Speeding Up Page Loads

Could something be done to speed up page loads for dialup users when opening up a thread? Perhaps several profile options or one combined option can be created to control the display of the following:

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Please post a reminder for this if it isn't done by the New Year.

 

Any news?

 

I almost cannot get this site on my friend's iMac anymore, it is so slow most of the time it is almost inaccessible. Another gardening forum site has long since become impossible as well. It's not her machine, nearly all other sites tried continue to open right up.

Most of my posts originate from my own machine, which usually can open UBC site pretty quickly--although lately there has often been a short delay here as well.

 

Yes, the main forum page does seem to be bogging down as well.

 

Thanks for the reminder - I wasn't as willing to do work over the holidays as I thought I might be.

Anyway, I just learned a few commands to understand the server's performance. From my understanding, the server isn't doing much work at all, which can mean a couple things: 1) too much on each page and/or 2) a slow connection to the database server

I'll drop by the IT office on Thurs AM to see how I can test the DB connection (and see what the workload is like on the DB server, which I don't have direct access to).

 

One thing I remember from when I used to be on dial-up (on visiting a different vBulletin forum): disable auto image loading. That way, you don't waste time downloading all the avatars. That made a particularly significant difference on that other forum as a lot of people there had very byte-hungry animated gifs for their avatars (fortunately I've not seen any of those here!)

 

I've dropped the columns for number of threads and number of replies from the main forums page (and subforums). In its place, I've moved these stats beside the forum name.

Same amount of queries on the database, but browsers should be able to render the page faster because of ~40% decrease in the number of cells in the table.

Let me know what your experiences are. If there is a general consensus that this is quicker, I can do the same thing within forums page (remove the views / replies columns and move that info beside the thread title).

I've done hard refreshes (F5 button) in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I thought it was faster (3 seconds to render in IE, 4 in Firefox).

I'll still work on those other things, Junglekeeper, but they take a bit more time.

 

Many times a site can be buggy based on the routers our
connections have to go through to enter a specific site.
Let's say, for example, that it is 14 hops from where I
am to get into the UBC BG web site. If one of the hops
gives me a * timed out message I instantly know why I
am having problems entering that site, yet I can press
the stop button and go right into the BBC web site so
I can see what is happening in the news worldwide.
Sometimes in one of the three locations that I view
this web site from I get a lull at first before the browser
will recognize the UBC BG web site once my bookmark
link has been clicked. We assume that the UBC server
is acting up when a lot of times it is the routers between
us and them that is in fact causing the problem for us
dialup users. Another issue is that the internet is so
much slower today due to traffic. I used to be able
to load in a 4-5 megabyte VRML graphics page with
a 14.4 kbps access in a matter of minutes. Now that
same page can take up to an hour to load in and it is
not due to the web site or our modem. It is more
due to the number of people online as I can tell
when the businesses first turn their computers on
and leave them on all day as when I get online before
those machines are turned on my access to most any
web site is noticeably faster than when those machines
are running. Early morning and late evening and
my access to this web site is far better than mid day
is for me, for example, so bandwidth becomes an
issue for us dialup users. Another thing to consider
is that when our ISP's started to offer DSL service
to their customers, more so than when ISDN was
first offered, the dialup users became "second
fiddle". I know with our ISP our dialup access
speeds suffered immediately when the DSL was
offered and we still have some dialup issues such
as our e-mails clients loading in much slower and
have noticeable lulls in the retrieving and gathering
of e-mails. The same is true for the FTP uploading
in which my upload speeds here are less than half
of what they once were and the speeds are not
balanced in that those speeds go up and down
dramatically in which it used to be that once a
speed was set it pretty much stayed that speed
until the advent of the DSL and ADSL users that
my ISP now has. So, us internet dinosaurs still
with dialup service have a few more limitations
to deal with today than what we had in the recent
past.

Also, those of us using older version operating
systems will not have fast speed in some web
sites as the internet and much of the software
used for the internet is either Windows NT,
Windows XP or Apple OS friendly and at
times there will be some conflicts due to the
nature of the OS companies not wanting to
give away their code and have made it more
difficult for software to run as easy using a
particular OS as well as which browser we
choose to use as the coding of the browsers
are going to run a little more efficiently with
the newer operating system software. Which
is why we may have a lull in some of our
smart browser recognition of a bookmark
link using Windows 98 SE than we will
with the same browser running Windows
XP instead. I used to go into the eBay web
site for up to 6-8 hours a day for over 5 years.
Now, I may look in the web site once a month
as I will not change over to DSL or to a cable
modem just so my access into that web site
will be as fast as it used to be for us, regardless
of our viewing location.

There are times in our efforts to make a page
load in quicker we lose a bell or whistle of
value to some of us. In my case I miss the
number of people looking in a particular
forum in the main page. I liked that feature.

Jim

 

Well, it was easy enough to put back - perhaps not as immediately obvious as before, though, since it is tied in with the threads and posts.

 

Will try out the new page but in the meantime...

Other forum pages load relatively quickly for me which leads me to wonder whether database access is the bottleneck for the main page. Speed can be improved by reducing the complexity of the queries required to retrieve the data especially if table joins can be reduced or eliminated.

IMHO, while the number of threads and replies contained in each forum is interesting it is of limited value. The Last Post column is informative but can be also be dispensed with. Typically I don't even look at all this since New Posts returns a complete list of what's new. Is this information important enough to justify a slowdown in speed if indeed there is a high price for its retrieval?

Additional observation: The user is able to control the amount of data that is loaded onto the thread page via multiple profile settings but not so for the main page. Therefore the main page should be streamlined as much as possible.

BTW, the threads/posts info now appears next to each resource forum (e.g. Citrus links). It looks out of place as it doesn't apply to them.

 

There's no noticeable difference after the change.

 

Ok, I'll try the original suggestions, but it might not be for another few weeks - I'm pretty behind on stuff at the moment.

 

No rush.

 

I think I'll do this first weekend in Feb.

 

Here's an update, in case it's relevant: still almost cannot get this site on iMac. Link in 'Favorites' useless, 'History often not a successful path as well (it varies). Gave up at one point, until I got in through fresh search via Google. Used to be I couldn't get GardenWeb but UBC came right up, not it is almost the opposite.

 

Do you know what browser is being used on the iMac?

 

IE. On my home PC I use Firefox. Her iMac has indications that Mozilla was downloaded but I don't know how to fiddle with an iMac, I really don't know much about Windows machines either.

 

Hmm.. IE for the Mac is no longer supported by Microsoft, but it still shouldn't be a huge problem.

 

Other sites visited still open right up (Verizon DSL).

 

Fair enough - last question. Do you have the right sidebar displayed on the iMac?

 

I wonder if the slowdown is caused by the amount of data that has to be retrieved and displayed. There didn't seem to be a problem before the forum structure was flattened.

 

I haven't noticed the sidebar not being there, but her iMac displays a smaller view of the page than this PC. The thing I would wonder is if there is a bunch of people with similar machines who do not use the site, because of such difficulties.

 

I made a small tweak to the server and eliminated six subforums in the public UBC BG area. Right now I'm one of two registered users logged in at 12:30 AM PST, and it seems faster to me (which happened after I made the tweak but before I removed the subforums). If you notice any difference, please let me know (if not, I'll assume no difference - I'll still be doing the maintenance first weekend of Feb in any case).

 

I've noticed the site being rather speedy all day (including the evening) after this morning's update of the links plugin. Anyone else notice anything different?