Resolved Slow Servers?

[PicNick]

So for a while now the OB app has been running REAL slow both on mobile data and on wifi, but I had dismissed that as poor app optimization that would improve with updates. But now I'm finding that even the browser version is rather slow. I'm guessing that with the large influx of users, either the servers or the ISP connection may be at capacity. The app is almost entirely unusable due to the loading times while navigating between threads, and often the previews aren't showing the latest posts in the threads.

Just looking into this in case the site admins are testing on local machines and don't know that there is an outgoing bottleneck.

 

[Steve]

Moved to Support forum. I know @Michael was moving the forum to Amazon servers, but not sure when that is to occur, or it may already have. It was already running on a fast commercial service, but Amazon will be faster.

I've seen other posts mentioning the slowness of loading the forum on a browser. I frequently see the same thing on a 100 Mb connection on my desktop computer. There is a new version of the mobile app coming, but not until next year. It takes three minutes plus to load my list of messages on the mobile app, only to show me there are no new messages, despite the home computer showing new messages waiting...

 

[justjames]

I too am on a 100mb service and the pages load very slowly. If the thread is picture heavy, I only get pics on the first 5-6 posts and none of the rest. This is particularly aggravating on build threads, etc.

I'll be interested to follow the progress on this.

 

[Michael]

I too am on a 100mb service and the pages load very slowly. If the thread is picture heavy, I only get pics on the first 5-6 posts and none of the rest. This is particularly aggravating on build threads, etc.

I'll be interested to follow the progress on this.

Hi guys - a couple updates here:

If you are using the mobile app - it's slow. We update the current mobile app on a regular basis to incorporate bug fixes and improvements, but as Steve mentions, most of our dev effort is going to the new OLB Mobile Platform, OB One. We will contiinue bug fixes and improvements on the current mobile app, but it will not be as fast as the web-based forums.

Currently we have no limit on picture size which can slow things down, but if you are on a good connection, and your other media-heavy websites are loading fine - OLB should be loading fine. I'll look into this further.

We are migrating everything to AWS within the next couple-ish weeks. that will speed up everything, and especially the web-based experience, but not huge improvement on the current mobile version of the app (OB One will be faster across the board).

M

 

[Steve]

but if you are on a good connection, and your other media-heavy websites are loading fine - OLB should be loading fine. I'll look into this further.

This was a thread with 14 posts and no photos, just text. I see load times of anywhere from 3 seconds to 15 seconds on my desktop on a 100Mb line (typical speed tests from 70-140 Mb)

 

[justjames]

Hi Michael,
Thanks for the response. My viewing is strictly web-based. I'm on TacomaWorld occasionally and similar threads there load very fast.
James

Hi guys - a couple updates here:

If you are using the mobile app - it's slow. We update the current mobile app on a regular basis to incorporate bug fixes and improvements, but as Steve mentions, most of our dev effort is going to the new OLB Mobile Platform, OB One. We will contiinue bug fixes and improvements on the current mobile app, but it will not be as fast as the web-based forums.

Currently we have no limit on picture size which can slow things down, but if you are on a good connection, and your other media-heavy websites are loading fine - OLB should be loading fine. I'll look into this further.

We are migrating everything to AWS within the next couple-ish weeks. that will speed up everything, and especially the web-based experience, but not huge improvement on the current mobile version of the app (OB One will be faster across the board).

M

 

[slomatt]

This was a thread with 14 posts and no photos, just text. I see load times of anywhere from 3 seconds to 15 seconds on my desktop on a 100Mb line (typical speed tests from 70-140 Mb)

View attachment 60498

Hi Steve, if the "DB Queries" stat in the footer is correct than it requires a surprisingly high number of queries to render a single page. I build enterprise web applications for a living and it would be a major red flag if we ever had a page that required thousands of queries.

 

[MA_Trooper]

What he said ^^^^^^

That is more than a red flag in my eyes. We would be getting blocker tickets til that was resolved.

 

[Steve]

if the "DB Queries" stat in the footer is correct than it requires a surprisingly high number of queries to render a single page.

Yep, thousands is pretty typical. You brought it up in another thread https://www.overlandbound.com/forums/threads/page-load-times.14899/

Just brining up the list of threads in the support forum takes a lot of resources:


And loading this thread:


It isn't local cache, either. If I reload the page, the timing varies a couple tenths of a second, but the memory and number of queries stay the same.

I don't think it has a lot to do with images, either.Picture heavy threads load just about as fast as those that are text only, and have the same resource draw. Most of my waiting is while the progress bar is at the first ten percent, before anything starts rendering. What would normally be lag time, but is site specific. Another adventure forum uses this same software, and loads instantly, no matter the thread size.

I can't wait until we move to Amazon servers!

[EDIT] It apparently doesn't have to do with thread size, either. This is the footer for the "Welcome New Members" thread, with over 11k posts:

 

[Michael]

Hey guys - I can have my developer look specifically at that issue to try to resolve it - are you able to provide any detailed info that might help the developer? I'm contacting them now.

 

[Michael]

The developer had been notified and I included the posts above. Thanks for the specific feedback! It helps!

 

[slomatt]

@Steve ,

You mentioned that you see a pause before the page even starts rendering, which is the same issue I am seeing. Looking at the network requests for a random forum page it is taking 4-5s just to render the html. This supports my original post(s) that the large number of queries are a major cause of the slowness since all of those queries have to finish before the response is sent to the browser.

Unfortunately moving to AWS will likely not significantly help this issue. The database will still be getting slammed by queries and acting as a potential bottleneck. Adding more web servers will not help. The best solution is to greatly reduce the number of queries. As a point of comparison, if I see more than ~100 queries required to render a single page in our applications I start looking to see if there is a problem in the code.


@Michael ,

I'm glad to hear that your developer is looking into this. My recommendation would be for them to start temporarily commenting out any customizations in the source code to see effects the number of queries required to render a page, with the goal of getting the number of queries down into the hundreds (or lower). Usually I would recommend turning on query auditing in your database (most likely MySQL), but with this many queries that won't be a really efficient way to debug.

After they find the code that is causing the extra queries then some possible optimizations could include refactoring the code to use fewer queries, changing queries to use joins, and adding caching. While at it, they might want to audit the database to make sure that the proper indexes are in place, they can greatly effect database performance.

 

[slomatt]

Here's a network analysis showing that the html for the page takes 5+ seconds to render and transfer.

 

[slomatt]

@Michael

So, what did you guys change? :) The site is now much, much faster with the average queries per page going from thousands down to about 100.

 

[justjames]

I like it!

 

[Michael]

@Michael

So, what did you guys change? :) The site is now much, much faster with the average queries per page going from thousands down to about 100.

Yep! You should see a big improvement. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

 

[slomatt]

Yep! You should see a big improvement. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Do I get an "Overland tech support" merit badge or something? :)

 

[Michael]

Do I get an "Overland tech support" merit badge or something? :)

I like it! ;D