Scubaboard loads slow compared to ST forum and Decostop

[mike_s]

Anyone notice how much slower that Scubaboard loads threads compared to Decostop or ScubaToys forum?

Using these both as comparison as they both use the vbulletion board software.


Typically when I click on a SB thread, it loads the top portion of the page with all the SB logos, ec...., then has a blank white page for several seconds while it tries to load the rest of the page. It's almost like 'server1' is feeding the first part of the page and a 'slower sever 2' is doing a database lookup for the thread and serving it, or handing it off to 'server 3'


I've noticed this both on my home and work computer over two different network connections, so I don't think it's my computer/network.

anyone else noticed this?

 

[Firefyter]

It's been this way for a while, and it gets really aggravating: Slow Loading?

 

[drbill]

Definitely an issue with my computers here, too, and has been for some time. Sometimes when I try to log on, it takes quite some time just to enter my ID and then it often doubles up my id and password forcing me to log on again.

Of course SB has a much higher membership/viewership than TDS so I don't see that as a fair comparison. Never been on the ST forums.

 

[redacted]

Try this: ScubaBoard - Online Scuba Diving Community - Equipment, Dive Travel, Training and More!

You lose a bunch of features and it may take some getting used to but it is fast. To switch back (like if you want to Qreply or search) use styleid=56.

 

[mike_s]

It's been this way for a while, and it gets really aggravating: Slow Loading?

Thanks.. didn't see that thread.... yeah it's been that way for what seems months... since the last crash... **cough** I mean upgrade

I figured they would have fixed it by now.

.

Of course SB has a much higher membership/viewership than TDS so I don't see that as a fair comparison. Never been on the ST forums.

True..... I did think about that... .but it's this way even late in the middle of the night when the "new post count" is pretty low. So I don't think it's load based completely.


I notice sometimes it seems to delay on googlesyndication.com addresses that are trying to be hanging.... but that's not always the case either....

 

[HowardE]

During Peak hours, ScubaBoard has 5 - 10 times more users on the forum than ST and/or any other scuba related forum. This may cause some "clogging" in the speed at which Apache (server) can respond to all of the requests.

I use a forum for my PDA phone, called PDAPhoneHome.com it's about as busy as SB, and loads at about the same rate as SB maybe even slower.

Still waiting for our server gurus to set up our "load balancing" We'll try not to get more popular in the mean time so it doesn't slow down any more.

 

[mike_s]

Still waiting for our server gurus to set up our "load balancing" We'll try not to get more popular in the mean time so it doesn't slow down any more.

that would be nice...

on average it takes 5 to 15 seconds to load a thread on SB... sometimes more.

while at the same time I can load other high use hit pages such as CNN.com in mere seconds.


For some reason it seems that the progress of the last upgrade didn't include making it faster... hopefully SB has a plan for that in the future ?

 

[ReefHound]

that would be nice...

on average it takes 5 to 15 seconds to load a thread on SB... sometimes more.

while at the same time I can load other high use hit pages such as CNN.com in mere seconds.

CNN can afford to throw far more resources at it. You can create a fast site at any load given enough resources. I would think SB's 10x more users would also mean 10x more paid sponsors allowing 10x more money available to buy 10x more resources than someone like Decostop. But it may not scale in that way.

 

[HowardE]

that would be nice...

on average it takes 5 to 15 seconds to load a thread on SB... sometimes more.

while at the same time I can load other high use hit pages such as CNN.com in mere seconds.


For some reason it seems that the progress of the last upgrade didn't include making it faster... hopefully SB has a plan for that in the future ?

Part of the limitations are due to vBulletin, and the size of our database. We have over 90,000 members, almost 3 million posts, and more than 400 sub forums. To get an accurate comparison of page loads; you really need to compare our page loads to other vBulletin sites with similar amounts of traffic, and database sizes... Not just forums, but vBulletin forums.

CNN probably has a humongous data center with hundreds of servers. That's apples and scuba tanks...

Deco Stop currently has 145 Users Online

ScubaBoard currently has 1339 Users Online

I would venture a guess that Deco Stop can do fine on a single server setup...

I'm not going to defend how ScubaBoard uses it's fees and/or subscriptions. Our servers cost a few thousand dollars a month. Increasing those resources isn't cheap, and things do not happen overnight.

At this point we DO have an additional server to help with the increased load, and we are having an expert configure that server, and get it operational. We also want to TEST the server before launching, so that we don't have any disruption in service.

Might I also add that - while we used SB2 during "difficult times" that loaded quite rapidly, since the DB was considerably smaller. Even though that SB2 was a single server application with less memory, and less robust CPU.

 

[scubatoys]

It's not vbulletin... Here's a paintball board I go to for our paintball shop to post things.. PbNation - Paintball's Home Page

They are using VBulletin and run about 10 times more traffic that even SB and it's really darn fast:

Currently Active Users: 3,778 (2,423 members and 1,355 guests)
Most users ever online was 5,405, Yesterday at 10:08 PM.
Posts: 42,443,836 Threads: 2,414,890 Members: 387,204

I'm not a big PHP guru - so I don't know if the slowness here is server or ad related - but VB can handle much larger sites... that's why I went with it, after seeing the speed of a site that has as many as 8,000 people on at a time on line and still scream along.

I'm sure they'll get it worked out here in time.