Why is this site so slow?

todd121
todd121 Member Posts: 1,448 Member
in Kidney Cancer #1

Has anybody ever explained why this website is consistently so slow at loading pages? It's among the worst sites I have ever visited. I just don't believe that it's "poor code", as has been mentioned at other times when we've discussed it. The reason I don't think it is, is because the problem comes and goes. If it was really poor code, it would probably be consistently slow.

Usually these things would be caused by poor bandwidth (the upload pipe on their server is is too narrow), or a server that is doing other things and can't handle the load of this plus the other things (that come and go).

It is so frustrating to log in here and spend 1-2 minutes per mouse click for a page to load. This is not my internet connection, because this happens when I'm accessing the site from work and home and other places, and on my phone.

Do they need a faster computer or to upgrade their network? Has anybody really explained why it's like this? We should do something about this.

Thanks,

Todd

Comments

  • Mimir
    Mimir Member Posts: 25
    #2
    Servers

    I can't speak as to what exactly the problem is because I obviously do not work at CSN, but  it probably has to do with their servers.  The difference in speed seems to correspond to points in the day when site traffic would be the highest (normal speeds really late at night and early in the morning). While poorly written backend (serverside) code could be a factor, the variance in speed means that the main issue is with the servers. There are many other boards hosted through CSN that share the same servers and they seem to keep growing every day which puts more stress on the servers. Without knowing what language/ how CSN handles the server side of this website it impossible to say if a complete change in the code could improve the site. 

    Looking through the site's source code, it seems they use AWS (Amazon Web Services, hosting space provided by amazon) so they would need to talk to amazon about buying more space/upgrading the speed. 

    You seem to be right Todd.

    I'm not sure what we could to do improve the speed short of asking CSN whether money is the limiting factor on site speed. If that is true, then we could try to raise money (across all boards maybe) to buy more server space/

  • todd121
    todd121 Member Posts: 1,448 Member
    #3
    Mimir said:

    Servers

    I can't speak as to what exactly the problem is because I obviously do not work at CSN, but  it probably has to do with their servers.  The difference in speed seems to correspond to points in the day when site traffic would be the highest (normal speeds really late at night and early in the morning). While poorly written backend (serverside) code could be a factor, the variance in speed means that the main issue is with the servers. There are many other boards hosted through CSN that share the same servers and they seem to keep growing every day which puts more stress on the servers. Without knowing what language/ how CSN handles the server side of this website it impossible to say if a complete change in the code could improve the site. 

    Looking through the site's source code, it seems they use AWS (Amazon Web Services, hosting space provided by amazon) so they would need to talk to amazon about buying more space/upgrading the speed. 

    You seem to be right Todd.

    I'm not sure what we could to do improve the speed short of asking CSN whether money is the limiting factor on site speed. If that is true, then we could try to raise money (across all boards maybe) to buy more server space/

    CSN Servers

    Back in December when I started posting here, I contacted the American Cancer Society about making a donation. They had suggested I look on their website for something, and I found it to be extremely slow. When I asked the guy on the phone about it, he said because of the holidays their servers were really busy that time of year.

    CSN is affiliated with the American Cancer Society somehow. Are all the services the ACS offers sharing the same servers?

    Maybe it is all the other stuff hosted on the same servers. I don't really see a coorelation to number of people on CSN versus how slow it is. Sometimes a few are logged in and sometimes many. Although, it might be true that it's particularly slow always when there are like 30 people logged in. Of course you can browse without logging in, and so I'm not sure that's a good indicator of how busy the site is.

    We've talked about this before. I was getting particularly frustrated today. It was taking a couple of minutes to load each page, and my blood pressure was rising. It would be nice if we could do something about it. There are plenty of other websites around that load nice and snappy.

    Todd

  • Mimir
    Mimir Member Posts: 25
    #4
    Information

    I investigated a little bit more into this issue. I took some snapshots of the network anylysis while CSN was fast (http://postimage.org/image/yxuhkh8f7/ ) and while CSN was slow ( http://postimage.org/image/rduggdkct/ ). For anyone looking at the images the transparent part of the line is the waiting time for the server and the shaded part is when my computer recieved the information. The "fast" CSN time was about .5s of waiting time. The "slow" CSN time was about 17 seconds of waiting time. This information seems to confirm why the site loads slowly (server issues). Not seeing all the traffic on their server, it is impossible to say exactly what causes the server to slowdown.

     

    Now I should probably get back to my calculus homework...

  • Texas_wedge
    Texas_wedge Member Posts: 2,798
    #5
    Mimir said:

    Information

    I investigated a little bit more into this issue. I took some snapshots of the network anylysis while CSN was fast (http://postimage.org/image/yxuhkh8f7/ ) and while CSN was slow ( http://postimage.org/image/rduggdkct/ ). For anyone looking at the images the transparent part of the line is the waiting time for the server and the shaded part is when my computer recieved the information. The "fast" CSN time was about .5s of waiting time. The "slow" CSN time was about 17 seconds of waiting time. This information seems to confirm why the site loads slowly (server issues). Not seeing all the traffic on their server, it is impossible to say exactly what causes the server to slowdown.

     

    Now I should probably get back to my calculus homework...

    Stoned

    I hope that's not renal calculus! 

  • foxhd
    foxhd Member Posts: 3,181 Member
    #6
    Texas_wedge said:

    Stoned

    I hope that's not renal calculus! 

    SLOW

    I was beginning to think that the ACS thought we were all as old as Wedgie and Iceman so they slowed it down so we could keep up.

  • MDCinSC
    MDCinSC Member Posts: 574
    #7
    foxhd said:

    SLOW

    I was beginning to think that the ACS thought we were all as old as Wedgie and Iceman so they slowed it down so we could keep up.

    I'd Laugh out Loud if I knew

    I'd Laugh out Loud if I knew them, well enough!  I suspect I'm right there with them though!  Great comment!

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