Forum running slowly?

[StevenUnderwood]

For the last week, my browsing of this forum has seemed to be very slow. I am using Vista Ultimate with IE7 and each new page seems to wait a while showing "Waiting for http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/style_imag...s.html..." in the status bar.

Most of my other browsing has been unaffected. I say most because Yahoo has been slow as well, but I have not noticed a problem on any of my other browsing or activities. Also, Yahoo is not naming a specific file it is waiting for, just the whole site.

My normal scans have turned up nothing and before I dig deeper here, I was looking for others experience here.

Thanks

[Lking]

Not that I've noticed. Using Vista, Firefox.

[DavidT]

I haven't noticed any difference using FireFox on XP (and sometimes IE7 on XP).

DT

[Farelf]

Nothing amiss seen with XP - IE7, FFx2, Mozilla - even all 3 simultaneously. Though I believe multiple tabs will slow down some browsers, depending what's under the tabs. Memory usage being the factor from what I hear - as data, running all three:

iexplore.exe 50,188K (single tab)

firefox.exe 26,160K (single tab)

mozilla.exe 25,020K (single tab)

[Wazoo]

For the last week, my browsing of this forum has seemed to be very slow.

I don't think I can offer much concurrence on that scenario.

I am using Vista Ultimate with IE7 and each new page seems to wait a while showing "Waiting for http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/style_imag...s.html..." in the status bar.

XP Home & Pro .... I agree that there's a bit of a pause, but then again ... primary system here is a 730+MHz Celeron with only 256M of RAM .... slowness is part of the game <g> Flip side, a 1,4GHz P4 with 512M of RAM handles the test Forum a lot differently also .. just noting that there is a lot of code difference betweewn this app version and the test install.

Another small difference noted .... logged in or as a Guest seems to show some change in load times. Probable combination of more data and the authorizations checks to display that additional stuff ..????

Also, Yahoo is not naming a specific file it is waiting for, just the whole site.

I don't believe there's an actual connection to a specific file .. it's just that stuff is loading in the background and that's the last 'command' exectued. Basically, your browser is simply waiting for the rest of the page data to download and get interpreted.

My normal scans have turned up nothing and before I dig deeper here, I was looking for others experience here.

Cursory inspection of the server logs show nothing out of the ordinary at the server. As above, I can't say that I've noticed any change since the last server configuration adjustment.

[Darren S]

For the last week, my browsing of this forum has seemed to be very slow. I am using Vista Ultimate with IE7 and each new page seems to wait a while <snip>

Most of my other browsing has been unaffected. I say most because Yahoo has been slow as well, but I have not noticed a problem on any of my other browsing or activities. <snip>

To take a page out of Wazoo's past posts ... "Way too much guessing going on here, Steven. We need some specifics please." <smirk>

I just tested this as a Guest and when Logged in and both were the same with about a 1.0 second response time from when I clicked on a Forum topic to when it displayed the posts. How long is yours taking?

Anyway, let me try to get this resolved for you.

1. Did these pages used to load quickly?
   
2. What software/hardware changes have been made in the last 1-2 weeks?
   
3. What are your specific machine details including: CPU, RAM, PC type, OS and Service Pack, etc. (type "dxdiag" at the Run command for this info)?
   
4. What browsing are you using?
   

Assuming you are on a high-speed connection and that it used to be fast in the past and using the fact that Yahoo is also slow there might be something we can do to fix it. Try these steps below and let me know if any of them resolve the slow-browsing issue. I work mainly with PCs with XP so let me know if it is a Mac. Your Vista will have its own places for things but I might be able to help as well (enable things like "Network discovery" and enable/disable "User Access Control" or whatever it is called in Vista).

1. Restart in "Safe Mode with Networking" (on a PC press the F8 key when starting to get the option screen)
   
2. Enable all Cookies, increase the Cache for temp files, disable all Pop-up blockers or make sure that any "block Cookie" options are removed from previous settings
   
3. Turn off any browser toolbars (Google's toolbar has been known to slow down browser response)
   
4. Disable any Anti-Virus program that is running and quit all other programs
   
5. Try another browser on your machine or another machine on your network
   
6. Change your DNS (or flush it first, change it, close and open your browser, load the Forum, press Ctrl-F5 to do a full reload of the page)
   

I use a home-built PC with XP Pro SP3, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1650 video card with 512 MB video RAM at 1680x1050 resolution, high-speed Cable Internet, Firefox 3.0.1, AVG Internet Security 8.0, block all cookies in Firefox but have allowed all cookies for SpamCop webmail and SpamCop Forums, block pop-ups in Firefox. That is overkill for simple web-browsing but that was not the PC's original intent.

Let me know how any of those fair to speed up the browsing.

[StevenUnderwood]

Thank you Darren, but i was simply looking for confirmation that it was my machine so I did not waste a whole bunch of time only to find out it is something on the server end... I assumed from the start it might be a Windows Update or one of the recent AV updates I just did.

I too work in computer support and had I needed more help in that direction, I would have expanded on my information.

FYI... pages are taking 10-15 seconds to load... they are usually similiar to your experience.

edit: Spybot: Search and Destroy and apparently more importantly the extensive hosts file created as part of that protection appears to be the cause of this issue. Removing SpyBot: S&D and the hosts entries has returned the expected performance.

I have used SpyBot for years, but this was a new version I installed this time.

[Darren S]

Heh, I was thinking more long-term like someone searching the Forum down the road who might find some quick tips on how to speed up their own browser. For the quick answer though - it is not slow on my machine but YMMV and if it was fast once it may one day again be fast but if Yahoo is slow then it is most likely not the SpamCop Forum.

I am always picking up helpful tips though (I had forgotten about the command "netsh" until a recent post reminded me about it). Sorry if I gave tips you already know but it sounds like they were a good general recommendation if you agreed to similar diagnosing steps.

edit: Spybot: Search and Destroy and apparently more importantly the extensive hosts file created as part of that protection appears to be the cause of this issue. Removing SpyBot: S&D and the hosts entries has returned the expected performance. I have used SpyBot for years, but this was a new version I installed this time.

Good catch. They recently came out with Spybot v1.6 and I too have been using this for years and it is currently installed on my machine and not slowing down the browsing. I will remember this for other clients of mine when disabling the Google Toolbar doesn't solve it.

I'm sure you didn't have to remove all of Spybot though. I have lately been using its Schedule feature to do a daily automatic update and then shortly thereafter a daily automatic scan that fixes all problems and then closes the program. I have encountered no issues with that program. I have not needed to tweak it either since I have not had issues but somewhere in the settings might be what you need.

Do you run both add-on features: IE protection (SDHelper) and System settings protection (TeaTimer) or just the IE protection or neither? I used to have TeaTimer running so I would not have any rogue items modifying the registry. I have had that disabled for a while now and found it interfered with some A/V programs and other items on the computer.

Thanks for clearing up the issue though and good luck.

[Farelf]

...edit: Spybot: Search and Destroy and apparently more importantly the extensive hosts file created as part of that protection appears to be the cause of this issue. Removing SpyBot: S&D and the hosts entries has returned the expected performance....

Interesting. Works and home machines once were twins, both remain XP Pro with similar processor speed and RAM. The works one uses the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file from mvps.org/winhelp2002/ (oldish version) at 671K, 18,212 lines including comments. The home one has minimal (default) hosts file (one entry, 127.0.0.1 localhost, from memory) but I can't say I have ever noticed any appreciable differences between them in page performance 'here' with IE7- though the big hosts file certainly played some part in frequent, momentary loss of connection visiting some sites on the home computer (which would probably seemed like slow page loads had I used different connect/reconnect options and if these pages were ones where such dropouts happened, though they weren't).

But XP ain't Shoehorn/Vista.

[StevenUnderwood]

Do you run both add-on features: IE protection (SDHelper) and System settings protection (TeaTimer) or just the IE protection or neither? I used to have TeaTimer running so I would not have any rogue items modifying the registry. I have had that disabled for a while now and found it interfered with some A/V programs and other items on the computer.

I usually use just SDHelper and not TeaTimer. I did notice however, that it shutdown a service when it uninstalled, so I may not have checked the boxes carefully while installing.

I just installed it and Ad-Aware for a quick test of my current config (only TrendMicro OfficeScan and Defender) and it found nothing of consequence. Ad-Aware found a number of low risk cookies was about it. I also do not "test the limits" of that protection by surfing carefully.