Forum performance?

[FDEdev 955]

Forum performance is really puzzling.  Even when most of the US is asleep, it can be very slow, with some avatars disappearing etc. And sometimes, when you expect the forum to be really slow, it's as fast as most other forums. No fun to troubleshoot.

[Paladin 101]

Exactly the same in UK for me, odd!!!   Regards.

 

[Sethos 4,273]

Yeah, it's peculiar. You can browse along just fine and suddenly, it'll just hit a brick wall and loading a page takes 10-15 seconds, plus every element is struggling to load subsequently. Then your next click, everything is smooth and runs fine. 

[Theboot100 404]

It's been running super slow here too (australia)

[Biggles2010 342]

I'm surprised there seem to be relatively few reports of the current website problems. The issue of intermittent slow responses and long loading times has been apparent since September. 

I'm not sure when the website update started, but It was possibly around the same time. I have been on Avsim for about 25 years, originally under a different user name, and I cannot recall a time when it has been as frustrating as at present. However I understand the difficulty of isolating an apparently random issue, which possibly does not affect all users.

I am in the UK, using a fast fibre connection, and today is typical. Selected Avsim, using Firefox, and waited 65 seconds for website home page to appear. Selected a forum topic from the recent postings list and waited 20 seconds. Then went back to home page - another 20 seconds. Then, like magic the delays disappeared for the next five minutes, with instant responses.    Too good to last. Soon back to infuriating delays. 

I have been monitoring this for nearly 3 months, using different browsers, with similar results. Sometimes the good periods can last for half an hour, but rarely much longer. On some days the site is not worth staying on, and I sympathise with the mods, as Jim pointed out, needing to switch pages quickly.

I know MSFS has generated a lot of traffic, but we've seen it before with P3D or PMDG new releases, and the current issues don't seem to fit that pattern. The slowdowns are too random and intermittent, and unrelated to the time of day, or major info releases. They occur at what should be quiet times just as much as during obviously busy times.

I hope this can be resolved because it's spoiling what has always been a great website. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

I have passed to AVSIM Tech.  I have asked he bring in support from Invision.  Only problem with getting support is that the site may be up and running super fast when he logs on and he may not see the problem.  However, I think the site is slower more than being fast.  Right now the site is operating very fast with over 1200 members and guests on board so do not believe site capacity is the issue. That happened years ago and AVSIM has been upgraded to the latest.  We use the same site developer as many other FS sites (Orbx/FTX is one) and do not see issues there.  We hope to track this problem down soon!

[Biggles2010 342]

Thank you for the follow up Jim.   I've just come back onto the website a few minutes ago, and right now everything is running perfectly, with instant responses. I wish you and the techies luck with this one.

Do you think it might be just a limited number of us affected, perhaps due to our individual system characteristics. If it's everyone, I would have expected rather more comments than there seem to have been so far. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

I believe it is happening to everyone.  At least all of the moderators have been complaining as they have to open/close many forums and posts.  This includes me and Bob Scott, the new Forums Administrator.  It is frustrating as it comes and goes.  When the AVSIM Tech tells me the site is now running better, I'll find it is running better.  Then, suddenly, maybe an hour later, the site is very slow.  Right now, system performance and a fast connection to AVSIM is our number 1 priority to fix.