[starman]

I've been talking with a few NN'ers about this, so it's not just me. Why is it taking upwards of 30-60 seconds for threads to load? This happens on multiple machines at different locations with both Mac and Windows.

[Cold Warrior]

No kidding. Some load quickly, others load very slowly.

[adamfishercox]

This thread, ironically, just took more than a minute.

And then another 3 minutes to post the message.

[mkbhatia]

This looks l like it has to do with the sig images hosted from third-party servers. I am looking into solutions (either host them there or get rid of them entirely).

For example: http://www.starman.cc/Gamertag/gtimage.php

takes a long time to load relative to the page.

[starman]

It never happened before, though. It started happening after the meltdown two weeks ago. And why would posting have anything to do with third-party sigs?

[Andhee]

I'm in the UK and the loading times are just a matter of seconds, and im on a poor wireless connection.

[starman]

My sig took 2 seconds to load in another browser.

[rickey939]

Has this been resolved? I see no delay at all today.

[macdude]

Originally Posted by mkbhatia 

This looks l like it has to do with the sig images hosted from third-party servers. I am looking into solutions (either host them there or get rid of them entirely).

For example: http://www.starman.cc/Gamertag/gtimage.php

takes a long time to load relative to the page.

Offsite, externally hosted images should not and will not delay the vB script loading. The script will load from the server if it is able to be reached. Images will continue to download even once vB has stopped loading. If the image cannot be loaded, it will appear as a red X, but you will still be able to read, reply, and create threads around the forums.

Unless there are specific loading conditions I am unaware of, I'd say that it is a server or scrip issue. Not a signature issue.

[Laminar]

I have noticed a few threads that are extremely slow to load. Quitting and relaunching Safari fixed it.

[starman]

It happens in Firefox on Windows also.

[mkbhatia]

Originally Posted by macdude 

Offsite, externally hosted images should not and will not delay the vB script loading. The script will load from the server if it is able to be reached. Images will continue to download even once vB has stopped loading. If the image cannot be loaded, it will appear as a red X, but you will still be able to read, reply, and create threads around the forums.

Unless there are specific loading conditions I am unaware of, I'd say that it is a server or scrip issue. Not a signature issue.

You should remember, we have implemented a JavaScript Resizer, so rather than just not display the image, the page waits for the external request, process the size, then displays the page. So yes, slow, unreachable servers will slow it down. I am exploring some other options such as:

1) restricting sig images to certain servers (.Mac, imageshack, etc.)

2) offering on-site (macnn) sig image hosting

3) putting a timeout on the JS (I think that this already there, but I'm not sure it is) -- essentially this will load a sig as X if the server doesn't respond in 1 sec.

4) restricting sig imges to .gif or .jpg -- this will reduce some of the processing time, but of course if an server is slow/unavailable, this is a still presents a problem.

Personally, I think that #3 is the best option. We will be offering a variation of #2 along with a few other features in the next month or so.

[starman]

Again, it's not the server the sig is on. I run a vBulletin site and have no problems with sigs hosted from the same site. NN is slow BEFORE the page starts drawing.

And you're going to have a serious revolt if you limit the sites that can host sigs. Many people here use dynamic sigs.

[mkbhatia]

Well reader50 offered some more info about the problem, so I'm going to use that see if we can update the JS resizer to make more like the old one. Though this will take a few days....In the meantime, your sig does take between 1-2 seconds--unlike a normal gif image. Not saying this is unreasonable, but it is slower than many others.

reader505 (7:09:17 PM): If it has to load sigs, I'd suggest a per-page timeout. The more images fail to load, the longer the page is delayed. If more than 2-3 images are unavailable, the page fails. At least that's been my observations.
m: (7:09:36 PM): ah good idea, i will relay that...problem: what do with those images that fail?
reader505 (7:10:40 PM): Just pass them through to the browser? The old resizer did so, and did all resizing on the client end. The page reflowed, but page loading was never delayed.

[reader50]

Some further thoughts on this.

A per-page timeout on the resizer would function as a general problem trap. After say 5 seconds, the resizer gives up and passes remaining images through to the browser as-is. This alone will solve all the stuck threads, and protects the forums from overloaded image servers elsewhere.

I'd further suggest that sig images not be processed by the resizer at all. Let them through as-is. We (the Mod staff) haven't had a problem keeping sigs within the size limits. Other members quickly report oversized sigs, and in a pinch, any Mod can edit a member signature. We usually bump member account issues to an Admin, but with a serious problem (someone puts an 1024x768 in their sig) we can edit the signature immediately.

Most of the holdups involve dynamically-generated sigs, since those can't be hosted on any old image server. They require a server with services (php/perl/cgi/mysql/etc) running. Such servers are the most likely to either bog down under load, or be offline since they are also less likely to be free from one's ISP. Skipping resizing of sigs ought to address 90% of the problem here. Especially since most threads have no posted images, but nearly all threads have sig images in them.

[starman]

I was wondering why you were putting sigs through the resizer. It doesn't make any sense and wastes CPU time.

[mkbhatia]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Some further thoughts on this.

A per-page timeout on the resizer would function as a general problem trap. After say 5 seconds, the resizer gives up and passes remaining images through to the browser as-is. This alone will solve all the stuck threads, and protects the forums from overloaded image servers elsewhere.

OK, this should be easy.

Originally Posted by reader50 

I'd further suggest that sig images not be processed by the resizer at all. Let them through as-is. We (the Mod staff) haven't had a problem keeping sigs within the size limits. Other members quickly report oversized sigs, and in a pinch, any Mod can edit a member signature. We usually bump member account issues to an Admin, but with a serious problem (someone puts an 1024x768 in their sig) we can edit the signature immediately.

Not sure we can distinguish between which ones are passed to the resizer. But letting it be done server-side will resolve the page-load delay.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

I have noticed a few threads that are extremely slow to load. Quitting and relaunching Safari fixed it.

Didn't fix it here.

[reader50]

How about a preference in the UserCP so users can turn off the resizer for themselves?

[Dakarʒ]

That is one the best suggestions I've heard on these forums.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by starman 

I was wondering why you were putting sigs through the resizer. It doesn't make any sense and wastes CPU time.

Ha !

That explains why my sig is always borked. Seriously, that has to be fixed.

-t

[Laminar]

The photoshopped photography thread is taking forever to open. It's probably my fault, but I thought I'd point that out.

[rickey939]

Originally Posted by reader50 

How about a preference in the UserCP so users can turn off the resizer for themselves?

Sure, sounds good. No matter what though, the sigs shouldn't be run through the resizer IMO.

[mkbhatia]

Still working on this...a few non-US national holidays got in the way. I hear you on the resizer. We should force it client-side (as reader50 points out).

m.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by mkbhatia 

Still working on this...a few non-US national holidays got in the way. I hear you on the resizer. We should force it client-side (as reader50 points out).

m.

Life exists outside of the US? Bah.

[reader50]

There may have been more "slow" threads during the past 4 days. My DSL was taken down for upgrades, and a number of team macnn stats sigs became unloadable. They didn't warn me in advance.

This is now fixed.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I'm having this problem, and it's not images or sigs because I have them both turned off. It seems like all threads and forum pages randomly either do or don't take about 10 minutes to load. If I notice this happening I can just hit the stop loading button in the browser and the page shows up. I hope this can be fixed...