Sluggish Forums??

[DAL488 2]

AVSIM:I have noticed that it takes an unusually long time to load the forums. Are others experiencing this, or do I possibly have a problem with my ISP?I am here in the US (Indiana), on Roadrunner Broadband.Thanks,James

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Same problem here.......but it isn't just these forums.Chris Low.

[Fitz505 21]

I have to agree there. I have broadband also and have seen a gradual slowdown on many of my favorite sites this past year. I think the whole net is starting to bog down. There are so many people going online, you have to wonder if the whole thing is just going to come to a gigantic crashing halt someday. John

[Guest orenda635]

> I have to agree there. I have broadband also and have seen>a gradual slowdown on many of my favorite sites this past>year. I think the whole net is starting to bog down. There are>so many people going online, you have to wonder if the whole>thing is just going to come to a gigantic crashing halt>someday.>> JohnIt's spam and advertisements that are bogging the Internet down. 8 million junk emails alone are sent out each day. The surprise is that some 200 small groups of spammers are resposible for 90% of the junk. Most of these spammers reside in south western Florida. By sending out all this net traffic, everything gets slowed down. I found this out from a science news program on the Discovery channel. You can watch their report on spam to find out more here. http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2004/01/07/52.asp

[Guest TerryT]

I would agree that the total net is slowing down and in particular it seems to be those sites located on the East Coast where I believe Avsim is located. When I download from the Flightsim Network (other major forum site) I have zero wait time. I am not sure where this site is hosted/located but they seem to have lots of speed. I know they have upgraded their equipment in the past and will even charge for "Premium" file downloads. You can though take your chances at the few "Free" lines open to download software. Maybe this is why their system appears to be so fast?Terry

[Guest daveg4otu]

The speed here on Avsim seems to vary according to time of day.Here in the UK- in the mornings (while the US is mainly asleep) everything happens quickly.By the early evening here (1700Z)- when the whole USA is up and about- it slows right down.Is it possible that in the US you may notice an improvement after say about 2300Z when most of Europe has gone to bed?Dave

[Fitz505 21]

Frankly, I can't seem to find any pattern here in the States. I live in upstate NY and was online about 6:00AM EST this morning. I was going through the "click on forum button", wait 30-45 sec for response, "click in PMDG forum button", wait 30-45 sec for response, etc.. I was reading an article in a magazine recently (PC World, I think) and their comments about a similar situation were "you ain't seen nothing yet!" John Fitzpatrick

[Guest TerryT]

Slower or faster response?Terry

[Guest daveg4otu]

John 6AM EST is 11AM GMT - by that time here - all the businesses are online,all the schools are running their PCs flat out for the kids - and quite a lot have internet access nowadays ,all the grannies are online Emailing all over the place-and so on and so on.................... in other words it's busy in the UK and the rest of EU.Does it get any better after about 7PM EST when we've all gone to bed?Terry What do you think?I reckon there's more chance I'll win the UK lottery next Saturday (Officially 14,000,000 to 1) than things speeding up.CheersDave

[Fitz505 21]

Unfortunately, he meant slower. Somewhat, because of the number of people going online, but mostly because of spam. The recent atempt to control it here in the States have been pretty much a joke and they interviewed one of the top 10 spammers, he bragged that he was going to increase his output by 300% by the end of 2004. A few more years and we will be back to using morse code or smoke signals. John Fitzpatrick

[Guest daveg4otu]

Yes ,I agree that Spam is probably the major problem for every one altho it's also very inconsistent .For example- I get about 30-50 Emails a day mostly either relating to this and other forums,various Yahoo aviation groups daily digests and stuff about my website.Only about 10% is spam.My wife - who spends very little time online ,can easily accumulate 20-30 spams a day and sometimes as many as 50.Even stranger,when we first got online about 4yrs ago ,for a laugh we set up an Email address for our dog - nothing obvious either( EG:Rover @xxx.com).He gets around 15-20 spams a week - mostly offering him cheap sources of Viagra- shame he had the operation when he was 6 months old isn't it. As far as I know he's never been online ,tho I don't know what he gets up to when we're out.(See picture)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/57551.jpgDave

[Guest TerryT]

I understand about traffic flow and peak hours of use. What I have noticed between this site and the Flightsim site is that no matter what time I log on to them. The Flightsim site beats Avsim every time. I have a Comcast broadband connection that tested at 2.8 mega bits so I do not think that is where the slow done is.I just think that the speed difference is between where the two servers are located and the backbone or system they are hooked up to. Kind of like if you live in a big city (NY, LA,Chicago,Atlanta) and have lots of traffic to fight every day or live in a more open and less populated area like here in Albuquerque. Same goes for the internet coonection you are using to get access with.TerryPS: Great cartoon

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

James and all, We are painfully aware of the speed of the forums and the variability of that speed over time. As many who have posted in response to your message indicate, there are a host of issues relating to net speed that impacts your experience here. But, there are some internal issues that also have a direct impact on responsiveness. So, let me address what I can about AVSIM's part of the speed problem.[ul][li]AVSIM owns three servers; web, library and mail/backup.[li]Library server is dual processed, fast machine. WEB server is more than adequate for web demand. Mail server is antiquated and adequate for handling our email and backup needs.[li]The forums used to be located on the web server.[li]Forums system was so pitiful on the web machine, that we were forced to put it on the library machine which should have been able to handle the load (keeping in mind that library file serving isn't all that processor dependent).[li]The forum code is so badly written that it is VERY processor dependent, and can consume tremendous resources to run. This is especially true as the load on the forums goes up.[li]Working (extensively) with the forum software author has not resulted in satisfactory mods / changes to the software to improve the situation.[li]As the library load goes up, the impact on the forums software execution time goes up as well.[li]Possible solutions: buy new server and separate forums from library and / or, find alternative software for forums.[/ul]We are looking to purchase a new server which will lay us back $4,000 or $5,000 by the time it is installed and checked out. We are also kicking around the change in forum software, but I am hesitant to change horses in mid-stream unless something really ugly happens, or we find the "killer" forum system.Keep in mind that we average 5,000+ user log-in's to the forums a day, and average over 1,000 postings per day. We have no idea how many page views a day are served up, nor do we know how many images are served. But, they are substantial. The forum reaction time, as has been indicated in other posts in this thread, definitely is a function of time of day. From 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. East Cost U.S. Time, you can be sure that we are under peak loading.Anyway, we are trying to fix the issue, but none of this comes fast, and all we can do is to ask to bear with us and to say thank you for your patience!

[Guest TerryT]

Tom,Thanks for the information concerning the Avsim servers and traffic loads. Now it makes better sense as to why the forums seem to take a long time to pull down and post messages.As for the message above on the large number of Spam per day for the wife, since I changed my email address to a combination of "Random" letters, numbers, and cases; I have not recieved a single spam. I guess the experts are correct in that the spammers look for names and or easily identifiable addresses. Also, I do not "put" my email address on any "Non-secure" site which might sell it to advertisers.Terry

[DAL488 2]

Tom:Thanks so much for the post. I can understand and appreciate all the posts above regarding the Internet as a whole, but the fact of the matter is, the only real place I see a significant slow down is on the AVSIM forums; so, frankly, I don't really buy most of the opinions stated above (when specifically discussing the speed of the AVSIM forums).Your response, on the other hand, was exactly what I expected you to say. And I appreciate you taking the time to fill us all in. Good luck with the upgrades, and I vote for new software.James