Painful browsing the forum, like wading through treacle

[#1]

These are very illuminating results @MauriceC and I agree that the finger is pointing directly at Plusnet's domains.

[#2]

Which would also explain why it has been reported in the past that other forums implemented using Lithium did not suffer the same terrible loading delays that we see here.

[#3]

This then raises the question as to why this issue hasn't been addressed. There are of course many reason:

• No resources
• No time
• No clue
• Not a priority

Or maybe it's just a combination of all of the above.

[#4]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Which would also explain why it has been reported in the past that other forums implemented using Lithium did not suffer the same terrible loading delays that we see here.

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Exactly, @Anonymous - I reported a fairly extensive load of tests in message #25 and had no real response.

I have used couple of other connections/providers recently, and can confirm that whatever combination I use, forums are horrendously slow to load.

[#5]

UBER SLOW for me too

OS : WIN10x64
SYSTEM : 12GB / i5 / GTX650 / SSD
BROWSER : Opera / Chrome / Firefox
CONNECTIVITY : PC <-> 1Gbit LAN <-> Zyxel 8924 (78M/20M) (only device on network)

been like this for a while now

[#6]

Having a really slow time right now ! 

Clicking on a topic to read is so slow that Firefox is timing out ! 

Just reopened Firefox and clicked on https://community.plus.net/ took 131 seconds to complete ! 

[#7]

Exactly my experiene at the moment, @Anonymous, except that I luckily didn't get a time-out.

[#8]

I give up, I'll come back another day !

[#9]

One repeatable slow bit that makes no sense to me.

You select unread topics and the page eventually comes up. Then going from page to page is fairly "quick" but I always know when I'm about to come to the last page. That's when I twiddle my thumbs and check the headlines.

It's makes no sense. Why would the last page of unread topics take any longer to appear?

[#10]

@Anonymous

Reproducibility implies predictability...

At the moment there is no predictability and (given other commitments through Jan/Feb) I am not in here as often as I would be usually to monitor.

Frankly there is a lot of clear evidence that this website as a whole has not been optimised.  Until that is done there is little point looking at network routing and other things not in the direct control of Lithium and Plusnet.  All of the "not clean" HTTP responses need to be addressed (301 etc.).

I suggest that the cache control (expiry times) need sorting for all static content...

• Images
• Style sheets
• Script files

So that they are not reloaded on every page load, at least for the current browser session, if not for 4+ hours

Consistently in the use of http:// and https:// needs to be attained as does domain name referencing (with / without www.)

Only after the above has been attended to will we start to be able to see the wood for the tress and look sensibly at other things such a platform / browser / connection technology.

I have already (months ago) submitted annotated screen loading videos detailing what a user using Edge sees (it is painful) along with page load tracing.  As best as I can tell, Lithium have not had the simple courtesy to report back to Plusnet on those diagnostics.

However supposedly this remains the best of breed forum platform. 

[#11]

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@Townman wrote:

@Anonymous

Frankly there is a lot of clear evidence that this website as a whole has not been optimised.  Until that is done there is little point looking at network routing and other things not in the direct control of Lithium and Plusnet.  All of the "not clean" HTTP responses need to be addressed (301 etc.).

I completely disagree. It does not matter in the slightest how optimised the HTML or whatever code is if your web browser has sat around doing nothing waiting for 10 seconds before any of the HTML is delivered.

As I see it, there is one specific problem that should be fixed before a lot of other relatively minor things can get optimised.

[#12]

I'm guessing that Lithium isn't paid enough to want to throw too many resources at resolving these problems, and that Plusnet probably (ahem) hasn't put it right at the top of their 'to do' list either. 🤔

[#13]

I have to agree with @ejs on this one @Townman. Until the wait times are addressed then there is no point in doing any other optimisations regardless of how logical they sound as only then will there be a true picture regarding response times.



Once the wait issue is addressed that is when there should be an opportunity to get reproducible results and that is the time to apply further optimisations so any effects / benefits can be seen without being skewed by back end delays.

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@Townman wrote:
However supposedly this remains the best of breed forum platform.

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And if what you say here is true, then a trip to the vet is long over due.

[#14]

In the deep diggings done by commentators here, has it been determined if the long delays are associated with specific requests or are they random requests?

If they can be associated with specific resource requests, have those requests been profiled to determine if they are dynamic or static content?

If such profiling were to indicate that the longer responses are for static content, cache optimisation which ought to be a comparatively easy fix could deliver marked improvement quickly.  Sometimes doing the simple things first helps to make the more difficult things easier to see.

Whatever, someone needs to explain why resources having nothing to do with the forum functionality are being called upon - specifically liveperson.

[#15]

I don’t think that level of information exists @Townman and to be fair it is Plusnet’s responsibility to do the analysis not their users.

Have you had the opportunity to view the link provided by @MauriceC in message 90?

But I agree with your comment regarding redundant resources being loaded when they serve no real purpose and only contribute to the bloat and load times.