Forum Directory page slow to load

Jocko

Is it just me or is anyone else finding the Forum Directory page slow to load? I don't mean unbearably slow but I am finding that the images and details down the right hand side take several seconds to load up now and they never used to.

Megi

There have been times when I've found the forum slow to load in general, though generally live-able with. The odd occasion when I've even had to give up and come back and hour or so later. But mostly it's fine.

Reg Sox

Ditto - The forum seems to use a lot of plug-ins and it seems to me that these that are sometimes slow to execute.  Our old friend "Skimwords" is one of the culprits that my PC often hangs on for several seconds based on looking at where the browser is pointing as it loads up a page.

 

If my crappy work PC is a bit busy doing background stuff then the Adobe Flash plug-in is another culprit.  I don't think it's an Internet access problem per se, more of a PC execution priority issue.  I'm between a rock and a hard place.  My home PC is pretty good, but I have almost non-existent Internet access where I live.  My work PC is too many years old and well past it's best before date, but being a Telecoms company, we have lightening fast Internet.

 

Cheers, Reg.

lancpudn

Yeah it's really slow loading here too, it's timed out on a couple of occasions

Graham George

It sounds like a PC thing. I haven't really noticed anything on my mac to think of it as 'slow to open'. I've only 3Mbs here so I'm not exactly living in the fast lane, but it seems to be fine . . .  

lancpudn

Originally Posted by Graham George:

It sounds like a PC thing. I haven't really noticed anything on my mac to think of it as 'slow to open'. I've only 3Mbs here so I'm not exactly living in the fast lane, but it seems to be fine . . .  

I don't know what it is! all the other sites I frequent load instantly, It's just this site that's really slow loading.

Graham George

Jocko, Reg, Megi and Lancpudn, 

 

I've just run a speed check on the Forum Homepage upload.

Below is a screenshot of the Forum on a webpage speed-upload reader.

 

Although it says 11.225 seconds, the "above the fold", (the old newspaper expression for the top half of a "folded newspaper", when shown on a rack with other papers where each one is wishing to catch your attention with a snappy headline), uploads in 3-4 seconds, the 7-8 seconds more is the weightier stuff, like the videos etc, which are at the bottom, (under the fold).

 

The page design of the Forum is fixed to the column widths as you see them, two sidebar widths, one to each side of a middle/wider column. The widgets for the centre section are ideally those used for groups, as they will "fill" the column width, the smaller ones don't function in this area as they throw out the balance of all three columns, so they have to be placed in the centre.

 

(You can clearly see this on the "Guitar Tuner", where there is a lot of space to either side which is making up the rest of the column width.)

 

I have moved some items to the left hand sidebar column to even up the whole page, but purposefully kept the video widgets to the bottom, so that the above the fold opens more quickly allowing them to open underneath. 

 

(This too is why the "Olark" messaging system is at the bottom, so that it doesn't slow down the opening of the page at the top.)

 

 

There certainly doesn't appear to be any issues, 3-4 seconds is normal and actually quite good for such a busy page with so many photos loading to the centre column.

 

Hope that helps . . . 

Reg Sox

Hi Graham,

 

The issue I have is the completion of loading of the whole page.  For example, my normal landing page is the Activity Tab.  I can usually see the centre column (the stuff I am mostly interested in), however I can't actually click on anything until everything else has loaded.

 

I'm sure it will work fine for people that have the latest and greatest PCs.  But for anyone with a non-optimum/old config it'll remain bad.

 

I'm not being critical of specifically this site.  The popular auction site has much the same problem.  Developers by definition usually own, or insist on using, the latest and greatest because that's what floats their boat.  In doing so they tend to forget that the performance they experience is not necessarily typical of the rest of us.  Note I deal with developers all the time, both within m company, and lots of Bay Area start-ups.  In my own company the developers get the best machines, and the rest of us end up with whatever can be purchased as cheap as possible from the remainder of the budget.

 

I'm using Mozilla 28.0 by preference.  I also have Explorer and that is much the same.

 

I think it's a PC performance issue where some web sites are overly mashed up (obviously a very convenient way of producing a visually attractive site)  rather than being single threaded and therefore performance is compromised on lower/old spec PCs.

 

Cheers, Reg.

Graham George

Originally Posted by Reg Sox:

Hi Graham,

 

The issue I have is the completion of loading of the whole page.  For example, my normal landing page is the Activity Tab.  I can usually see the centre column (the stuff I am mostly interested in), however I can't actually click on anything until everything else has loaded. 

Cheers, Reg.

Reg Hi, yes I thoroughly agree with you over "the latest" - of everything, many developers are so up their own backsides that the whole point of being able to "serve the internet public at large", goes out of the window. I understand, as although I have a mac, it's several years old and sadly lacking any real ram but it functions beautifully, so that's all I need it to do!

 

That's interesting that the Activities page is so slow, but I know what you mean about the right hand column. Personally, I would have as little on any page other than really obviously associated categories.

Jocko

I do everything from the Forum Directory page.  I loads instantly, but then takes 5 seconds to load the adverts.  Until it does, I cannot do anything like scrolling or selecting.  It is not a great period of time but every time I click Forums at the bottom of a thread I have this delay.  It never used to do this.  Perhaps it is my mobile broadband, hence my original "Is it me" question.

lancpudn

I found out that kicking the puter doesn't help at all

Reg Sox

Originally Posted by Jocko:

Perhaps it is my mobile broadband, hence my original "Is it me" question.

No, same for me - I don't think it's a network issue.

Originally Posted by lancpudn:

I found out that kicking the puter doesn't help at all

It does - it's called therapy.

 

Cheers, Reg.

Jocko

After a month without issues the site has suddenly slowed right down again, over the past 2 or 3 days.  Anyone else found the loading speed has changed? 

lancpudn

On IE it was very slow loading, sometimes timed out. I'm on Pale Moon browser now and there's no problems at all with this.

Andyjr

This is loading OK for me ... but photobucket is becoming a nightmare.  Same sort of issues, it hangs waiting to load a lot of the add-ons.

lancpudn

Originally Posted by Andyjr:

This is loading OK for me ... but photobucket is becoming a nightmare.  Same sort of issues, it hangs waiting to load a lot of the add-ons.

Aaarrgghhh photobucket I know what you mean, it was driving me up the wall. I don't know what the heck they're trying to do with that but I left a few months ago now use Imgur, no hassles at all there.

Andyjr

Originally Posted by lancpudn:

Originally Posted by Andyjr:

This is loading OK for me ... but photobucket is becoming a nightmare.  Same sort of issues, it hangs waiting to load a lot of the add-ons.

Aaarrgghhh photobucket I know what you mean, it was driving me up the wall. I don't know what the heck they're trying to do with that but I left a few months ago now use Imgur, no hassles at all there.

I suspect they are trying to get more people to pay for the ad-free version...which is fair enough from their standpoint but driving users away.  I'll have a peep at Imgur...