Forum is very slow

MagicLord

Hi there,

I noticed the forum is very slow, sometimes it takes some seconds before a page is displayed or new post is send.

keltwookie

Very curious, it works perfectly here (better than previously, in my opinion). I suggest to check your network.

Shin-NiL

It's loading fast as always to me.

john-nitrous

Hi! I am terribly sorry for bringing this conversation back from the dead, but since the forum reopened again, I have been experiencing the forums as extremely slow. The pages on this forums are slowing down Firefox this much, that the browser asks me to stop this website from loading every single time I attempt to load a page here. My PC isn't the fastest (only has about 1 GHz) but every other site loads just okay. The system is Windows. Funnily, on my phone this site works just fine.

P.S.: Who do I have to ask to request a name change?

TwistedTwigleg

@Racer69 said: Hi! I am terribly sorry for bringing this conversation back from the dead, but since the forum reopened again, I have been experiencing the forums as extremely slow. The pages on this forums are slowing down Firefox this much, that the browser asks me to stop this website from loading every single time I attempt to load a page here. My PC isn't the fastest (only has about 1 GHz) but every other site loads just okay. The system is Windows. Funnily, on my phone this site works just fine.

The hosting we are using on the forums now is a shared hosting system, which means the forums is being hosted a decently powerful server with a bunch of other websites. This unfortunately means that when one of the websites on the server gets a lot of traffic, it can slow down all of the other websites a bit.

The advantage is that I already was paying for the hosting, so this allows us to host the forums at no additional cost (technically I'm paying for it, but I was/am already paying for my website RandomMomentania, so the forums are just extra).

One thing that might help is disabling the Discord Widget if you are using it. You can do that from your profile, just go to edit profile and then there will be a checkbox you can disable to turn off the widget. The Discord widget slows the forums down quite a bit because of having to communicate with Discord's servers.

I'm also on Windows 10 on Firefox, and it is loading fine for me right now. Hopefully things will speed up, but if it does not, we can try to look into what is slowing it down.

P.S.: Who do I have to ask to request a name change?

Any of the admins on the forums can change a users name, moderators might be able to as well, but I don't remember.

Regardless, I can change it. What do you want your username changed to?

john-nitrous

Alright, I just did this, it didn't help, but then I used the default style instead of Godot Darkly and now it works just fine again. That's strange, I guess? However, thanks for the fast help! If it's not too much trouble, I would like to be named John Nitrous (like my Discord name).

TwistedTwigleg

@"John Nitrous" said: Alright, I just did this, it didn't help, but then I used the default style instead of Godot Darkly and now it works just fine again. That's strange, I guess? However, thanks for the fast help!

Hmm, strange. Maybe it is something to do with the plugin we are using for changing the themes? I'm not totally sure how we'd test/fix it though... Definitely something to look into though!

If you have any other issues, or the forum continues to be slow, please let us know!

If it's not too much trouble, I would like to be named John Nitrous (like my Discord name).

Done! :smile:

Hopefully that is the right name. I just copy-pasted. Let me know if it is not and I'll change it! Also, I used a space but if you want I can instead use a underscore. Just let me know which works best for you.

john-nitrous

This is perfect the way it is! Thanks a ton!

TwistedTwigleg

@"John Nitrous" said: This is perfect the way it is! Thanks a ton!

Great! And no problem, I am just happy to help!

Calinou

One thing that might help is disabling the Discord Widget if you are using it. You can do that from your profile, just go to edit profile and then there will be a checkbox you can disable to turn off the widget. The Discord widget slows the forums down quite a bit because of having to communicate with Discord's servers.

Since it could significantly harm the user experience for non-logged in users, I'd suggest disabling it by default.

Megalomaniak

Oh, I thought we already did disable that by default? Might need to reexamine then.

TwistedTwigleg

@Megalomaniak said: Oh, I thought we already did disable that by default? Might need to reexamine then.

That was my thought too. Will need to check. If it is not, then it should be easy enough (theoretically) to turn it off by default. I know the category style extended plugin is disabled by default, so the code there should work for the Discord plugin too.

Zylann

Referring to the first post, this is also my feeling. Comparing with Q&A or Asset Library, the forum is a bit slower and can take seconds before showing a loaded page. But remains usable, I understand it can just be the hosting.

Megalomaniak

In theory if there was funding for it, getting a CDN would likely speed things up a lot. I have noticed that the private conversations are noticeably slower than the rest of the forum.

TwistedTwigleg

Sadly, it is probably still the shared hosting that is causing the issue, it just really was not meant for this much traffic on a consistent basis. The forums have been growing and that's great, but it also means the sever load has been increasing and is pointing out the performance issues with using a shared hosting plan. However, shared hosting is what I am using for RandomMomentania (due to cost), so right now it's what we've got.

I also think the FilteredForumSearch plugin might be contributing to the slowdown, as I noticed the forums have been somewhat slower after making the plugin, though this could be coincidence. I'm not sure how to investigate this, but it is on my list of things to look into once I have the time.

Edit: Also, something to look into might be static caching. I'm not sure how feasible it would be since this is a forum, but it could yield significant speedups if implemented correctly (at the cost of storage space though).

Calinou

Edit: Also, something to look into might be static caching. I'm not sure how feasible it would be since this is a forum, but it could yield significant speedups if implemented correctly (at the cost of storage space though).

It should be doable easily enough for non-logged in users at least. However, your shared host needs to propose it somehow. Otherwise, you'll have to do this on the PHP side, which is less efficient and requires finding an up-to-date caching plugin for Vanilla.