Personal pages turned off for the weekend and a status report

..You know the drill..

from WinCustomize Forums

Same story, different actors.

WinCustomize gets slow, flakey, etc.  We fix problem with new code or new server. Site gets faster. Traffic increases. Then the next item on the list of things that causes pain comes to a head and the site gets slow, flakey, etc.

The good news is that we have a quad dualcore 64-bit server with 12 gigs of RAM to be the new MASTER database server which all the clustered machines answer to.  The bad news is that it will take a couple of weeks to make that migration.

We're trying different things so that the overall experience on the site is smoother while we get the new mega server up.  This weekend, we're turning off personal pages to see what impact that has.  We will be interested in hearing whether the site performs better for users with that feature disabled temporarily.

Also, users have asked about the status of the GUI Championships.  We originally planned to do this in March but the website issues that have been cropping up have taken precedence.  We don't feel that we should take on doing a major multi-site contest like that until we get our house here in order.  The plan is to do this later this summer. 

We also plan to soon have an IRC meeting to fill people in on what we think the next step in skinning is likely to be now that we're fully briefed on Windows Vista and have a good handle on what can be done with it (lots of interesting things).  We'll announce a time shortly.

16,146 views 32 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
okay. thanks for the info. it's always better knowing.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Great job.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's kind of nice having the site actually work for the weekend.
Looks like turning off personal pages has made a positive impact (so far).
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm definitely interestd in hearing people's experiences on this.  So if the site is overall faster AND more reliable, this will be very useful data.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sorry, but I'm finding the site to be rather slow, particularly when using the Search feature.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Brad...I wish I could be more help but...The problem is that the site has been so flakey lately...as in...one day or one minute the site zips along...everything pops right up...and then the next day or minute its like you hit a brick wall and it takes forever to get around the site. But hopefully this quad dualcore 64-bit server with 12 gigs of RAM will help speed things along.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The problem is that the site has been so flakey lately...as in...one day or one minute the site zips along...everything pops right up...and then the next day or minute its like you hit a brick wall and it takes forever to get around the site.

That's basically it.  It's so inconsistent you can't put your finger on what and when is the issue.

One forum page loads [for example] in literally a few seconds and the next can take a minute to even start to load.

Now whether that's a cache issue [on server or local] who can tell...but I for one have been manually deleting IE cache on the assumption it's a buggy file in cache but often need to just shutdown IE [7] and start again.

Before the speed improvements at least the site was consistent....consistently slow...  [except when it bugged-out and spat an error].

When it's fast it's blindingly fast [even on my crappy DSL]....but eons ago...5 years or so it was just as 'fast' ....on 56k dialup [almost]...

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
So THAT explains it...cool runnings ahead!
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Started out great. Scanned through some forum materials and suddenly it was back to stone wall time. This has been my experience for a while now. It will be interesting to see what you find.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've had the same problems like WebGizmos & kenwas but just take it as it comes & hope for the best...sometimes changing off browsers helps; FireFox/Avant/Opera, etc...I don't think these problems will ever be fully ameliorated simply because of the high traffic here in all areas & sections. Hope the new super server works!
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Not as bad as it has been but still random fast and slow, some pages load in 2 or 3 seconds some take up to 45 seconds or more. I am on a 3meg DSL.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Might be faster because not much is going on really. Not much has been uploaded all week so visits are quicker. As for shutting off the personal pages..well, that was one of the " perks " of a subscription. Just seems that the subscribers are getting things taken away. I look through others gallery pages all the time...usually because i find stuff I missed other places. Oh well...my opinion means squat.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It is faster but the personal side of things are also important. Maybe the previews of skins could be tweaked to a lower resolution to help the speed issues?
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Oh well...my opinion means squat.

Fairyy~ ....you're even worse than me at self-deprecation...

The pages being shutoff is a simple, temporary experiment....like any other....it 'could' just as easily be shutting down the Forums....to see what effect it has.

It's simple exploratory investigation....cause and effect...to work out what's needed to FIX things...

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Looking forward to the IRC session. I might not have anything to say, but I can watch (read) what's going on.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm afraid I agree with the majority of views above regarding the site being painfully one minute and fine the next.Having just logged on haven't really noticed any change today,but on the positive side, many thanks for the info.It sure is a change being told what is hapening/about to happen.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
slow is the missing word-- sorry
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am on a 8Meg Cable connection and sometimes I feel I had a better connection on dial up back in the day At times the site seems to move along better when I use FireFox instead of IE, But I have IE7 Beta 2 installed so for me that might be a factor. IMHO The site is faster with the personal pages off.

P.S. I don't know why I waited soo long to get the Apogee Icons but WOW!!!
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I very rarely ever use the WC website so I can't speak for how things are there, but I can say that my WC browser is much faster lately. Discussions that used to take minutes to load and show are popping up like popcorn in a hot skillet (bigger discussions/thread will take a bit longer, but they still are faster then before). Every once in a while I'll hit a thread or discussion that won't load, but that's always been a problem. Only problem I've been having (and others too, apparently), is with previews of newer additions to the galleries not showing. Hope this helps a bit.
DD

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top

ust seems that the subscribers are getting things taken away

Is the melodrama necessary? We've taken personal pages down for this weekend to help diagnose one of the issues.

Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I see lag time in the original request to a site page, but the page (text & graphics) are currently loading much faster.

Normally, the page request is responded to anywhere from 3 seconds to over 30 seconds, and then I watch the graphics load fairly slowly.

Running latest IE 6, and do not see this graphics loading issue on other major sites (MS, Adobe, etc.) - but their server systems are probably a lot deeper.

It seems pretty clear that there is a resource bottleneck somewhere.

Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I see the same thing. There's a lag connecting but then once on things seem to go faster.
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
For those of us still on 56K.
One word: ZOOM!

For now.....

The personal pages are down! How will I go on. Oh, the humanity of it all!!
Now that's melodrama.