Terrible performance from site

[MP Guy]

As you have seen, the sites poularity has taken its toll on the system. I will need to migrate one more time to a facility that can handle the load. I may have to distribute the environment over 2 servers one for apache the other for the database. PLEASE be patient while we grow.

Thanks

 

[wdenies]

When USA wakes up, the performance is slow,slow and... slow

Wim

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Distributing will help, I think. Get as much RAM as you possibly can, too...more RAM should make things faster as well.

 

[kaiyen]

Stephanie,
I don't know if it's really a RAM thing at this point. Database read/write is just a really, really I/O intensive process.

I would be shocked if whatever hosting company is currently employed doesn't have server-grade hardware in place, including an appropriate amount of ram. It's just data flow and load.

allan

 

[Socke]

Yes, it is slow this side of the pond and it didn't improve with the last server move.

Distribution may help, but I'm not sure how VBulletin handels database connections and those seem to be the biggest problem.

 

[Andy K]

At the moment it is taking a minute and fifteen seconds for threads to open after clicking the links in the new posts list, and almost as long for the reply screen to open after clicking 'reply'. I don't know how long it will take to post this...

Hope you can get things sorted Jorge. Are you sure it is just your server? APUG was slow for a while this afternoon too.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

RAM would help, Allan. RAM and processor speed count if you're going to be doing anything that could strain either. It's why I have a dual processor Mac instead of a single processor: things just go quicker. 😉

Oh, and what SQL flavor are we using here?

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

There are 4000 odd members here (some of them odder than others) but usually no more than 100 online at any one time. That should really not strain any half-decent mySQL server at all.

 

[Socke]

RAM would help, Allan. RAM and processor speed count if you're going to be doing anything that could strain either. It's why I have a dual processor Mac instead of a single processor: things just go quicker. 😉

Oh, and what SQL flavor are we using here?

Stephanie, webapplications in PHP with a MySQL backend are anything but image manipulation 🙂

 

[kaiyen]

If the servers are running anything less than Dual Xeon with 2GB of RAM (for an Intel box) I would be shocked, still. We run 13,000 users on one of our services on 9 load-balanced servers with an Oracle back-end. As many as 8000 are connected at a time. These are Solaris boxes, though.

But I'm not a sys admin. I just didn't think one could equate server specs with desktop specs. Apple's entire data center used to be run on single processor G3's and G4's. As recently as 3 years ago. Seriously.

allan

 

[RJBender]

I'm in favor of making the forum available only to registered users, if that will help. Everytime I check "What's on," there are more guests than members. Are these people or bots? If they want to read RFF posts, require that they register and log on. Just my 2¢ worth.

Here are the stats from a few minutes ago.

R.J.

 

[peterc]

And I thought it was the profanity checker module working overtime! :bang:

Peter

 

[RJBender]

Right now there are 87 members and 139 guests on RFF.

R.J.

 

[dcsang]

There are 4000 odd members here (some of them odder than others) but usually no more than 100 online at any one time. That should really not strain any half-decent mySQL server at all.

Ahhh.. you see.. that's assuming that there's only one mySQL db on each server.
Seeing as how FredMiranda has also been offline (too many connections to the DB); I'm guessing that a number of these sites, RFF, FM, DSLRexchange (and any others with a similar look/feel) are likely running off of the same DB server at the same hosting company etc.

It is a matter of fact that these sites (all of them) are growing - DSLRexchange just happens to be online because there isn't much activity on it - (last post made March 17).

Mind you.. this is all guesstimation on my part and I'm not claiming to be the Sherlock Holmes of "teh intrawebs" 😉

Dave

 

[JoeFriday]

at first I was in agreement with RJ, but then two thoughts popped into my head...

1. this site has seen far more online activity in the past (it was almost exactly one year ago that we peaked at 430 users online at one time).. I don't remember this sort of problem back then

2. if we don't let guests see what's going on, what incentive would they have to register?

maybe the problem is that the servers are getting filled up with so many photos in peoples' galleries? maybe it's all the advertising banners slowing it down? I'm just trying to think of what is different now from a year ago

I'm in favor of making the forum available only to registered users, if that will help. Everytime I check "What's on," there are more guests than members. Are these people or bots? If they want to read RFF posts, require that they register and log on. Just my 2¢ worth.

Here are the stats from a few minutes ago.

R.J.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

There are typically 200~250 users (members+guests) cruising the site. When I get on the site over morning coffe at 5:00am or so, there are usually over 200 users on the site but it is responsive. Later during the day, normal US business hours, it slows to a crawl but the same number of users.

What else is going on at the ISP that drags down everything? DSLREXCHANGE slows down at the same time, and almost no one is logged on. So it is not the number of users on the site doing this.

 

[Socke]

The FTP Server on 66.249.29.116 is slow to connect, too. This is totaly unrelated to Apache and MySQL, I've seen that with poor DNS performance.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Jorge

About an hour before you started this thread in General Discussion I raised the same point in Provide your Feedback.

Please be aware that the new mods are very strict and may well take action for you posting in the wrong forum and double posting!

Anyhow the site seems to have speeded up now. The mySQL likely decided to reindex or similar.

Nice site mate, just keep the dobermans (sorry mods) calm for us.

 

[sf]

I'll be patient as necessary. Love RFF. Would never give up. It's slow as heck. But I deal with it. The world is too fast anyway.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Well it certainly has little to do with the number of users surfing it at one time. Only 125 at present, and I'm seeing Connection Refused messages and Database Problem screens. Something is up at the ISP.