Anyone else "boggin down" on this site

I know what you mean. Bill Gates put out rubbish software full of errors and they are still causing errors.

But that doesn't help me. Thanks anyway.

Phil

I wondered about that also. Putting the cursor on the scrolling banner at the top of the screen to stop it scrolling did not seem to make any difference.

Currently I avoid this site but enjoy the info and company. It has to be the site because it doesn't happen on any other site that I visit.

Phil

Hi Pete

I do not think its your Task Manager that you are looking at

Mate! Its a screen dump of my Task Manager.

I also do not understand the second part "but previously when I opened certain threads it thinks about it for ages an then goes back to the thread " What did you mean?

Phil

gooday PJR

thanks for ya reply ,
I think ya on the money ! been paying a bit more attention to how I have been doin things , narrowed it down to 3 things
faulty right finger !! trigger happy
faulty moose !!
my impatience !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
checked the same thread several times after reading what you thought and bingo !!! all ok ,
have recalibrated all 3 an I recon all is good
thanks mate cheers

Thanks for the laugh Pete

I needed it. I just had a bloke tell me to "chill out" when all I was trying to do was give a poster a small hint on layout. I had a hell of a time reading the post and thought "A hint:" would be taken as trying to be helpful.

I needed a laugh and thanks.

To your point. I was all over the pages waiting and pressed early myself before the page would finish loading. I nearly got divorced. I would get so angry with "everything being so slow".

No worries. I feel like a cold one right now.

catchya The one day match starts soon anyway so I better get offa da poooter.

Phil

I feel the same.

Where is this tick box to reduce the ads?

Phil

Phil,
The box to tick to suppress ads is right down the bottom in the blue bar that says "Related shop items". It gets rid of some but not all ads.
Cheers,
Val

Yes, it's well hidden. One might more expect to find it on the Forum home page together with other "Display Options" together with "Suppress Reviews" etc. Furthermore, "ticking it" only lasts for 30 days then it must be reactivated.

Thanks Val

I ran the CPU usage graph while swapping and it made very little difference. But it's start. Welcome to 2013 to John and yourself.

Phil

Allan

I went all through those member only pages with a fine tooth combe. I didn't think that it was the "adchoices" as it took me off-site.

Phil

Phil
Not sure if you found it (and doubt it will solve your issue) but the "suppress adds" check box is at the bottom of every forum page..



Cheers
Greg

Alastair,
I am interested in your comment as there is less than 3 ad slots per page (for members) and this is actually two less than 6 months ago. I constantly move the slots around but I have only removed slots in the last few months. I have added some more internal links to shop products etc and some of these will look like ads I guess. I can make adjustments to some of these but I need to gauge what part of the system is causing the performance of some machines to be poor.

We have over 1 million users on the site per month and every month I have 5-10 maybe more maybe less people who have a performance issue of one type or another - it is always really hard to work out what is going on with the variety of workstations out in the world.

It is true that the initial page (first page per session) load is large this is to get all the latest versions of the scripts libraries but these are very well cached on the browser and subsequent pages will not request these. Images - yep I deliver a lot of very well optimized images per screen and these are shop items, rig pics and a large number of page layout supporting images but again all should be very well cached. After about 2 screens from the site the download per page reduces to around 50-100KB (plus ads which are meant to be 3 x max 50KB)

I am happy to work through any problems people have to the best of our ability and offer you and anyone else having problems a direct line of communication to us in the office.

Might be that thing I emailed you about last week David

I am also having similar problems as the others.

Hunter try Google Chrome. As David suggested. It fixed my speed problem.

Phil

Peter I am sure it is MY Task manager. If it scrolls then its mine. If it doesn't scroll then its yours. My words are above it.

What happens when you scroll the screen. Does yours move?

Phil

hi phil
yes its your task manager window ,it moves up an down with thread ,
my 2nd coment is not related to your problem ,
certain threads ,when i go to open them , it starts to open hangs for a long time then it flicks back to the posted thread .
Only on certain threads !!!! but it can do it 3 or 4 times , I then just go on reading other threads an usually if you come back to it it works ok , excuse my poor descibing how things happen , I not a computer nut
pete

Ooops Got ya Pete. Just joking mate.

About the other issue: I wonder if you are "double" clicking to get somewhere without needing to. My sister has a horrible nervy shake in her hands and things like that happen to her. When she clicks on "Reply" to answer an email that she is reading she can accidently also click the following "Send" button which replaces the "Reply" button in exactly the same place. We all often get two emails from her.

And when opening a screen a double click can start an option that is available on the new screen without knowing that you are doing it. Even I do this in my impatience.

I wonder if you are double clicking and should wait a little longer between clicks.

Phil

I wondernew email

Mate

I have enough bills let alone changing the computer. It is only a problem here, on this site. All other times its fine. It does everything that we need. The occasional email. Checking our regular 4x4/4WD sites and looking after the photos and letters. No facebook or twitter etc.

I think that i will keep this one mate.

Nice try RA.

Phil

I must disagree with you about management. They have responded and helped a few times. Give him time. This may be a "can of worms". Especially seeing that its not just the PC market but the Apple lot who appear to be affected.

Give him time.

Phil

G'day Folks
FWIW I am using an iMac (with RAM maxxed) and connect to the internet via high speed cable. Cable capacity, I suspect, exceeds the bandwidth available to serve me content on most sites. This one is the only one I go to that hangs as Allan describes. No idea why.

Haven't looked at demand on the iMac CPU so can't really compare or comment on Phil's experience except to say that when it hangs I often go to another browser tab and site and carry on as normal while this site loads. Alternatively I go elsewhere and come back later.

Cheers
Mark

Hi Mark

That backs up my idea that it is more than likely the site downloaded software (applications or scripts etc) more so than the communication or local hardware layers.

Phil

Alan,
I have not seen your emails please forward me a copy to david@exploroz.com and I will have a look for you.
David

David,
The first message was sent via the "Feedbak > Problem" facility on the 5th December in regard to a couple of MM "Reply" that had not been received by the original sender. Of course I do not have copies of these as the system does not provide them. At that time I also entered a "Feedback - Problem" message regarding this issue but received no response. Eventually I just gave up and managed to establish email contact with the members.

Then on the 20 Dec I sent you an email (david@exploroz.com) regarding an issue I was having with the Modsquad which included the communication problem of the MM facility but had no response from you. So I gave up on that too.

Incidentally, In this thread you have referred to the page-top banner scrolling. It does not scroll on my machines.... maybe a cookie or something related to my identity?

Allan,
I remembered an email about the modsquad which I forwarded as I do not have anything really to do with forum moderation at all and do not typically enter into correspondence about it, so I skimmed it and forwarded it thus may have missed your MM communication within. Sorry I did not respond at the time indicating this but I did forward it and suspect it got overlooked.

As for the site feedback I cannot find record here - did you get a response from Adele? She responds to every feedback sent from the server with at least a statement saying it was being passed on!

As for MM problems if you have a look in the blog I loaded yesterday I did address an MM problem that was occurring from the Members Public profile page with the Send Member Message button on the RHS - this is the only place on the system where there was an MM problem however it has now been solved. I do recall seeing a few emails about this MM issue but I was never able to find it as all the testing I have done was working fine until one user indicated it was when he used the links in the Public Profile page.

We are tasked to respond to every valid email & feedback we receive and this is typically 50-100 emails/feedbacks each day. I am really sorry if for some reason yours have been missed but if you send something in you will always get at least a reply from Adele saying how to fix it or that it has been passed on - if this does not come within the same/next business day then we may not have received it. As you must also understand we have a number of spam filtering systems running and these block around 3000 emails per day for which we are totally unable to read/check every one. So if there are certain word strings or language etc in the emails/feedbacks we may just never get them. This is not typically the case but it has been known to happen in the past.

Are you saying that the top level image which today is a series of joined outback images is not scrolling to the left when your mouse is not over it?

David

David,

Yes, the expressions about the MM problem was within the gripe about moderation so i can imagine that you could have overlooked it. Never mind but perhaps you could send me a test MM and we will see if I can respond. Also I have used the "Alert Moderator" function several times and have never had a response or action.
I do however understand about the number of emails you receive and issues of filtering as I also filter and it occasionally puts a valid email into Junk or Trash.


However, on a brighter note, your expressions to Phil about Google Chrome moved me to install it on the iMac and behold, the top banner is scrolling. So it is some issue with my Safari. I'll try the Chrome for a while and may even use it as my default browser. Also I observe that the banner is scrolling on my Samsung tablet but so slowly that it is hardly noticeable. Perhaps this is a function of my ISP connection via 3G? I cannot check the Windows laptop or iPad at the moment as they are not available.

Allan,

MM sent as requested. Chrome is really fast and a worthwhile thing to try - I think Phil is also finding it fast but will wait to hear more.

David

Thanks David,
With Chrome the banner is moving and the MM facility appears to be Ok.
I did like Safari though so we'll see how Chrome goes and I can always keep it just for ExplorOz. lol
You may remember that we worked together to get Safari compatibility but maybe some issues are just too much.

My problem with the MM facility was really embarrassing. As my responses were not received it could appear to the original sender that I was ignoring their message (and they were significant messages). I of course had no way of knowing that my replies had not been received so took no further action for some time.

Similarly, the issue I had with the ModSquad did not favour me with a response and I could not know whether they did not receive my communication or whether they were ignoring it, hence my resorting to a "Higher Authority"....... you. Even though I do appreciate that you cannot become involved in every issue. There are still some issues on that and perhaps I will express them to you privately.

Allan,
The scroller not working in Safari is that Mac or Windows? I have a Mac system her and windows and would like to do some more test but please let me know which one you are having to scroller not work in?

Yeah really sorry about the MM problems took me ages to find it as it was only wrong on one of the 20 different places that the MM system works in. Rest assured it is right everywhere now and a none response is just that.

David

David,
The scroller fail was with Safari 6.0.2 running on Mac OSX 10.7.5 on an iMac. However, this message was brought to you by Chrome. lol

I believe that it used to be quite faster. It's only in the recent year or so that it has progressively slowed down.

We only use the internet from the home PCs. Never on the road so I cannot comment on those situations. Nor do we want it when not home. It's only used for trip planning, shopping, emails and some entertainment. My wife has already purchased stuff for next Christmas.

Phil

Phil,
I just captured the running process page from my system on the page you are reporting and this is what I get with the scroller in view but the page had been sitting on the screen for a full cycle however it was never more that firefox 4% and flash 2%.



When I take the scroller out of view the usage drops to 1-2%.

The firefox % in my case is the resources for the entire browser. I have seen the scroller use nearly 20% on some older systems but never 98% so a capture on the sorted processes will be very helpful.
David

Hi David

I was hoping that you would drop in. I already froze the banner without any noticeable (spelling?) in the CPU usage.

Sorry for the slow response I was trying to put a sequence of screen dumps with just the CPU usage shown and the other content cropped.

Lets see how I go with putting i together in my next reasponse.

I will be back

Phil

Phil,
Just to be sure there no know CPU users on the page make sure you scroll down to there there is nothing in the RHS column and away from the footer - the two shop product areas use the same scroller - on completely different timing but they use the same JS program.
David

Cropped screen dumps. Windoes Internet Explorer and Windows XP. No change in last 5-6 years. Picassa and Task manager running all the time. No email or any other program loaded. You can see the jumps where things were loaded.

!st: Picassa and the Task Manager running.



2nd: Internet added showing categories on ebay.



3Rd: 4x4 fprum site



4th Load exploroz site



Does that help?

Phil

Phil,
Sort of but in task manager click on the Processes tab and then click on the CPU column header so that the process list is sorted by most CPU usage and then capture that for me.
David

This was down there plus the programs as mentioned on the left with each screen dump. The right hand does not change.

Phil

Its compng mate. I just need to make sure nothing else is in the way.

Hows this?

Phil,
Is that taken with the page scrolled down so all scrollers are out of view?
David

I think that this one will answer that question.

Interesting - it looks like an XP machine is that right? What version of IE is it running? Can you update the flash player also as if the scroller is out of view then the problem is something else (unless your IE version is < V8).

Can you do a test try using Google Chrome browser download it at http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/ it is not a large download and is worth trying out.

David

Hi david

I am happy to swap to emails if it is any quicker.

IE is version 8 and Flash is the lateset. I would prefer not o load Google Chrome unless you really want it.

Phil

Just to explain a bit more David. I believe in not updating unless there is something wrong with what I have and am happy with. IE does all I need. I dont want all that other stuff that Chrome has. Its irrelevant. That is why I would prefer not to change. The download data isn't an issue.

So if it will help you to sort out this issue then I will load it. But I will want to remove it when done with the test.

What do you wish sir??

Phil

Phil,

Not sure what you are referring to as Chrome is simply a super fast web browser with almost nothing else. You do not need to create a Google account - it will prompt you but just leave it and move forward. In fact chrome has less rubbish on it than IE and runs significantly faster because of it. If you do not want Chrome then try Firefox however Chrome is a smaller download and uses heaps less resources and runs quicker than all the browsers I have tested and run on this machine I use IE8, 9 & 10, Firefox, Safari & Google Chrome. The only reason I use FF the most (and now) is due to the excellent debugger that I can load into it for testing the system.

As for not updating I hear you and understand but you are having a problem at the moment with this site and IE so all I am asking is that you give it a go - you have nothing to lose and in fact a whole new web browsing experience to gain if it works. So please give it a try and let me know how it goes and by all means delete it after however I would be surprised if you really wanted to after using it. To ease use make sure you import all your settings from IE when prompted it will bring over all your bookmarks, cookies and login preferences.

Michelle's brother visited us over Xmas and is was a staunch IE user until I forced him to load Chrome on his laptop and now all he uses is Chrome and he comments how fast his machine now is.

Please give it a crack and see what happens!
David

I just wanted to know if you needed it to see why I was bogging down.

I will download it for a short time and see. Then I go back to IE and completely delete Google Chrome.

I will let you know how it goes.

Phil

Stu,
Thanks button pushed. (I need one of these on the site I think)
David

hi
ive had lots of same issues as others on /off for last 3 wks but only on this site
every other site is faultless
even this morning when trying to post a thread reply the site switches off and screen says exploroz site not availuble
then i click on the back arrow and the site comes back on again and continues to function
when i click on -reply to post- its been doing this a lot for several days now and is intermittant and most annoying yesterday there were so many hickups i gave up and i closed down and went to the shed imho there are now far too many adverts clogging what was a good site yes and i know about the no ad button but its function is limited in steming all the adds so be it
cheers

Mazcan,

There have been mentioned a few times that last three weeks - this is a clue as about 3-4 weeks ago I did a number of major changes to the script libraries to bring them up-to date. I have also been doing more tweaking of the system in the last few weeks to get around a number of problems that the latest updates introduced and in fact it was only yesterday afternoon that the stability of the server has really settled. SO again surprised on comments about issues this morning.

Does it happen all the time? What Operating system and browser are you running?

Just had a look around using this large thread helped me find that I was not zipping the forum thread view content. I have just turned this one so see if this makes any difference on your machine.

It may have a negative impact on the server performance but will enhance the download and user experience (provided the server does not overload). I will monitor this and see what happens. Any feedback on this welcome.
David

Agree.

On my Win7 desktop machine and ADSL the site is considerably slower than most others, but is ok. It is slow to open a thread from the thread list and is slower again to return from a thread to the thread list, but perfectly useable.

On my XP laptops on the same ADSL it is unacceptably slow.

On my "travelling" XP laptop with internet via my phone (Telstra NextG) I'm afraid I don't bother. Yet that computer and phone combination is quite fine for email, access to my club's website and forum and banking (my credit union has a simple site, so few digital overheads).

Cheers

Interesting comments I will look into these but I use my iPhone and android phones on 3G all the time and rarely have any problems at all. I do have my tablets and laptops running Windows7 as I gave up on XP years ago - this may have some effect as I do not test with XP directly anymore.

Trust me I use mobile connections to the server almost every day.

There have been mentioned a few times that last three weeks - this is a clue as about 3-4 weeks ago I did a number of major changes to the script libraries to bring them up-to date. I have also been doing more tweaking of the system in the last few weeks to get around a number of problems that the latest updates introduced and in fact it was only yesterday afternoon that the stability of the server has really settled. SO again surprised on comments about issues this morning.

I would be more than happy to work with you on these to try to work out the problems so please let me know if you have any reproducible issues that I can test out or tell me exactly what happens and I will try to piece together some testing and try to come up with a resolution.
David

Just had a look around using this large thread helped me find that I was not zipping the forum thread view content. I have just turned this one so see if this makes any difference to you machines and 3G.

It may have a negative impact on the server performance but will enhance the download and user experience (provided the server does not overload). I will monitor this and see what happens. Any feedback on this welcome.
David

Hi David/Frank, i have XP at work here and they run well, but a good fast connection, i have W7 on the laptop at home and for travel with a "Telstra" stick and it is slow, i have also changed over to the "Wirless" thingy from Telstra and it is also slow, i will assume restricted by download speed ..... i think the wirless one switches to 4G or something in the citys as it speeds up......
I mean i and happy with the connection as we learn to live with it but it has made me stay off it for a while now, and it is a bloody good site.
Cheers

Thanks but after turning on the zipping of the thread view can you let me know if it makes you laptop any better. I need to monitor the server to see if it creates any problems but so far memory has only spiked once on the servers since I made the change and this long thread will be a really good tester.

Have a good weekend.
David

will do, when i get home from work, may be a few hours :-)
It opened from the link on the e-mail well so will try it on laptop
Cheers

"I will look into these but I use my iPhone and android phones on 3G all the time and rarely have any problems at all."

thats interesting, if I try and post on my Iphone through mobile version, the text jumps all over the place as each letter is entered and is virtually unusable.

David and Michelle,

From about 10:35pm Eastern time tonight, 13th Jan, the site was very slow on all browsers (Chrome, FF and IE). Trying to go back to the thread list from Phil's long thread on searching, Chrome stalled and in the status line it said "Waiting for pubads.g.doubleclick.net..." And waited and waited and waited. Over 5 minutes.

I guess ads and monitoring clickthroughs are a necessary evil in the business, but if they drive away your viewers no-one wins.

Hope you can fix it.

Cheers

Try again Frank I turned something off and things see faster in the forum. Let me know what you think?
David

Hi David,

9:30am Eastern time. The PC is a Win7 machine, fully updated, heaps of drive space. It flies with everything I do, except browsing Exploroz :-(

It has been shut down overnight, so a clean start this morning. No change to last night's behaviour with FF and IE. They were so slow I closed them. I did see the "Waiting for pubads.g.doubleclick.net..." message again. FF seemed to hang on that. IE doesn't give that info. (Actually, it's not IE, it's Slimbrowser which is a nice front end/GUI that uses the IE engine.) I have IE9.

I just did some tests with IE itself (not Slimbrowser). 5 seconds to load P2 of the threadlist, 20 seconds to load this thread, 10 seconds to go back to the thread list.

Chrome is MUCH faster, but by contemporary standards there are still lengthy delays to load and exit long threads. Also, it took a long time to load P2 of the thread list.

This follow-up is being written in Chrome

Cheers

David,

Also, it takes ages for any of my browsers to post a reply or follow-up. The one above took Chrome 20 seconds after clicking the Submit button. Slimbrowser, IE and FF are slower.

As has been mentioned by others, I too noticed this general slowdown about 3 weeks ago.

Cheers

Frank,
I have been doing heaps of things on the system and have a load more to go but wanted to advise you about the post submittions timing:

It does take a while to submit a thread, reply or followup. The system parses the text looking for words and strings for keyword replacement, checks for bad language, removes html, converts links and embeded content etc and then writes the cached submission to the database - this can take a second or two to complete and then the system has to render the whole thread again - this one in particular is getting longer and larger thus is taking several seconds to render.

I did turn on compression and have had to turn it off again for the time being it was causing to much server resource usage - I am working on this however and expect to be able to turn it back on in due course.
David

Thanks David. I didn't realise that there's so much going on after submitting a reply or follow-up. You've explained a lot.

10:30pm Eastern time on 14th - it seems to be a bit faster. Now using Slimbrowser and it's ok.

I appreciate your responses, but I know you're busy so please don't feel obliged to reply. I posted not to complain but hopefully to give you some info to work with. It's pretty bacsic, but sotty, I'm not tech savvy enough to give you more detail.

Keep up the good work, it's a great site with great content.

Cheers

"sotty" ????

Sorry!

That is great Phil,

What I have found on some older machines is that IE is just to cumbersome and runs like a dog. A lot of the newer FF, Chrome etc browsers are some much better in terms of system performance. Anyway I hope the import of settings works for you and that your favorites etc have all come across.

Honestly I do not often make suggestions like this to fix issues but ExplorOz is an evolving system (I work on it everyday) writing new tools and ways to interact with the audience and this does unfortunately mean that some of the older systems and browsers will start to struggle. I know IE8 is new but installing it on an older system will not make the older system better but Chrome is so darn quick that it seems to allow older systems to run better.

I really hope this helps you and I am sure all the sites you visit will run faster.

If you continue to have problems or need any help you know where we are.

All the best and have a great (and fast browsing) weekend.

David

Mods....
Is there any way you know of to load everything except the ads, the banners?

Hello

RE: "Ads prop up these sort of sites, paying all sorts of costs, even fees for moderators, etc"

Sorry for delayed response, been on "paid" ExplorOz Mod sick leave :)

Nope ...Mods don't get paid, probably don't deserve to either (too much fun), and if we did we would be obliged to do a much better job which may not work in some peoples favour... but anyway...

As far as the website itself is concerned you can, as a member, suppress some adds by using the "Suppress Ad" check box near base of forum page.



Cheers
The ModSquad