I purchased WSN a few months ago and have installed on my server and have been slowly adding content. I've noticed that right from the beginning the page load times were very slow and they've not gotten any better. I'm ready to actually start marketing my site and I can't stomach the page loads.
Any idea why page loads range from 20-30 seconds?
I've got a fairly vanilla installation (minor changes to the templates). I'm hosting with godaddy. Other sites seem to work okay. It's just this WSN installation.
Just looked at your site and the pages loaded inbetween about 2 to 4 seconds. Only rough of course as I was counting <G> but that's nowhere near your stated 20 to 30.
I suspect that this problem is related to traffic on both the web server and the database server (godaddy sets them up as separate servers). I especially find that database writes (such as new links and categories) take the 20-30 seconds while general page loads can be in the 5-10 second timeframe. Still much longer than I'd like.
By comparing timestamps on these postings, it looks like you checked my site around midnight Eastern Standard Time, which would likely have been a light load on the server.
Remote databases can be very slow (though if done right I don't think they have to be). I recommend a host with a local database connection.
http://www.troutlinks.com/lnx/?debug=1 shows me that it takes 6 seconds (out of 22 seconds total load time) before the debug output started, which suggests that the process of connecting to the database is taking at least 5 seconds or so. There are no unusual queries I see listed there, so it seems that each query is just very slow.
I've heard only bad things about godaddy hosting, which is natural since they're a low price domain registrar trying to rope a captive audience into overpriced/underpowered hosting plans on the basis of having everything in one spot. No registrar will ever be a good web host and being well-known isn't a positive if it's not the hosting the company is well-known for -- for example Yahoo web hosting is the most grotesquely outdated, limited, buggy and badly supported host imaginable (for PHP/MySQL -- perhaps their store hosting is good).
I don't know what mysql version you have there, but it's also worth noting that MySQL 3 is slower than MySQL 4 and MySQL 5.
I got this response from my hosting provider (after providing them a summary of the debug info). Excuse my ignorance, but is there javascript running the site? I thought it was all in php.
"....This behavior is attributed to Javascript, which appears to be in use on your website. You may wish to try removing each Javascript file in use on your site to determine which script is causing the site to load slowly."
Heh, javascript is client side and so is logically incapable of affecting server generation times. They don't have any idea what they're talking about.
I haven't used a shared host in a while (all my sites are on my VPS) but http://www.webhostingtalk.com is a good place for hosting advice.
So after swapping several inane comments with the godaddy folks, I've decided to move troutlinks over to lunarpages hosting. They host the app and dbase on the same server. While I'm still sorting out some details of hosting, it all appears to be working fine AND FASTER.
Paul: I promise not to torture you too much in sorting out some minor issues.
Comments on Page Load Times
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jul 16, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 23
I purchased WSN a few months ago and have installed on my server and have been slowly adding content. I've noticed that right from the beginning the page load times were very slow and they've not gotten any better. I'm ready to actually start marketing my site and I can't stomach the page loads.
Any idea why page loads range from 20-30 seconds?
I've got a fairly vanilla installation (minor changes to the templates). I'm hosting with godaddy. Other sites seem to work okay. It's just this WSN installation.
www.troutlinks.com
Expert
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 19, 2005
Location: England
Total Topics: 391
Total Comments: 1303
Hi
Just looked at your site and the pages loaded inbetween about 2 to 4 seconds. Only rough of course as I was counting <G> but that's nowhere near your stated 20 to 30.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jul 16, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 23
Thanks for checking.
I suspect that this problem is related to traffic on both the web server and the database server (godaddy sets them up as separate servers). I especially find that database writes (such as new links and categories) take the 20-30 seconds while general page loads can be in the 5-10 second timeframe. Still much longer than I'd like.
By comparing timestamps on these postings, it looks like you checked my site around midnight Eastern Standard Time, which would likely have been a light load on the server.
Expert
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 19, 2005
Location: England
Total Topics: 391
Total Comments: 1303
I would tend to agree. I know when I started using wsnlinks I had to change servers. Every now and again I get problems with server loads.
I'm in the UK - it was 5.30am when I went on :-)
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7867
Remote databases can be very slow (though if done right I don't think they have to be). I recommend a host with a local database connection.
http://www.troutlinks.com/lnx/?debug=1 shows me that it takes 6 seconds (out of 22 seconds total load time) before the debug output started, which suggests that the process of connecting to the database is taking at least 5 seconds or so. There are no unusual queries I see listed there, so it seems that each query is just very slow.
I've heard only bad things about godaddy hosting, which is natural since they're a low price domain registrar trying to rope a captive audience into overpriced/underpowered hosting plans on the basis of having everything in one spot. No registrar will ever be a good web host and being well-known isn't a positive if it's not the hosting the company is well-known for -- for example Yahoo web hosting is the most grotesquely outdated, limited, buggy and badly supported host imaginable (for PHP/MySQL -- perhaps their store hosting is good).
I don't know what mysql version you have there, but it's also worth noting that MySQL 3 is slower than MySQL 4 and MySQL 5.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jul 16, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 23
Thank you for checking, Paul.
MySQL Version: 4.0.27-max-log
Yeah, when I saw that the databases were remote, I got worried.....
Still sorting out with GoDaddy support, but also looking for a new hosting provider. Any recommendations would be welcome.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jul 16, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 23
I got this response from my hosting provider (after providing them a summary of the debug info). Excuse my ignorance, but is there javascript running the site? I thought it was all in php.
"....This behavior is attributed to Javascript, which appears to be in use on your website. You may wish to try removing each Javascript file in use on your site to determine which script is causing the site to load slowly."
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7867
Heh, javascript is client side and so is logically incapable of affecting server generation times. They don't have any idea what they're talking about.
I haven't used a shared host in a while (all my sites are on my VPS) but http://www.webhostingtalk.com is a good place for hosting advice.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jul 16, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 23
So after swapping several inane comments with the godaddy folks, I've decided to move troutlinks over to lunarpages hosting. They host the app and dbase on the same server. While I'm still sorting out some details of hosting, it all appears to be working fine AND FASTER.
Paul: I promise not to torture you too much in sorting out some minor issues.
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7867
Good choice, lunarpages used to run WSN Links for a directory of their own and I recall a number of people using them without trouble.