Please, find an alternative to LiquidWeb
- Thread starter VapingTurtle
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No scripts, one stylesheet only and no third party content except for Google Analytics.
Try using Ad Block in Firefox!
Between the default list (https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt) and a couple of additions, there are no social media thingies to worry about.
I will say, though, that since this thread I've been paying more attention and yeah... at certain times it slows down to a crawl.
Here's what I use (some will cause lost functionality that you might use):
Here's what I don't use:
Finally, you can even use:
Try using Ad Block in Firefox!
Between the default list (https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt) and a couple of additions, there are no social media thingies to worry about.
I will say, though, that since this thread I've been paying more attention and yeah... at certain times it slows down to a crawl.
Here's what I use (some will cause lost functionality that you might use):
Code:
e-cigarette-forum.com##DIV > .socialheader
||yui.yahooapis.com/^$domain=e-cigarette-forum.com
||apis.google.com^$domain=e-cigarette-forum.com
||platform.twitter.com^$domain=e-cigarette-forum.com
||googleapis.com^$domain=e-cigarette-forum.com
||translate.google.com^$domain=e-cigarette-forum.com
||www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clientscript/vbulletin_ajax_taglist.js*
||e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clientscript/vbulletin_facebook.js?*Here's what I don't use:
Code:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clientscript/yui/*
(this kills the advanced editor functions which can otherwise be disabled)
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/vbseo/*
(this kills a lot of stuff I really don't use, but also kills the "Like" function)Finally, you can even use:
Code:
||e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clientscript/*
(kills almost [U]everything [/U] - the forum will be rudimentary, but a much fastetr)
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Most of us don't understand any of that and don't want to have to install different browsers to get pages to load at a decent speed. I've use Chrome and IE and they both are slow on ECF but not on other sites. We shouldn't have to tweak out modems, PCs or browsers to view ECF.
Edit: I might add that I didn't have this problem a few months ago so I really don't think the problem is at my end.
Edit: I might add that I didn't have this problem a few months ago so I really don't think the problem is at my end.
Could I please point out that this is not the point of this thread or indeed any of the advice we have given.
1. An ECF page will load in about 8 or 9 seconds (for the main page content - the ancillary materials may take longer).
2. If ECF pages take longer than this to load, then the problem is ALWAYS at the user's end.
3. We give some advice to solve the user's problems.
We hope the advice helps but please don't blame us if there is a problem unconnected with the ECF site. Unfortunately there are several reasons why you might see more problems with the ECF site than others, and therefore you only experience an issue here. Nevertheless the problem is not here.
In order to provide the best possible resource, ECF has certain issues that don't exist anywhere else: 5 million pages, 1,500 people online sometimes, 50 different scripts running, 100 different usergroups, 100 different forum extensions, 100 different advert conditionals, and so on. We can't remove any of that as it wouldn't be ECF any more. What this means is that the site is extremely complex and some browsers, or PCs, or browser/PC combinations will have problems if not updated or set up optimally.
Our advice is designed to help you locate the issue: if it is on your network or on your PC. It's just an unfortunate fact that ECF won't work perfectly unless your software is working correctly. We can't go back to the old web page system now, people expect too much.
It would be a lot easier for us if we could just go back to the old, fast 'flat' pages of ordinary websites in the old days. Unfortunately that is not possible as people expect too much now. The pages on ECF do not actually exist anywhere - they are each built especially for you, as a result of asking your browser various questions and then asking the database to build a special page for you. For the reasons listed above - the immense complexity of this site due in the main to the complex interaction between community and commercial interests, and which does not exist on many other sites (if any) - the site needs up-to-date software to view it, for best results.
Well, I guess you could say the problem is at our end: the immensely complex site. But we can help you to get the best results from it, if you are having issues. There isn't much we can do about the site, unfortunately, so we need to help you find what the problem is and see if we can assist you to fix it.
How can you say "Could I please point out that this is not the point of this thread or indeed any of the advice we have given."? It is exactly what everybody is complaining about and the suggestions that you've said to do. My Chrome browser is up to date and yesterday I updated my javascript. No effect on performance. I don't have a clue as to how to Replace your ISP's DNS servers in your router and I'm not sure I want to do this because I don't know what effect that will have on other sites and I could screw up my modem so I can't even connect. Come to think of it, I don't even have a router, just a DSL modem.
If the forum is clogged up with what you say"5 million pages, 1,500 people online sometimes, 50 different scripts running, 100 different usergroups, 100 different forum extensions, 100 different advert conditionals, and so on. We can't remove any of that as it wouldn't be ECF any more. then it sounds to me that we a stuck with these slow loading pages and this is going to cause you to lose members and those members are going to go somewhere else and say why they left ECF. Not good advertising. My suggestions: Get rid of old Lounge and Outside posts. I doubt anybody reads those post from 2010. Videos take a long time to load. Those videos could be linked to the source instead. Some threads have over 200,000 posts. If you get rid of those old out dated posts or archive them, get rid of in post videos wouldn't that help speed up load times? That IS what we are talking about here.
Whatever help you need to fix it, we will try to assist with. Firstly I don't know what the issue is exactly, please help me here. How long does the Contacts page and a regular post page take to load, please? By that, I mean how long does the main body of the page take to appear. This will tell me if you need to change your DNS IPs to a better system or not.
Good points. The old posts are now archived and locked. Videos are mostly linked to YouTube or other sources as far as I know. Large page numbers aren't really the core of the issue, it is the number of queries and amount of processing needed to build each personalised page.
We are now going to spend some money investigating sources of speed improvements and I think it may be possible to get one or two seconds off the pageload times (but not more). If you are in the US and your pages take more than around 8 or 9 seconds to load then the problem is not at our end, but I will try to help you pin down what is needed to fix it.
You have to work with me on this because it isn't possible to go to a faster solution here, we'd have to get rid of the forum to do that. An 8-second load time is acceptable but anything longer isn't.
If the problem was the site, wouldn't everyone be experiencing the same issue? I never have an issue, not like most of you describe. Occasionally it will slow for me briefly but the pages still will load in less than 10 seconds, otherwise all my pages load in less than 5 seconds. This is whether I am home or at work. So if it's the site, why am I not experiencing the same occurrences?
joker, that has been some of my experience! i really believe there is a bottleneck on one of the servers. i have a lousy connection but there were plenty of times when i sailed through ''snails'' but others with better connections and browsers (as per roly
) timed out.i really think people who run into problems end up with a server not acting right.
The contact page loads instantly. I tested 3 high traffic threads and got 7,8 & 9 seconds to load. I normally visits these threads later in the evening when there is more traffic on the forum and pages load much slower than these times. I assume that is because more people are off work in the evenings.
I have to disagree with you when you say that most YouTube vids are linked. There are probably thousands that open in a post and those pages take the longest to load.
I still see post from back to 5/10/2010 in active threads.
I would appreciate any help you can give that isn't beyond my technical skills.
I wish I could answer that J0ker but I can't. I only know what's happening on my PC and it started about the time ECF started doing major upgrades. I find 10 secs for a page to load way to long and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a page to load in 5 seconds. Later in the evening pages time out. I have enough time to go pee, get a fresh beer and refill a tank before the page loads. Well....maybe not all 3 but you get my drift.
I get that damn Chrome "Wait" page all the time in the evenings.
On FF, I use Adblock Plus with the added social media filter list from: https://monzta.maltekraus.de/adblock_social.txt
Adding the social media filter came up a month or two back, when there was a big slowdown problem.
Adding the social media filter came up a month or two back, when there was a big slowdown problem.
I wish I could answer that J0ker but I can't. I only know what's happening on my PC and it started about the time ECF started doing major upgrades. I find 10 secs for a page to load way to long and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a page to load in 5 seconds. Later in the evening pages time out. I have enough time to go pee, get a fresh beer and refill a tank before the page loads. Well....maybe not all 3 but you get my drift.
I really don't know. I haven't had lag problems in a really long time. When it does take a little longer, it's normally due to the traffic on the site but like I said, never over 10 seconds and that's just every once in a while. Maybe you should spray WD-40 on your network cables
Just kidding, that would definitely slow it down!
OK, a quick update. We are looking into things because we do want all members to load pages in a reasonable time.
I will take a look at our analytics to see if there are any patterns of delays. Please do remember what Roly said upthread - this site is a forum and, as such, is incredibly demanding on server resources. It's really not fair to compare ECF with other websites, unless they are dedicated forums and have the same numbers of people online.
Furthermore, we've decided to upgrade our servers to the next level and also do some on-site optimizations (hence the disruptions you may have seen this evening). Not sure what the eta is on the server upgrade, but we'll keep you posted.
If you are getting consistent problems loading ECF pages, please will you check the contacts page to see how quickly that page loads - it's a good benchmark to see whether the problem is on our end or on yours.
SJ
I will take a look at our analytics to see if there are any patterns of delays. Please do remember what Roly said upthread - this site is a forum and, as such, is incredibly demanding on server resources. It's really not fair to compare ECF with other websites, unless they are dedicated forums and have the same numbers of people online.
Furthermore, we've decided to upgrade our servers to the next level and also do some on-site optimizations (hence the disruptions you may have seen this evening). Not sure what the eta is on the server upgrade, but we'll keep you posted.
If you are getting consistent problems loading ECF pages, please will you check the contacts page to see how quickly that page loads - it's a good benchmark to see whether the problem is on our end or on yours.
SJ
Thanks SJ! Must be slow on my end because the contacts page fired right up. I'm going to have to figure out what the problem is........Loading any other pages here takes forever!
Wiz!
optimizations seem to be working - contact page, as always, loads pretty much instantaneously but other threads are doing well also. and when i look down at the bottom i don't see '' downloading twitter, analytics, google etc .......
Thanks SJ! Must be slow on my end because the contacts page fired right up. I'm going to have to figure out what the problem is........Loading any other pages here takes forever!
No Wiz, that indicates that the delay is coming from our end. That is to say, the contacts page fires up because there's no demand on the server, save for loading a static page. If there was a delay, we could say that there was likely an issue between you and the server.
So, I've taken a look at the analytics, and it's a slightly mixed picture. Mixed, that is, because all I can get is an overall page speed, with no segmentation by the time of day. Obviously that would be useful, because we could then estimate the exact effect of traffic on the page load time.
Anyway, what I have found is this....Take a look at the attached image.
You'll see that ~94% of pages are served under 9 seconds with a median of approx 3.5 secs. What's causing the problem for the other 5% could be an issue between the server and the client machine, or it could be happening at periods of exceptional high load. I then took a look at the page load times for the front page, which I then segmented by (US) region. I've sorted the results by page-sample number, as it's not really possible to draw conclusions for results where there are very low samples. In the end, there's not much data to go on, although it's fair to say that there is considerable variation according to location (presumably due to the quality of ISPs). See the following image for the data:
Anyway, not sure what conclusions to make from this, except to say that it's a useful benchmark for the upgrades.
One more thing to note is that Japanese visitors, on the whole, have the best page-load time available, beating the US by nearly one second on average. Presumably because they have better infrastructure (on the whole) and are visiting at times of low load.
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one more thing, Chrome is the slowest of the major browsers, lagging .7 seconds on average (5.48secs) behind both IE and Firefox, which are both at 4.8 seconds.
there sure are big variations between florida and ny for instance. are those locations getting on ecf using the same server?
since the delays don't happen to all of us or, at least, not at the same time i can't help but wonder if the servers you are using are created equal.
since the delays don't happen to all of us or, at least, not at the same time i can't help but wonder if the servers you are using are created equal.
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