Photo Gallery response time

Please read this post, don't just skim it, and take the attached poll, it is very important.

As most of you know, I am chasing a problem where the Photo Gallery related items are responding slower than the rest of the system. To some degree this would be normal. But what is being reported is not. So far the only thing I am sure of, is that your connection has nothing to do with the problem.

The biggest problem I have in debugging this, is that I'm not sure how widespread the problem is. Subjectively, it appears that only a few people have this problem and it is NOT related to their connection speed. If that is really the case then, I probably should just work with one or two of them and isolate the nature of the their problem.

I have made a few changes in the web server tuning parameters and in the next 24 hours, I should get a feel, if that has helped. In the meantime, I have attached this poll, to give me a better feel how wide spread this problem is.

Please remember that we looking at the relative difference between the response time of the forums and the Gallery. If the forums are slow then the gallery will be. What I am looking for is if at the time you take the poll, the cases in the poll are much slower the forums.

One last word, in any 24 hour period, approx 120 different users visit the site. Please don't treat this poll as you do most of the others. I really need as many responses as I can get. So 24 hours from now, I expect at least 100 responses. Am I asking a lot, yes. But please help this old fart get to bottom of this problem.

Thanks

[McRabbet]

Steve, I selected NO in the poll for this thread. I opened Page 11 of Monty's Workbench Project Finishing Touches and noted that it took about 8-9 seconds to load each full picture in the thread and about the same time to load from a thumbnail to the full sized picture from Monty's Gallery. Threads without pics are obviously quicker that threads with pics -- fewer kbytes to move.

Rob

[SteveColes]

Originally Posted by McRabbet

Steve, I selected NO in the poll for this thread. I opened Page 11 of Monty's Workbench Project Finishing Touches and noted that it took about 8-9 seconds to load each full picture in the thread and about the same time to load from a thumbnail to the full sized picture from Monty's Gallery. Threads without pics are obviously quicker that threads with pics -- fewer kbytes to move.

Rob

What you are seeing is what I would expect. I believe you have the slowest that we measured. As long as the picture starts to load fairly quickly, then all is well.

[McRabbet]

Originally Posted by Mike Davis

I have to disagree. That page has lots of full size pics which load very quickly, but the main point is there was NO DELAY. The pics start to load immediately.

Mike -- I'm fairly certain that my times are because of my DSL Lite download speed of ~214 kbs, not the site. My timing starts when I open the thread, not after I scroll down to the pictures in a particular post (I believe all of the posts that constitute a page are loaded whe you select that page). Because of better bandwidth that most users have, results will differ and more accurately reflect the server response times. Pictures start quickly, but take 8-9 seconds total to be seen.

Rob

[SteveColes]

68 different users have visited this site since 12 noon only 15 have filled in this very important poll

[Terry]

I am having no problems! Terry

[peteb301]

Don't see a small delay as a big problem. Going to the Galleries is about same time as going to forums. Going from small pics to expanded takes a little time BUT it does start to load immediately.
I would expect pictures to load slower as there is more data.
No sure if this helps or if its the answer your looking for.
BUT THANKS for all that you do to keep this site going.

[RandyJ]

No problems here Steve....everything is slow on my PC due to slow DSL connection. I don't believe it has anything to do with the site.

[John Reeves]

Steve,

I just did some pointing, clicking and counting as I do not have a stop watch. I want to come as close to dealing with facts as we can and not perceptions.

My count was the old 1 - 1000, 2- 1000, 3- 1000

The first time I went from the forum to "PHOTO GALLERY" took a count of 28 - 1000. That will seem like a long time to watch a screen.

The second time I did the exact same thing took a count of 9.

When I went to an individual galleys from the mail gallery page, which I did twice, mine and Mc Rabbits, each took about at count of 9

When I went to an the actual pictures, it took about a count of 9

When I enlarged a picture it took about a count of 9

When I went from the small camera on a post to the gallery it took a count of 9.

Anal in Durham

John

[NZAPP1]

Very slow going from forum to the Main Page of gallery
45 sec
Very slow going from a post and clicking on little camera
14
Very slow going from album thumbnail to display of picture
18
Going from Thumbnail in post to Full picture(our albums only)
20

Steve I am using a Broad band cable connection and it seems very slow to do the task listed. I do not think it was this slow before but I never timed it. Nick

[Monty]

hmmm... slow for me today too. Never had that problem before. Go figure.


Edit: I should point out that the whole forum is slow for me right now, not just the gallery. Takes about 5-10 secs for a page to start loadling after clicking a link.

[LTurner]

I a m having a lot of difficulty. Last week I tried to view some pictures in the galleries and was not able to even get them loaded. I thought it was my computer. I tried turning off the computer and that did not help. I later came back and was able to see some but slow.

[SteveColes]

Originally Posted by Monty

hmmm... slow for me today too. Never had that problem before. Go figure.


Edit: I should point out that the whole forum is slow for me right now, not just the gallery. Takes about 5-10 secs for a page to start loadling after clicking a link.

Major congestion right now between here and Dallas area. Run the the speakeasy test to Atlanta and then run it to Dallas. I'm getting a 75% slower bandwidth.

[SteveColes]

I've closed the poll and frankly I am disappointed. In the 25 hours that the poll was up, we had only 45 users respond. But, 119 different users had been on the system.

I really don't know what more I can do, to get help like this when I need it.