SIte load process / performance

[#1]

OK @jaread83 understand what you are saying, and apologies for my ignorance,

[#2]

It's all good I will get this sorted as soon as I can get some time put aside.

[#3]

I have managed to wangle some time to look into this deeper and raised an internal task to do a fix. Basically, the custom font used by Plusnet is conflicting with the GDPR banner which uses the same font that is hosted on the main Plusnet website. What I have done is renamed the font hosted here and called it on the forums CSS to use that one, ignoring the one pulled in with the cookie banner (which is blocked as the main site thinks I am trying to use the font on a non-plusnet website). I have also done an override of the cookie banner font to use the one hosted here as well. So far, this has fixed the font issue. I am just getting the code peer reviewed by my team and will push the change up this afternoon if all is looking well. Will keep you posted.

[#4]

As you've been discussing remote fonts, a light bulb went off in my head.

So I've just disabled the loading of remote fonts in uBlock Origin and this website is so much quicker now to load.

No more wading through treacle to get the next page up.

So I'm sticking with that option set as I'm not bothered if the site looks like Plusnet want it to. I just want it to be responsive and stay that way.

[#5]

Indeed @SpendLessTime - I had a feeling that the issues came about since the new cookie banner implementation but couldn't find the time to investigate this properly. With my changes, the font hosted on plus.net will no longer be called upon so you should be able to switch it back to normal. Maybe when I publish the changes, you could give it a try and let me know if it worked for you? The results seem positive so far on the test forum.

[#6]

@jaread83

Would you know if this is implemented? https://gtmetrix.com/leverage-browser-caching.html

Would it help, especially with CSS and image components?

Ran an analysis at the above site, the results are not sparkling!  https://gtmetrix.com/reports/community.plus.net/43EehI2Y - something you might want to share with Lithium?

I note with dismay that many of the Plusnet static elements (images) have only a 10 minute cache life … seems like there is a real benefit to be had by implementing more realistic browser caching metrics in the plus.net content alone?

[#7]

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@jaread83 wrote:
Maybe when I publish the changes, you could give it a try and let me know if it worked for you? The results seem positive so far on the test forum.

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Certainly, that's not an issue. Happy to help when the time comes.

[#8]

The changes are now in place with immediate affect. Please let me know if the fonts are still causing any issues at all. I have checked all the places that I am aware of and so far its looking promising. Hopefully this will speed the forum up a little as it will no longer try to download the blocked font.

[#9]

@jaread83

Page changing times looking good now after I enabled remote fonts again.

[#10]

great to hear. I will keep an ear on thr ground for now. @Townman, interesting stats pulled there. I don't think I will be able to tell Lithium to remove the querystrings from the scripts but I can ask about it.

[#11]

The query strings are but one consideration and I would have thought more difficult to address than (for example) looking at client side cache optimisation ... to say nothing about the potential impact on bandwidth utilisation and server performance.

[#12]

@jaread83 Sorry to bring this up again, but every time I open a new board (or thread) I am waiting ages for the forum to respond - the loading bar in the is flicking back and forth for ages, and the message at the foot of the page 'waiting for community.plusnet' is visible for so long I sometimes think my connection is broken - it isn't, switching to another tab (I have three others permanently  available - Sheffield Forum, E-Bay and National Rail), and they respond instantly, as do the six Funtrivia tabs I have in another window

[#13]

It does seem to have got lumpy again - the page "bouncing" all over the place as it loads and renders.  Feels like Lithium have broken something again.

[#14]

As an experiment, I have just had a look at two other Lithium forums (TalkTalk and Virgin) - they both work instantly.

[#15]

Yesterday a.m.  I was about to raise the same issue with slowdown, but got diverted by 'real life'.  Came back to it early evening and it was working fine!  It seems to be a bit sporadic, occurring some times and then disappearing again.  

Yesterday a.m. it was taking 4 / 5 seconds to swap topics or even give a 'like'.  Today - fine.  (So far )