# ENworld periodically slows to a crawl?



## Plane Sailing (Apr 15, 2004)

Thanks for all the good work guys.

Every day from 2pm GMT onwards I find that ENworld slows down considerably - I normally put it down to the USA getting online  but recently it frequently gets to the stage where I have to wait over a minute for a page to be served! (this is from a fast T1 connection)

The problem has been getting more noticeable since the start of April.

Are there traffic or server issues? Or am I just unlucky 

Cheers


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## Talmun (Apr 15, 2004)

I second that, and I have noticed slow response in the early afternoon (i'm in Indiana)...


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 15, 2004)

I just did a search for the words "power attack" in the title of threads in the rules forum and the search took 1765 seconds. Is that normal?


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## Arnwyn (Apr 15, 2004)

Exactly the same problem with me (North American Central Time Zone). I'm at work with a super-fast connection, and everything on the internet is blazingly fast... except ENWorld.

As Plane Sailing above, I've noticed it more around the beginning of April.


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## Elodan (Apr 15, 2004)

I'm having the same issues. Different computers (home and work) both with broadband connections and various times like 10 AM, 3PM and 7PM Eastern.


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## diaglo (Apr 15, 2004)

ditto. from 0900 until 1400 EST.


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 15, 2004)

Just reached 4pm GMT and things have sped up again. Wierd. I wonder if there is a spike for some reason recorded in the server logs, or something else.


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## Cthulhu's Librarian (Apr 15, 2004)

Same here. Mid morning and mid afternoon seem to be the worst (approx. 9am-11am, and again 2pm-4pm EST).


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## LightPhoenix (Apr 15, 2004)

I would imagine it's because those are peak times for usage of the site.  The site is probably hitting some bandwidth caps or something.  I don't know how much Morrus and the gang can do about it right now.


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## johnsemlak (Apr 15, 2004)

It's catch and go for me it looking back I'd say my experience is the same with those who have posted above.

 Right now the boards are really frustrating.  I'm double posting all over the place

It's generally much slower when I post something then when I view something.


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## Fester (Apr 15, 2004)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> Thanks for all the good work guys.
> 
> Every day from 2pm GMT onwards I find that ENworld slows down considerably - I normally put it down to the USA getting online  but recently it frequently gets to the stage where I have to wait over a minute for a page to be served! (this is from a fast T1 connection)
> 
> ...




Yeah, I've been suffering from the same problem.  It can be quite painful sometimes


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## Hardhead (Apr 15, 2004)

Ditto.  Guess Morrus shouldn't have spent all that money on the trip to Zurich.


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## Dimwhit (Apr 15, 2004)

It's basically as it's been for the last year or two. That's why a new server is in the works, I think. I have no idea what the timeline it, though. But I get a number of slow times, usually scattered through the day (US Mountain Time).


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## Umbran (Apr 15, 2004)

Yes, this is the sort of thing that's been going on for a while.  The software upgrade did help some, but IIRC, that help was not expected to stem the tide for long.  It is a big site, and it needs a big server on which to run.  Hopefully the server upgrade will come soon.


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 15, 2004)

Thanks guys.

Just to reiterate, I'm not complaining by any means! Mostly I'm just wanting to find out whether my experience is unique or shared.

Cheers


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## AGGEMAM (Apr 15, 2004)

I experience the same thing on my home T1 connection (  ) which I share with only 11 other people, and they are all at work or sleep when the slow downs comes at around at 3 PM CET (Central European Time) comes. Also I experience a minor slow down at around 12 PM CET.


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## cybertalus (Apr 16, 2004)

I'm not on much in the daytime, but I seem to have more problems late at night (1 am Eastern Time) than I do in the early evenings (5 to 7 pm Eastern).

What I've noticed most is that the delay is in getting the page to start loading.  Opera sits for a long time while the status bar says "Request Queued for remote host www.enworld.org" and both the document and image load stats stay at 0%.  Once the page starts loading things usually zip along at normal speed, though occasionally everything except for an image or two will load and those last few images will take a lot longer than normal to finally load.

Though I'm not complaining either.  I'm just relieved to know that the problem isn't a result of the outage my ISP had last week, because if it was I'd never be able to convince them it was their fault.


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## Morrus (Apr 16, 2004)

Yep, the new server should solve that.  Adlon (of Mortality.net) is kindly pricing something up, as he's offered to build it for cost price.


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## Piratecat (Apr 16, 2004)

I'm suspecting that part of the problem might be the email notification feature. When I post to a heavily subscribed thread, things then crawl for about two minutes... then are fine.


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## Creamsteak (Apr 16, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm suspecting that part of the problem might be the email notification feature. When I post to a heavily subscribed thread, things then crawl for about two minutes... then are fine.



 So, how long is the delay for your Story Hour then?


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## Morrus (Apr 16, 2004)

I'll turn it off for a day or two.  Let's see if it makes any difference.


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## Nifelhein (Apr 16, 2004)

I hope it really works out well, the only problem will be to identify what thread has a new post. Ok, checked the subscription in my account and there we can see what threads have new posts so I can see it is no big deal.


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## johnsemlak (Apr 16, 2004)

Posting still seems to take a bit of time.  Just viewing pages at EN World seems a bit faster though.

EDIT--well, I'll say posting is definitely faster than yesterday.


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## Morrus (Apr 18, 2004)

This could have something to do with the slowdown.  Take a look at the increase in new threads over the last few days.


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## AGGEMAM (Apr 18, 2004)

That sorta proves the point I was making in another thread (but let's not go into that) that with the slowdowns gone, many more people are encouraged to read and post to the board.

But keep it up a few days more, so that you have at least a week with either option on to compare the two.


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## cybertalus (Apr 19, 2004)

This is speculation on my part, but I think even the daily activity e-mails are slowing the server down.  Here's my reasoning:

Like clockwork over the last few weeks for a few minutes starting at 1am EDT I've been seeing really long load times on the messageboards.  Usually in the range of four to five minutes to load a page.  By 1:10 or 1:15 the problem goes away and usually doesn't come back.  This is specific to ENWorld, because when it happens I always go check Google and an EZBoard or two to make sure my ISP isn't having problems.

I don't currently, but I used to have a few active threads set to daily notification.  When I did, those notification e-mails arrived within a few minutes of midnight, again pretty much like clockwork.  This however was before the switch to Daylight Saving's Time.  Assuming the server doesn't change its clock for DST, midnight Standard Time would now be 1am Daylight Time.

And so I'm clear about exactly what time I'm talking about when I see the slowdown: (in case anyone else wants to see if they're having the same repeatable slowdown)

1 am Eastern Daylight Time = Midnight Eastern Standard Time = 5 am GMT = 10 pm Pacific Daylight Time


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