Site slowing down?

[monkeygirl]

HI Wise! I was just wondering if you've changed servers, or something in the site itself? It has been taking 100 times longer to bring up pages than it used to, and I've got ADSL. http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Wise Young]

Monkeygirl,

You are right. The site has slowed down. Normally, the server responds to requests within 100-150 msec. However, in the last two days, it has slowed down to about 341 msec.

I have vistied the infopop boards to see if there are any reasons why it is slowing down. The only thing that I can see is that they are now installing new software which must be putting a big load on their servers.

The new version of the software provide a bevy of features that must be quite computer intensive. For example, in a few weeks, when the upgrade hits our server,

• every member who is online will have an icon indicating so.
• They are putting the wordlet tool in which allows the site to replace any word in a posting with another word (don't worry, I won't be enabling that tool unless there is a demand for some kind of translation of the scientific words being used here).
• They will now allow users a wide selection of avatars (images) that they can select in their profiles and use to represent themselves...
• they are going to provide server space for member web pages that could be linked to individual members.

There are also new moderator and administrator tools that seem to me to be overkill but might turn out to be useful. For example, I can arrange for any message contains my name to be directly emailed to me or sent to my PopIt page. I will be able to determine how many messages that a person has deleted.

In the past, whenever they have rolled out so many new features at a time, the service has slowed down. I suspect that the same is happening. However, it eventually settles down.

Wise.

[Wise Young]

I just checked the internet traffic and it shows a major slowdown in North American traffic at 18:00-20:00 MST last night which translates to 7-9 pm on the west coast. Since you posted at 7:20 pm, that would explain your slow down.

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

Incidentally, you can also check to see if there is a problem locally in specific networks...

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/cgi-bin/tr_chartpage.pl?NorthAmerica

Wise.

[Wise Young]

Yikes, www.internettrafficreport.com (http://www.internettrafficreport.com) just shut down completely.

I just went to another site... www.internetweather.com (http://www.internetweather.com) which gives a map of Canada with circles indicating where there are internet slowdowns.

Here is the map for the U.S.

http://www.internetweather.com/us/htmldir/18.html

Wise.

[Wise Young]

There are problems with internet traffic all over the U.S. and Canada. Not good. May account for the slow response time of some of the networks. Wise.

[cheesecake]

Dr Young,
Every time I hit the Forum Home Link, I get a not available screen. If I go to my pull down bar I can get to the site just fine. Is this part of the internet slow down problem?

Patience is a virtue that I lack today LOL

[Wise Young]

cheese, I am not sure why you are seeing a difference between your home link and your pull down menu except that you are doing the pull down menu second and your browser may have already stored some of the download in its cache so that the second time you try it, the load occurs faster (from your disk rather than from internet).

There are network problems all over the U.S. but it is particularly bad on the Northeast and Chicago. If you go to the link below (the map for the us), you will a number of circles around cities. The size of the circle means the degree of the delay while the color of the circles indicate the number of domains involved.

Around Washington DC, for example, right now I see a big red circle and a smaller green circle, indicating respectively that one domain has a real slowdown to 300-500 msec response time while there are 8-16 domains that are also slowed down but to a lesser extent. In Philadelphia, it looks as if there is a delay of over 1000 msec for at least three domains.

While a 500-1000 msec response time (0.5-1.0 sec) does not seem to be very much, it really does add up. For example, one of our forum pages involves the download of perhaps as many as 100 elements (all the icons and screen elements, as well as the text). Thus, a 500 msec response time means that it will take nearly 1-2 minute to download a single page.

There has also been been a high incidence of lost requests. Normally less than 1% of requests or packets are lost. The moment the packet loss rate exceeds 5-10%, that means that your page will not load properly. So, in my opinion, there is a problem on internet and everybody is encountering tiresome delays on their web loading.

Wise.

[cheesecake]

Wise, My pull down is set for carecure.atinfopop.com. When I hit the forum home it goes to sciwire.com not being available or having difficulties. The refresh button does not work. Still having the problem today but I am a bit less impatient. http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif

[offthahook]

Originally posted by cheesecake:

Dr Young,
Every time I hit the Forum Home Link, I get a not available screen. If I go to my pull down bar I can get to the site just fine. Is this part of the internet slow down problem?

Patience is a virtue that I lack today LOL
I feel ya. I get the same thing. PAGE NOT AVAILABLE... Eventually, it seems to iron itself out, but it is tricky sometimes to log in. Other times, no problems.
http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/confused.gif http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/confused.gif

http://carecure.rutgers.edu/spinewire/pictures/halle250-.jpg

My phat site (Not SCI related) (http://www.urbanfab.50megs.com)

[marmalady]

Me, too guys - have we all been invaded by the nasties?

_____________
Tough times don't last - tough people do.