Avsim site access

[Guest racartron]

What is going on with access to Avsim lately? Getting to the first page is slower than usual, but moving between pages is absolutely awful. In fact the system will time out ever so often.Download is even worse. Timeouts occur before being able to say yes to the download. On the rare occasion I do get connected, the download speed is only about 10% of normal. YOu guys got termites in the place?Not having any problems with any other web sites -- just Avsim.-------------------Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what

[Guest james_2k]

ive noticed this too....

[Dark Moment 0]

There's a rumour Tom dropped a piece of pumpkin pie down the back of the main server.My own hypothesis - and I'll be interested to see whether anyone from Avsim confirms this - is that Avsim is getting whacked by many more visitors than it can cope with just now, and that this is an interesting reflection of just how enormously our hobby is gaining in popularity. The library has gone from 25,000 to 40,000 files in a matter of months, and that too is probably another indicator of how fast things are changing.Let's see ... anyway, in the meantime, it's been like glue for me too on many occasions. But I'm a patient man. It's free.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Ditto here, although I've had no issues on the download...Likely it's a server or bandwidth issue, which is always a challenge when a site is largely self-supporting... We'll just have to be patient, as I'm sure the Avsim staff is aware of this. I should also note that I've run into an overall web slowdown in the past few weeks, both on dial up and high speed. That may very well be related to the season as on-line retail and travel transactions ramp up.... Add to that all the spam that's out there (if I turn my filters off, I am getting between 400-500 spam emails a day now), and we're in one stressed web environment.....-John

[Smoky942 1]

Go with " Dark Moment" He's one of the best guys on the site. Witty,friendly, and always very helpful. He opitomizes what flightsimming is all about. Way to go Mark.Russell.

[Guest racartron]

Reckon y'all are pretty much right on the load thing, but it's interesting the Flightsim site is unaffected. I move around the various web pages as fast as ever and the download is as slow as ever :)I can handle slow downloads.I just go do something else while the bytes crawl down the wire. But slow movement between pages requires you stay there for the duration and can get very frustrating -- especially when your reward is a "could not access the page you requested" message rudely pops up.Interestingly, haven't seen too much variation in the problem regardless of when I try to access, but that's due to an international user base no doubt. :)Oh well, guess I'll try that seldom done task of actually flying some of the stuff I've downloaded. -------------------Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Actually, here's the scoop... our dual processor based FTP server is also saddled with running the forum system. The forum system **sucks** (as the kids say). Remove the forum and our system would run like greased lightening (er, non-jellied cranberry sauce). Anyway, it is cyclical and has to do with loading. We have plenty of bandwidth. Remove about 2,000 or so posts per day, and we would all see a tremendous increase in performance. :)

[Guest racartron]

Would it help if we limit our verbosity to say no more than a couple lines?Most of us talk (er, type) too much anyway. :)-------------------Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what

[Dark Moment 0]

Right. That settles it. I shall do my bit by cutting down my daily posts ... oh DANG, I've just posted again. Sorry.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest Josve]

Same here....Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/zone.jpg ][/div

[Guest Elrond]

I think a new rule to help out the system should be:Anyone can start a thread and write it in detail, but everyone else that replies to that thread must be limited to:Yep.or Nope.orTroll.And thats it. ;-)Elrond

[Splash_One 0]

Troll.:)

[Guest crashing_pilot]

yep;-)

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

Tom,Is it the messages or the ever increasing use of images in people's signatures? I am guilty of this (if guilty is the right word) and would be prepared to remove it (or change to a text-only message) if it would help.Can I take this opportunity to thank you and everyone at AvSim for the excellent service you offer to the community. It is my number 1 flight sim source.Regards,

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Ray, thank you for the kudos. We do try and are constantly trying to meet the increasing demand. To answer your question, it is a combination of all things; embedded images, signature images, number of posts, number of readers, combined with the file library download, upload and reading that affect this box's performance. It is a pretty robust box, but the software that drives the forums is pretty sloppy. We have attempted to engage the forum author in helping us to streamline it and improve its root functionality, but without much luck (and it cost big bucks - relatively speaking, so you can imagine what we think about the support we have received). Anyway, we are looking at alternative forum systems that can handle the load. The box is big enough and there is no reason other than sloppy code, that we are suffering the slow downs we are. Be assured, we are as concerned about performance as anyone, and we are desparate to fix the issue.