[SOLVED] Forums slowing down?

[HentaiGnome]

Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I've noticed the forums have been acting rather sluggish for the past week or so. Sometimes, it takes forever to login, other times the server connection just times out. Same thing with just browsing around the various threads or replying to a post. At one point today, I was shown a CloudFlare page (which I initially thought was a Connection Time Out error page).

Just wanted to know if the admins were aware of this, or if it's just a problem that I'm experiencing myself.

EDIT: Just got another CloudFlare error page. I took a screenshot this time.

[Ashal]

The webserver has been struggling lately. Not much I can do about it but try and ease it some temporarily, or move to a new webhost, which I don't have the money for atm.

I'll do what I can to speed things up though. It's largely a problem I simply haven't been able to figure out just yet.

[HentaiGnome]

Thanks for the heads up. I noticed that the slowdowns are inconsistent. One moment, it could be as slow as a turtle. The next, it can be as fast as it used to be in the past. I'm guessing it could be a server traffic issue, as in how many people are actually browsing around (logged in or anonymous) at any given time. As I post this message right now, which is close to midnight of where I live, the forum is pretty stable and fast. I'm sure tomorrow morning (and definitely around afternoon) it'll be slow again.

EDIT: Nevermind, I think I posted too soon. I did some browsing around just now and noticed it still slows down every once in a while, though at least not as bad as it was earlier today. Something else could be causing it then. Ashal, are you sure you're not seeing anything on your host's administration control panel? There's probably some database errors or something.

[gregathit]

Donkey mentioned in another thread that perhaps it could be in part caused by guest traffic? I have noticed that it does seem slower when there are 100+ guests as he noted also. Is this a wild goose chase or could it be a portion of the problem?

[realhornydude]

A lot of guests may actually be part of the problem! Hope it gets fixed soon although I don't seem to get any slowdown

[Ashal]

Problem should be fixed now. I found the culprit.

Had nothing to do with the guest traffic, the current server setup should handle heavy traffic like a champ, I've used the same setup on much heavier trafficed sites I run, so I was honestly confused as to why it wasn't running swimmingly before.

The culprit however, was unfortunately the "Thanks" system I installed on the forum. Disabling it the mysqld CPU usage on the server dropped from 350% average to a 3% average, and page generation speeds improved from 1.5 seconds to 0.045 seconds.

It is unlikely the Thanks system will return, unless I find a better made one somewhere.

[HentaiGnome]

WOW! You're right. That definitely seemed to have fixed the problem. Damn, and I LITERALLY was just about to try and hit a "Thanks" button under your post, Ashal, then I realized you had removed it...

I'm sure there has to be a decent alternative for a rep system out there but for now I guess we can definitely live without it. Just because it's gone, that won't stop me from trying to help people out as much as I can.

[Slammer64]

Many thanks Ashal, but you're right, mysql processing can be a BIG drag on any server, I can do without a thanks system to keep the forums up.

[cyb3r]

Anshall which thanks system where you using specifically? cause i've used one on a few forums i host (for my old clan in freelancer)

[EvenstarGW]

Is it just me or are they slowing down again? Yesterday and today it's been very slow for me.

[Sand_Dragon]

It's not just this forum, for me. It's like the internet is dying. Wikipedia works, Google works, but Yahoo doesn't. 4chan/co/ works; 4chan/tg/ doesn't. Blogspot works depending on the blog you go to. Same with livejournal.

Welcome to 2012!

[cyb3r]

nah just too much peeps on at the same time especially with regular broadband the connections get killed i'm on a 100mb/5mb line and atm i'm happy i even get 1.5mb download while at hours when it's normal i easily spike to 12/13mb /sec