals sub as read first?  I do not notice the slowness at all but journals can really clog up the unread in my experience.


simonkkkkk

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Re: site is sslllooooowwwww.....
« Reply #33 on: January 14, 2018, 12:01:16 PM »
+1 same issue here..