In Progress slow site

[webbie]

Well, it's always a biggie for us......
We want to get the best user experience possible.

I will continue to keep an eye on it as we go along. I'm even going to compare the actual KB size of topic pages on this forum with those on the old forum. It could be a couple things - but it's strange that we are getting so few reports.

I'll do a poll to see if we can place any problems...

 

[webbie]

Hmmm, just had a thought.......

All those other sites you load up (the biggies) use distributed cloud resources.....that is, they are available on server computers which are very close to you and have much faster connections.....

With 1 Meg of download speed, I wonder if they simply suck all the resources available.....?? I also wonder if certain browsers have a way of allocating some of the pipe to each tab, as opposed to letting the fastest in full open.....

Smokey??? Hey, aren't you in Maine? What's up?

FC, if you have no other windows open - is it much faster?
Do you have other (chrome, safari or IE) browsers you can try it with.....both by itself and then with the other windows?

Does windows (your version) automatically allow the browser or other program to use any and all RAM available, or is it limited by a setting?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Yes Craig, I'm in Maine and sit on a fast broadband connection.

There are so many things that impact what an end user experiences that list of questions that need answering is quite long.

For me the new site is faster but I never really measured any comparable page loads between them.

I could send a full packet trace out to a file and then check time stamps.

Some browsers have a configuration option that activates pipelining instead of serially requesting objects from a server or servers that can make a huge difference in perceived page load speeds.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Your server is 14 hops from me and all of the hops are fast but they all have varying response times. I've seen some in the 0.1 second range.

 

[flyingcow]

The 3 or 4 times i have popped in and out it running fine now. I don't have a clue what was going on.

 

[flyingcow]

Craig, even when i had no windows it was long time loading. After 30 secs i would get impatient and open another page. Some where local pages. Usually they popped right up.

But, that seems to be a thing of the past. Screaming right along now. even in the small blizzard we're having. My internet comes thru a rooftop antenna. (broken link removed) is my ISP

 

[arrowe44]

I have had loading hangs for a week or so, not all topics but most. Until yesterday when all started working normally. I'm using IPad 2 and didn't have that trouble at any other site I went to. Like the (new) feature that loads up at your last visit.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Craig I just did a speed comparison of my connection to flyingcow's service providers listed speeds for their wireless connections and my internet access is 15 times faster than flyingcow's so 1 to 2 second load for me is a 15 to 20 second load for flyingcow if you just consider the transaction as 100% download and it isn't a bit earlier I snagged a trace of one page load (this page in fact) and there were 659 separate packets processed between my system and your server and other servers required to render the page.

I'd also expect that flyingcow's wireless ISP system degrades under load faster than mine. Maybe flyingcow can run a speed test http://speed.pwless.net/ at various times of the day and let us know how it turns out.

ETA: There is a utility called wireshark, different versions for the various operating systems that can be downloaded and installed it is a protocol analysis and capture tool.


Wireshark is Open Source Software released under the GNU General Public License.

Check the man page and http://www.wireshark.org for more information.

 

[flyingcow]

Smokey is correct in that all my internet slows down at different times of the day. Like late afternoon/suppertime. just only some much bandwidth. part of the fun of living in the country. I'm just happy that i don't have dial up. Everything is working fine now. I get lag times once on a while, but it's been overall on all sites. All happy now. At one time our internet went thru Canada. Matter of fact we're also on the new Brunswick grid for power. Not part of ISO New England at all.

--We've done ping tests off and on. Majority of time it's in the 750's to 950's for speed download. 3 or 400 hundred uploading is a good day.

Thanks guys. ---My internet and TV goes all to hell when the geese are migrating. it's just that kinda life.

 

[BrotherBart]

I am only kicking 630/100 kb and the thing screams. With two of us in the house pounding on the connection.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I am only kicking 630/100 kb and the thing screams. With two of us in the house pounding on the connection.

Try a traceroute from your end and see how many hops your connection requires.

 

[BrotherBart]

11 hops including here and hearth.com. 9 in between. Three bouncing around at Verizon and four bouncing around at Cogento.

 

[smoke show]

Hey thats cool. 11 here also with 5 at Cogento.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Folks there are more request in pages on this site, than just the hearth.com servers you know.

You both have 3 less hops than I have to the hearth.com server I didn't bother to hit the other servers because Google's system is constantly changing servers, one call it is in North Overshoe and the next it is in Kalamazoo.

Lots of variables in Internet page load times.

 

[BrotherBart]

No big news to me. You asked for the traceroute. I think the speed is great.

But since TR isn't through a browser, Google ain't in the game on a trace.

 

[firefighterjake]

I have a computer. I click on the internet picture thingy and get connected. That's all I know. Oh wait a minute . . . I also can send e-mails.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

No big news to me. You asked for the traceroute. I think the speed is great.

But since TR isn't through a browser, Google ain't in the game on a trace.

That is true, however for the page load it is, usually Google is rather fast with few hops (frequently better that getting to the server the site is on) but not always. If you were to start with a capture using Wireshark for example and search for all occurrences of HTTP GET requests you can trace those as well and if you look at the corresponding return codes you can tell if caching is occurring or not. If a person has a large enough local cache defined then GET request for scripts will usually be faster after the first such request. Note undersized caches can negate this. The overall page sizes here are hefty and if large parts of the page can't be cached at 1 million bits per second page loads can take over 8 seconds just one way.

You see the faster we go the further behind we can get, stuff always expands to exceed the space available to store it or the bandwidth required to transfer it. Some variant of Murphy's or Finagles' Law .

 

[BrotherBart]

Yep. Us old timer's say that the more memory, processor speed and bandwidth available the sloppier the design and coding gets too.

"Back in my day we had to work with..."

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Yep. Us old timer's say that the more memory, processor speed and bandwidth available the sloppier the design and coding gets too.

"Back in my day we had to work with..."

Let's start with 300 bit per second dial up and go from there.

 

[BrotherBart]

I wish I had started with 300 baud.

 

[webbie]

I remember in the late 90's it was estimated the the internet effectively ran at about 56K - even though many people had cable and other fast connections!

Luckily for all of us (who were not investors) the dot-com boom resulted in vast amounts of new "pipes" as well as other speedups for the net. Google and other networks then completely changed the game by replicating much of the content so it is served up from the closest or fastest connections.

In short - we are doing pretty well considering!

I show 11 hops, but they are mostly in Charter Cable MA - then to Charter VA, then to the Cogent network to the datacenter in Philly.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I wish I had started with 300 baud.

Were you doing RTTY on HF radio at 50 or back on the TTY's at 110?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I remember in the late 90's it was estimated the the internet effectively ran at about 56K - even though many people had cable and other fast connections!

Luckily for all of us (who were not investors) the dot-com boom resulted in vast amounts of new "pipes" as well as other speedups for the net. Google and other networks then completely changed the game by replicating much of the content so it is served up from the closest or fastest connections.

In short - we are doing pretty well considering!

I show 11 hops, but they are mostly in Charter Cable MA - then to Charter VA, then to the Cogent network to the datacenter in Philly.

I crossed the 56K line back in the 80s. I haven't done much poking around but when the .boom went boom, there was so much dark pipe it wasn't funny, I wonder if it is all lit up today.

 

[webbie]

BB was using these - digitally.
It was about .1 baud when things went well.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Ah, the smoke signal, that should make smoke show take notice .