Site very slow for a few weeks now

phil7445

Thanks for the response Martin.

Just one thought. Would getting rid of the "smiley" icons (or whatever they are called) improve things? ie would it be less pressure on bandwidth? The same with gif (I assume?) type Avatar's as although they may be fun, they are not really necessary.

phil7445

When I said gif Avatars I meant the moving images ones.

MSE_Martin

Hi Phil

They're already served seperately I believe.

The real problem is so many people writing and reading the same database at the same time and then someone searches a word like Tesco which comes up millions of times and it goes kaput.

While there are lots of things we know we can do - and are doing them - they have to be done carefully or the whole pile of cards will fall.

Martin

phil7445

Ok. Thanks.

dancingfairy

I think the server just crashed. My browser couldn't find the page when I looked for it.

RoCas

MSE_Martin wrote:

... and then someone searches a word like Tesco which comes up millions of times and it goes kaput.

Ooops, sorry guys - I promise I won't do that again

icklejulez

You know Martin as a member of this site now for around 2 years I would definatly agree witha small membership fee of around £5 a year like Quidco if it helps improve the performance of the site. Maybe this would just be for using the forums. Im sure we've all benefitted much more than that per year. Plus we all get a lot more out of the site.

ormus

as the search facility is pretty much useless anyway right now, why not remove it?
at least temporary?
get rid of the icons/avatars to, anything to speed it up, even if only a fraction.

MSE_Martin

The site speed is nothing to do with budgets. The servers are big and powerful - its the sheer complexity and post numbers on here. It takes time to optimise something and we've a team working on it. The software is now upgraded again, the servers are being tweaked - and hopefully we'll get there - until the growth takes it on again.

As for search - we're looking at it - the aim is to use a different solution, but it needs to be built - and that.... takes time.

Also remember when you say search you actually mean forum search - the main site search works well

Edinburghlass_2

** tiptoes in to add that the individual board search works well too so try and use that for a quicker result **