Is it the launch of P3Dv4 that's causing the slow down?  Its SO slow for me here in the UK at the moment, that I get occasional time-outs!

Maybe there's maintenance going on?

AVSIM seems to suffer extended periods of slow down on quite a regular basis. I guess that's the price you pay for having such a large membership

Hehe, we  want to pay the real price, everyone (not just you and me) should donate a few bucks to AVSim, so they can upgrade their service to cope with the obviously increasing demands.

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

AVSIM seems to suffer extended periods of slow down on quite a regular basis. I guess that's the price you pay for having such a large membership

And there was me thinking it was just me. Glad to read it's also affected others too.

Be grateful you don't have to attempt moderation duties then. It's very painful for us mods who have no real choice but to put up with the sometimes slow speed!

Comparing with a few years back, we are "warp speed" nowadays.

Cheers,

 

Maybe I miss them, but I never see any donation drives like those we see at SOH.

Don't necessarily blame AVSIM servers because they are fast.  Super fast and very competitive on the Internet.  First, blame your browser.  I personally have found slowdowns because of the configuration of my Internet browser connections.  I maintain 5-6 open tabs at one time.  Some of the tabs are very active and some are constantly under denial of service as hackers try to bring down the sites.  Sometimes, when trying to respond to a topic on AVSIM, it will be impossible for me to post.  I have now investigated and have discovered many causes in addition to the Internet browers connections.  Firefox shuts AVSIM down sometimes and then some of the other tabs even if I'm not looking at the Tab.  It then asks me if I want to restore the tab and send information to Firefox.  Of course, I restore the tab but a few minutes later, it will crash again.  I turned on the block popups and it has controlled it somewhat. 

l have Windows 10 and found that there are many new schedules being run during the day or while you are active on the Internet.  I have opened Task Manager to see what's running in the background and it is pretty ugly.  My Malwarebytes program was eating up resources so I uninstalled it.  I don't think Windows Defender likes competition.  The Windows update program needs to know when you will be active on the Internet.  I think in Windows 7, they just detected whether you were on the Internet or not and did whatever.  Now you have to tell Microsoft the hours you will be active.

There are a lot of services running too and taking up resources at a certain time.  I have tried to take control of my computer system, but Windows 10 will not allow me to have control.  For me, on the East Coast of the USA, it happens mostly between 12 noon and 2 PM.  I just shut the computer down and take a nap.  It is the only solution and I know now not to run P3DV4 during these times or I might get a CTD just trying to enjoy and relax myself.

But, besides a lot of members (thank you all very much!), we have many "guests" who show up to monitor your topics and posts to get the latest guidance.  They do not plan on posting anything or contributing so they just monitor the expertise of our membership (and they know they are getting the best experts when they come here!!).  This slows down our site too.  Not too many sites in the world that get close to a thousand guests looking on the outside to see what the members are doing.

Apologize for any inconvenience but think most of this will all go away soon as products are updated for P3DV4.  But please also look at your task manager and see what's running in the background.  Also, if you have Windows 10, type "schedule" in the search bar and click on Schedule tasks and you will see a whole lot of tasks being scheduled by the various software you own and by Windows.  You might be surprised!

@Phil (the OP) - Hope you are recovering well and feeling better now!

Best regards,

Jim

Thanks for the "behind the scenes" explanation, Jim. 

Here's an objective measurement:

https://www.webpagetest.org/result/170605_WZ_TZ/

The time to first byte is very slow - I'd definitely look into either the servers or the database. By comparison, here's a wimpy little AWS machine:

https://www.webpagetest.org/result/170605_YZ_Y6/

Hopefully the results will show. It's worth using a tool like webpagetest because you can simulate particular connection speeds and latency.

Cheers!

Luke

On 6/3/2017 at 8:57 PM, Jim Young said:

l have Windows 10 and found that there are many new schedules being run during the day or while you are active on the Internet.  I have opened Task Manager to see what's running in the background and it is pretty ugly.  My Malwarebytes program was eating up resources so I uninstalled it.  I don't think Windows Defender likes competition.  The Windows update program needs to know when you will be active on the Internet.  I think in Windows 7, they just detected whether you were on the Internet or not and did whatever.  Now you have to tell Microsoft the hours you will be active.

I notice that if my system is in power save mode where it reduces the cpu speed on demand that I get slow downs.  If I lock it to 4.2 ghz, things are better.  I prefer to save the planet, so most times I am patient.

I think the instant notification of replies causes a drag.  Wonder how big or many servers Avsim has?

On 2017-6-4 at 1:57 AM, Jim Young said:

Don't necessarily blame AVSIM servers because they are fast.  Super fast and very competitive on the Internet.  First, blame your browser.  I personally have found slowdowns because of the configuration of my Internet browser connections.  I maintain 5-6 open tabs at one time.  Some of the tabs are very active and some are constantly under denial of service as hackers try to bring down the sites.  Sometimes, when trying to respond to a topic on AVSIM, it will be impossible for me to post.  I have now investigated and have discovered many causes in addition to the Internet browers connections.  Firefox shuts AVSIM down sometimes and then some of the other tabs even if I'm not looking at the Tab.  It then asks me if I want to restore the tab and send information to Firefox.  Of course, I restore the tab but a few minutes later, it will crash again.  I turned on the block popups and it has controlled it somewhat. 

l have Windows 10 and found that there are many new schedules being run during the day or while you are active on the Internet.  I have opened Task Manager to see what's running in the background and it is pretty ugly.  My Malwarebytes program was eating up resources so I uninstalled it.  I don't think Windows Defender likes competition.  The Windows update program needs to know when you will be active on the Internet.  I think in Windows 7, they just detected whether you were on the Internet or not and did whatever.  Now you have to tell Microsoft the hours you will be active.

There are a lot of services running too and taking up resources at a certain time.  I have tried to take control of my computer system, but Windows 10 will not allow me to have control.  For me, on the East Coast of the USA, it happens mostly between 12 noon and 2 PM.  I just shut the computer down and take a nap.  It is the only solution and I know now not to run P3DV4 during these times or I might get a CTD just trying to enjoy and relax myself.

But, besides a lot of members (thank you all very much!), we have many "guests" who show up to monitor your topics and posts to get the latest guidance.  They do not plan on posting anything or contributing so they just monitor the expertise of our membership (and they know they are getting the best experts when they come here!!).  This slows down our site too.  Not too many sites in the world that get close to a thousand guests looking on the outside to see what the members are doing.

Apologize for any inconvenience but think most of this will all go away soon as products are updated for P3DV4.  But please also look at your task manager and see what's running in the background.  Also, if you have Windows 10, type "schedule" in the search bar and click on Schedule tasks and you will see a whole lot of tasks being scheduled by the various software you own and by Windows.  You might be surprised!

@Phil (the OP) - Hope you are recovering well and feeling better now!

Best regards,

Jim

Hi Jim

Its most definitely not a local issue for me. We have 6 machines on our home network (plus various phones). Between us, we have 4 different operating systems and each PC has no less than three or four different browsers installed (Chrome being my personal favourite).

Alas, 'tis only Avsim that's currently driving me nuts due to very slow loading;-)  All my other flightsim and support forums are much, much faster.  Please don't take this as a complaint;-)  I'm just pointing out that its not a local (user) issue.

Try this to speed up your windows and browser and also increase FPS in your sim.

Works on 7, 8 and 10

Right click my PC and select Properties, select Advanced system settings, follow the picture below:

Untick all the boxes except "show thumbnails instead of icon"

You will be surprised..  

 

23 minutes ago, Dougal said:

Hi Jim

Its most definitely not a local issue for me. We have 6 machines on our home network (plus various phones). Between us, we have 4 different operating systems and each PC has no less than three or four different browsers installed (Chrome being my personal favourite).

Alas, 'tis only Avsim that's currently driving me nuts due to very slow loading;-)  All my other flightsim and support forums are much, much faster.  Please don't take this as a complaint;-)  I'm just pointing out that its not a local (user) issue.

Thanks for the feedback Phil.  I will pass it on to the tech.  I note right now we have 310 members signed on and 958 "guests" just looking.  That's a lot of people, over 1200, and suspect that has something to do with the slowdown. 

Best regards,

Jim