Cow Server problems? (ayeshire)

[Robert Morris]

I second that. I was wondering the same thing. It takes an average of 2-3 minutes to load each page click on COW. I’m using Firefox as well. Cable high-speed connection. No page should be this slow.

[Abraham Chaffin]

Thanks for the feedback guys –

We’re aware of there being some slowdowns at times. We have and are taking measures to keep our page load times up. Traffic continues to increasing here – our video tutorials, and podcasts which can be weighty at times are getting more downloads, plus the rest of the site.

A few adjustments have been made to weightier pages and we are planning on adding more machines to our farm in the near future.

Feel free to continue to let us know when you experience problems as it’s our desire to provide the best service possible.

Abraham

[Robert Morris]

It’s DEFINITELY the ads. Does any site moderator read this? I’m surprised more people aren’t complaining about the slowness of the COW. It seems to have been going on for several days now that I can tell. Here is a breakdown of what I’m noticing:

I have Firefox as the only thing open. Nothing else is sharing my internet connection or computer resources.

https://forums.creativecow.net: 45 seconds to load
https://forums.creativecow.net/forums.php: 3 min. 30 seconds
https://forums.creativecow.net/viewforum/1: 3 min. 30 seconds
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/1/855806: 3 min. 45 seconds

And in my status bar it says “Connecting to ayrshire.creativecow.net…”

And the ads slowly load on the left sidebar (“–” indicates an ad that is apparently broken, causing the slowness):
Blackmagic Design
—
AJA Video Systems
—
—
—
Dulce Systems
—
—
—
—
CalDigit
—
—

PLEASE someone fix this soon otherwise I will have to stop using the COW. Over 11 minutes wait just to get 3 clicks in to view this post is RIDICULOUS! Forget about searching…

Let’s see how long before this post actually posts and refreshes. Ugh.

[Robert Morris]

I was posting a follow up at the exact same time you posted this. It’s definitely the ads that are currently slowing things down. “ayrshire.creativecow.net” to be exact. I posted a detailed explanation of what is happening and what ads I can see. The others that are not loading seem to be the ones causing the slowdown (probably due to broken links or something). I don’t really know how that ad stuff works. But obviously it’s not doing any good if it’s not loading, plus it’s slowing down the site immensely.

But again, I just posted a detailed follow-up in this thread. It would take me 7+ minutes to go back and copy and paste it. Maybe the site is working faster for you?

[Abraham Chaffin]

Hey Robert,

The pages load virtually instantaneous for me – the page I had noticed loading slowly before was the home page which is fixed and is loading instantaneous for me now as well.

If you are having trouble with the ad load times try disabling javascript as this has fixed the problem for other users who had trouble with some ads.

Let us know if that solves the problem so we can better consider a more permanent remedy.

Abraham

[Kathlyn Lindeboom]

I’m finding the pages loading quite fast too, and we’re on a somewhat slower dsl connection over here — but we’re definitely looking into possible problems and solutions.

Kathlyn Lindeboom
Mistress of Mmmooooo

[Robert Morris]

I think I actually figured out what the problem was on my end. I did have a process running in the background. A program called PeerGuardian that was apparently blocking some of your ads. I killed that process, and now the pages load instantaneous as they should. I don’t recall having this problem with the COW before, but perhaps it was this program running in the background recently. I do understand that ads are necessary to keep the COW alive. Thanks for looking into keeping this site running as smooth and efficient as possible.

[Abraham Chaffin]

Thanks for the update Robert – this does give us an idea of something that could effect our service.

Take care,

Abraham

[Tim Wilson]

Besides, Robert, we can’t survive if the pages load too slow for you to keep visiting either. 🙂

Glad to hear it’s working better now.

Thanks,
Tim

[Ron Lindeboom]

Also, Robert, please do keep in mind that those “guardian” programs tend to choke on any site that uses Javascripts or Java in the site. They will almost always sit and stare blankly into space with their thumbs twirling, until in a galaxy far, far away, they finally allow the page to load.

We DO get page load time challenges sometimes but it is measured in seconds, not minutes. When it drags into minutes, it is a sure sign that the guardian programs are the issue.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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