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I'm a fully paid up member logged in. There is no reply box any more on the 3rd page of the assisted dying thread. The forum is just a buggy mess and unfortunatly its killing the forum
This one?
that one - it reappeared again 🙂 I have made further answers
Is it beyond the realms of technology to get external links to resize properly?
You might need a different img host.
Helpful as ever
He's now wrong though, is he. That's not a site fault, that's pasting the wrong link and being blocked by the photo host.
Anyway, the reason I'm here is I've just noticed something.
Performance on thread loading appears to be proportional to the size of the thread. A new thread loads near-instantaneously where as (say) the Trump thread takes ages. I am not a DBA but this is, I presume, an SQL issue? I'm guessing that the query is requesting the entire thread and then displaying what's needed rather than only hitting the database for the data actually required. This would explain why it initially displays page 1 before hopefully jumping to page [whatever].
Is anyone else seeing similar and can confirm or am I hallucinating?
Yes, I noticed this on the Trump thread. I haven't looked at other large threads, so can't confirm it's just based on the size. Seems particularly slow on a phone.
Yeah, I'm seeing similar...
Helpful as ever
Not being able to see an image for reporting about an appearance is better with images that work.
Performance on thread loading appears to be proportional to the size of the thread. A new thread loads near-instantaneously where as (say) the Trump thread takes ages.
A little slower on huge threads, yes. I’ll mention it.
UK imgur access ... removed UK gov rules.
Yes, seen that and imgbb.com allowing embedded. Not sure what other hosts are out there now.
Thought I was paying not to see ads?
Performance on thread loading appears to be proportional to the size of the thread. A new thread loads near-instantaneously where as (say) the Trump thread takes ages.
Sorry, only just spotted this comment but I mentioned it weeks ago, I can't be bothered to trawl back and find out exactly when. Speed differs a bit depending on where you click. Hitting the >> icon takes you to the final post on the last page and is fairly speedy. Clicking on the thread title find the first post you've not read, which takes ages, particularly as pointed out on the long running threads, trump and Ukraine can take 20 seconds or more.
Yes, seen that and imgbb.com allowing embedded. Not sure what other hosts are out there now.
imgbb works fine for me? On desktop, paste image, select 'copy' next to the .png address it spits out, paste address into STW.
Or does it just look fine for me because I'm logged into it and is failing by stealth for other viewers? That's nasty if so.
Or does it just look fine for me because I'm logged into it and is failing by stealth for other viewers? That's nasty if so.
It won’t show the image for none Pro uses as they aren’t allowed external links.
It won’t show the image for none Pro uses as they aren’t allowed external links.
I'm not a Pro customer and whilst I can't see thepodge's images I can see my own embeds.
Can you see the post here?
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/off-topic/computer-help-graphics-card-issues/#post-13708819
... I can, using a browser which shouldn't have any cached details.
Anyway, the reason I'm here is I've just noticed something.
Performance on thread loading appears to be proportional to the size of the thread. A new thread loads near-instantaneously where as (say) the Trump thread takes ages. I am not a DBA but this is, I presume, an SQL issue? I'm guessing that the query is requesting the entire thread and then displaying what's needed rather than only hitting the database for the data actually required. This would explain why it initially displays page 1 before hopefully jumping to page [whatever].
Is anyone else seeing similar and can confirm or am I hallucinating?
Don't think its that. Its just taken 10/15 seconds to reply to a new thread and probably a good 30 seconds (no joke!) from hitting the quote function on your post above to it actually appearing here for me to reply to.
Assume this new host the site has just been migrated to is an Amstrad CPC64?
It won’t show the image for none Pro uses as they aren’t allowed external links.
I'm not a Pro customer and whilst I can't see thepodge's images I can see my own embeds.
Can you see the post here?
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/off-topic/computer-help-graphics-card-issues/#post-13708819
I wouldnt worry, even I cant see them any more.
Most pictures look like they are broken links now anyway.
It won’t show the image for none Pro uses as they aren’t allowed external links.
I'm not a Pro customer and whilst I can't see thepodge's images I can see my own embeds.
Can you see the post here?
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/off-topic/computer-help-graphics-card-issues/#post-13708819
Yep
I'm not a Pro customer and whilst I can't see thepodge's images I can see my own embeds.
Can you see the post here?
Yup I can.
Assume this new host the site has just been migrated to is an Amstrad CPC64?
Or the server is still busy churning away, it is being monitored by tech.
On Google Chrome on pc, this morning stw is demanding I allow 980 cookie partners. "Reject all" option gone.
Not happening.
Once this excessive demand transfers to my mobile Chrome, I'm out, besides perhaps read only in incognito mode.
No site I use comes close to the amount of cookie carp this site has saved on my pc in the past when I allowed cookies.
No site I use comes close to the amount of cookie carp this site has saved on my pc in the past when I allowed cookies.
I see this all the time - and not just for Reach sites!
Pretty much all the F1 sites I visit use this accept cookies or reject and pay pop-up. There's no reject all cookies option.
No site I use comes close to the amount of cookie carp this site has saved on my pc in the past when I allowed cookies.
To be fair here, plenty do, just not all of them tell you.
Have a look at consent-o-matic. You can tell it what your preferences are and then it will apply them for you to most cookie pop-ups. It's not perfect, but of the ones it fails on, half the time I'll just close the page anyway.
Is it just me or is the forum overall a lot less active lately (the bike forum)? I personally use it less mainly due to the slow performance - just does my head in, when no other forums I frequent have similar performance issues. It makes it worse that this is the only forum I actually pay for (could live without the magazine). I have no intention to renew - and tbh the only reason I did at last renewal was because I forgot to cancel.
I personally use it less mainly due to the slow performance - just does my head in, when no other forums I frequent have similar performance issues.
How have you found it the last couple of days.
Slow
Doesn’t matter if i am on phone, iPad or Mac - or if I am on Safari or Chrome.
Odd as the upgrade seems to have sped it considerably for others. If it’s the same on all your devices then it does suggest it’s server end.
Yeah it’s no better post upgrade. In fact worse on some occasions. Tried to open the heavy gravel thread this morning- took 20 seconds.
Edit - and 10 seconds to post this…
Cheers.
Just for clarity - we've not upgraded anything right now. We've moved from one host to another. From Wordpress VIP to Kinsta for anyone interested. This move will remove some frustrating performance restrictions and allow us to develop better.
An important note. Singletrack is fundamentally a membership site. Mosty users have an account and login. That in of itself causes technical issues with performance, particularly around caching. Caching is the principal method that websites use to speed things up. It is a process of storing the elements of the page in a kind of memory that can be recalled very quickly. It does this by copying what is in the database that stores every post, reply and article. alos images and other parts of a webpage. The key pooint is that when you load a page instead of all that information that makes up what appears in your browser coming from the database, it instead is a copy of just that page stored in the cache memory. It's a marvelous invention. BUT it has one major drawback. It means what you are seeing in your browser is not the most uptodate version of the page. It's a quickly downloaded copy. The database contains the most up to date version of the page. This means what you get is likely an out of date version of the page.
Website techs can set the age of the cache - and by that they mean the length of time that passes before the website refreshes the cache version of the page with the latest version in the database. The important point to note is that the most up todate version of a webpage will always come directly from the server's database - but this is the slowest way to get the page. If the database is very large then it's even slower. A database of forum posts going back to 2008 is VERY large.
For a website that doesn't change or get updated often, caching ages can be very long, often set to up to a year. This is fine for sites that don't get updated that much. These sites can seem extremely fast, almost instantly loading in your browser as the database is hardly ever called upon or if itis it's very lightly. Forums on the other hand are updated with every post and reply. For a busy forum that essentailly means caching in the normal way makes it unusable as you could post a reply, refresh the page and if what you then get comes from the cache, your reply won't appear until the cache is cleared (refreshed from the database).
So, in the majority of cases where there's a website that is primarily a membership system with people loging in to create posts normal caching makes them unworkable. So, the general method of managing a membershipo system is to have no cache enabled for logged in users. For wordpress websites this is the default method of working. It means what you see when logged in is the most uptodate version of the page - you get to see replies/content/articles/images as soon as they are posted because what you see comes straight out of the database and not the out of date cache.
The drawback should be clear. That's a slower way of loading a webpage. It means the speed of the page loading is dependent on the performance of the database where all the uptodate content sits.
You can test this for yourself if you know how to open an incognito or private browser. You will be logged out and when you click around the site you will get cached pages. It will be lightning quick. Login and things slow down, because what you are getting is uptodate.
Forums need to deliver the most uptodate version of a page. Even a cache time of a minute is enough to cause havoc. When you reply you need to see that reply instantly. Even for logged out users who are just reading a forum the expectation is that activity needs to be uptodate.
So what can we/do we do to balance performance against uptodate content?
We can set cache rules for different types of content and for different users. For example the article cache is set to 30 days. The cache is cleared everytime there is an update to that content. An editorial article is not something that changes often after publication so this works. The forum cache is set to 6 minutes currently. This means if you are logged out what you see in the forum could be up to 6 minutes old. But if you are logged in you don't get a cached page.
TLDR: Caching is hard. The bigger and busier a site the harder it is. There is always a trade off between speed and uptodate content. But there are techniques and methods to tweak and adjust and we are always looking at those. Other things affect performance with a website for example other functions of the website. If it's just a forum then things become a little easier to manage. If the website also runs a membership system for a print & digital subscription business and an ecommerce business then each has it's own special performance requirements and they don't always mix well.
The migration to a new host (Kinsta) opens up some more tools and options which now the migration has happened we can begin to develop.
If you have made it this far I commend you. It's pretty much all I think about but I very much appreciate it should be the last thing you guys have to worry about. The site and everything we do should work perfectly whatever type of user you are and that's still the goal here.
Dac, search function is also very slow. I tried a simple search for the word Pivot. That took over 90 seconds to return results.
Search is also tricky.
The default option for the forum search is that whatever you type in will seach the contents of EVERY post in the database. That's over 10 million records.
The search has the ability to seach by forum titles only, or you can restrict the dates of your search by clicking the advanced link. All these filters will narrow down the scope of the search before you hit go. They will speed things up.
I just narrowed down a search for 'pivot' by selecting titles only, Bike forum only and search the last 6 months.
The results came up very quickly for me in under 2 seconds.
The 2 hardest problems in software development are
- Naming of things
- Cache invalidation
- Off-by-one errors
IGMC
You see this is why I don’t give full answers, as in really couldn’t give the detail or accuracy.
The STWHQ are working hard to try and improve the forum. It can be subtle or fairly major, but they do try to fix things with a small team.
How on earth do I send a private message?
...the speed boost didn't last long! 😬
...the speed boost didn't last long!
Yes, ridiculously slow here.