Is there actually any effective action taken to correct the FT problems that have developed over the last two years, or are we just spitting into the wind with these comments?

Fact Pattern:

January 1 - 9
DFW
PHX
SJC
Hyatts
Starbucks
SPGs

Response in all locations above : SLOW

GoGo

Response in location above : NONE

Home on Cox Cable
Local Libraries

Response in location above : SLOW to NORMAL

* Welcome to my world :(

Bolding mine!

Ditto. It also seems like North American daylight hours on the weekends are slightly better than the weekdays, but not exactly stellar.

Case in point: I hit the submit button on this post and it took close to a minute to get posted, and hitting the Edit button afterward took close to 30 seconds to bring me to the edit screen.

+1

At first, I thought it's me because my work computer is OK. My personal laptop is slow.

Something I do notice... On my pesonal PC, when I first get to FT, it's OK. Then it gets slower and slower when I visit more pages. I'll see the header (the blue bar with the FT logo), then I'll see the breadcrumbs. After that, it'll just sit there 'waiting' for the rest of the page...

My limited (but dangerous) amount of technical knowledge makes me think it's because the way IE8 renders tables. It may not show the table until it has all the code for it. Assuming the actual forum data is from one place and coming through OK (e.g., the breadcrumbs), perhaps it's what's mixed into the actual posts, i.e., the ads...? Perhaps the connections to the ads are flaky...?

Apologies if I send you down garden path. :) My imagination can be quite vivid sometimes.

We recently made a change to the network. Can you please give me some feedback?

By any chance, could you go to this site: http://www.speedtest.net/ select a server in Los Angeles or San Diego, run the report, and past the results in here? When the test is done, there is a link to "copy direct link" that will copy the results to an image that you can paste in here. I just checked my internet connection to Canberra and got this: http://www.speedtest.net/result/681813370.png

Not any better here. Still often having to refresh several times to read a thread. Still slow as molasses.

I've tried running IE8 in compatibility mode, that doesn't seem to help, either.

Yea.. its been really slow.. its killing me..

Just wondering if its the ads thats causing this slow loading.. seems all others site (based in US, Europe and Asia, all loading pretty fast for me.. Just this site is crawling....

No, it's not the ads. I have the ad-free version of FT and have the same problems, especially when it comes to making a new post.

If you're using Windows, you can edit your hosts file to get rid of Ads.

Much easier, if you're using Firefox, is to get the ....... extension. Ads-be-gone.

Or, you could support the sites that you visit and not block ads.


I'm sorry to hear that the recent network changes did not help performance. We will continue to investigate.

Today, for me, at least, the site has been running much better. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

Server set to Sydney (where I am):

http://www.speedtest.net/result/683150125.png

Server set to San Diego:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/683152397.png

Pardon me?

Most members support this site by the incredible amounts of quality information and assistance they provide to their fellow FTers (and thus the entire site) ... at NO CHARGE.

Our posts are what make this site what it is, and as far as I am concerned, that should be support enough for the continued success of FT ... I really don't think we need lectures about our use of ad blockers.

I agree completely. ^

As for blocking ads, if there were a chance in hell that I would shop at any of those websites, I wouldn't block the ads.

Thank you, Blair.

Ironic, too, that it took four clicks to get this reply window to open. I'm sure it's being looked into... ;)

It's also worth pointing out that, as Blair says, there would be no FT without a) the content supplied by members, and b) the assistance of the moderators (who collectively give IB ~$300,000 in free staff time a year, estimated very conservatively) to help keep FT from turning into usenet, to help newbies around, to help organize content, etc., etc.

And that's not to mention folks on the Talk Board who give hours and hours of what amounts to unpaid staff time working on best practices and policies.

Maybe I spoke too soon. Still getting occasional hangs and having to refresh several times to read a thread--like this one. It's not happening every time now, but often enough to be really annoying.

Thanks. This helps.

So, is the site better? Worse? I could use some feedback.

As of this minute it is working very well -- but I think we should give it at least two days to see for sure.

Here are my results from Colorado Springs:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/687725514.png

:-: Note to all, Dick and the team have made some changes in an attempt to narrow down what the problem might be and could really use more of these speedtests from everyone. We're particularly interested in speedtests from New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, and China - but tests from other locations are useful as well - the more the better.

When you get to the speedtest page, a large gold star will indicate your current location. What you want to do is click the star over the Los Angeles/San Diego area on the world map, select one of the two cities from the popup box, and the speedtest between your current location and a server in the selected city will begin automatically. Once the test is completed (it only takes a few seconds), you will see the "Copy Direct Link" Dick mentioned above.

Thanks for your help everyone.

It's been quite good today. Thanks!

Will report back if anything changes.

Still looking for feedback.

running slow for me this morning.

Currently, this is the fastet I’ve ever seen FT run. Don’t change anything! :D

zipping right along today on both my g5 intel imac and my ancient g4 667 mhz powerbook

Very slow, starting about 10 minutes ago, from Taipei, Taiwan.

Page loads so slow. When it loads, only partially (top of page) then seconds of wait to a complete load. That makes it so painful to browse FT and post in different fora/threads.:(

Is FT under attach in Asia again?

ETA:
Back to normal for now.

Nope!

glad to see it's back to normal though.

Well, it was short-lived, at best.

Pages aren't loading at all at times. Sometimes just get a blank page with a little "done" notification at the bottom of my web browser. Other timesm I'll get the ads, but nothing substantive.

It seems to occur most often in OMNI, but occasionally in the Continental forum as well.

It's been sporadic over the last few days but the slowness/non-loading issues have been system-wide on FT for me.

Page load is getting a bit slower in Asia. It's taking extra seconds to load every thread and different pages. Just started to happen in the last 10 minutes or so.

Site is slow....time to upgrade?
 

Is it just PHP or is it time for a new server? The site seems very slow and cumbersome, but of course it is free.

I'll move this over to our Tech Issues, as it's offtopic for a forum devoted to Community meetings and greeetings.

Jenbel
Co-moderator, Communitybuzz!

very very very slow for me at 8:08am, pst :

to add: horrendously slow and numerous blank pages drawing at 8:31am pst

Looks like I've sent 6 copies of a PM while page was glacially slow to load.

Looks like I've sent 6 copies of a PM while page was glacially slow to load.

Looks like I've sent 6 copies of a PM while page was glacially slow to load.

...and 3 copies of a post. OK, OK, we got your point. :p:D:D

ps. Things seem to work fine from my end of the Asia world though.

I've been getting double post warnings for the last two hours, and also had to delete several duplicate posts in Community

Bizarre - I only pressed submit reply once.

I noticed replying to another thread that it then appeared in the list of subscribed threads in MyFT, which shouldn't happen with the new method of marking things as read.