# DC Has Been Sooooo Slooooooow!



## Andy M.

DC has been much slower than usual for the past few days.  Other sites I access are fine.  It's just DC.

Anyone else notice this?


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## Alix

Thought it was just me. It's slow for me too.


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## pacanis

Yep. Pages are taking longer to load, often accompanied by a commercial running in the background. I hear the voice, but click off rather than see exactly what is playing.


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## GotGarlic

It seems to be whatever is being downloaded from cdn.discusscooking.com. I see that URL at the bottom of the window and sometimes it seems to hang. Sucks since I use a Firefox add-on that blocks ads.


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## Kayelle

No change here.


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## Roll_Bones

DC is actually the fastest loading site I use.
Since we don't have signature pics and fluff all over the place, DC is a nice reprieve from the rest of the internet.

I noticed someone complained about an ad.  I have never seen even one ad on this forum or any other site I visit.
If you are seeing ads, you should ask how to never see one again for free.


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## Chef Munky

It's been extremely slow here to.
I've done all the usual updates that should be done regularly.
Still hasn't helped. Some pages takes 2+ minutes to load.
It's slow to even post a reply. We wait and wait some more...


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## Dawgluver

I just replaced my iPad with a new model, and the DC app is now a lot faster for me than it was on the old iPad.  With the old one, I was getting booted off all the time, and replies to posts would take forever to load, and then disappear.


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## pacanis

This is something new, too.


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## Zhizara

DC has been running faster for me since the latest Firefox update that eliminated that pesky add on bar at the bottom of the page which was taking up too much valuable screen space.


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## Cooking Goddess

I haven't noticed it being a regular thing, but I'm moving pretty slow myself lately. Guess DC and I are runni walking at the same speed.



Andy M. said:


> ...Other sites I access are fine.  It's just DC....


Feel free to stop by tonight to see how long it takes for me to load MLB.com. And bring along a generous portion of your favorite adult beverage if I don't have it in stock.  The audio player will take almost 10 minutes from "click" to sound.


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## Cooking Goddess

pacanis said:


> This is something new, too.



What? The missing "thanks" button icon? Guess you fixed it since it's back. Thanks!


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## Zhizara

Okay, I take it back.  I had been getting hung up at "waiting for cdn.discusscooking.com" for awhile now. 

However, it seems to get hung up longer and longer as I stay on DC for longer periods.

If I close Firefox and reopen it, it starts up without hanging - at first.  Then again, longer and longer as I stay on DC


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## CatPat

I was given to administrate a vBulletin site now with a Shoutbox, and I've noticed the Shoutbox runs slowly sometimes. I've come here to find DC to run slowly also, but for some reason another vBulletin site is normal and fast.

I thought it may be the Shoutbox that was slowing us down there, but no. I thought also perhaps I was administrator it was slow, but no. Today everything is fast as normal.

I think this is very funny. When I click the Post Quick Reply box, it tells me: Posting Quick Reply - please wait! HA!


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## PrincessFiona60

I'm thinking it's almost time for a laptop upgrade, lots of things are running slow.  I keep getting the vBulletin Database Error and ERROR 503 (?).


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## FrankZ

PrincessFiona60 said:


> I'm thinking it's almost time for a laptop upgrade, lots of things are running slow.  I keep getting the vBulletin Database Error and ERROR 503 (?).



I went with System76.com for my new laptop.


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## Janet H

Is it faster today?


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## Andy M.

Not for me.


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## GotGarlic

It is for me. Replies, especially, are posting almost instantly and posts come up much faster.


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## bakechef

PrincessFiona60 said:


> I'm thinking it's almost time for a laptop upgrade, lots of things are running slow.  I keep getting the vBulletin Database Error and ERROR 503 (?).



It's running OK for me on a 7 year old laptop.  I also try to keep it tidy and get rid of programs that I don't use often. Also make sure that there aren't things running in the background that could be slowing things down.  

Yes a tech head like me is running a 7 year old laptop!  I keep replacing parts as they fail in a stubborn attempt to see how long I can make this thing last without it costing me a fortune.  Seriously pieces of plastic fall off all the time, and I've replaced the fan and hard drive, but this thing refuses to give up the ghost!  

I'm wondering if it is an ad that's making it run slow for some, I use an ad blocker and have had no issues with load times.


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## Kayelle

bakechef said:


> I'm wondering if it is an ad that's making it run slow for some, I use an ad blocker and have had no issues with load times.



I have ad blocker too, so that well may be the answer why neither of us have had problems?


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## GotGarlic

bakechef said:


> I'm wondering if it is an ad that's making it run slow for some, I use an ad blocker and have had no issues with load times.



I use an ad blocker, too - two, in fact - and it's faster today for me than it has been lately.


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## taxlady

It was running slow. I was playing a row of solitaire while I waited for pages to load. Faster today. Pictures are resizing properly today too.


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## Addie

Slow here also. But it is starting to speed up a little. I need to have Spike put in an ad blocker.


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## Andy M.

_*Hey guys.  It's getting worse.  What's going on?  I don't have this issue on other sites.*_


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## GLC

Strange. It's okay here. Has been all day. I just clicked around to various forums, and it's consistently about 2.5 second from click to loaded with AdBlocker in place.


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## Steve Kroll

I've been following along on this thread, but haven't had any issues myself. In fact, it's been as speedy as ever. I just ran a timer on it and most pages seem to be coming up in less than 2 seconds. The last one came up in 6/10 of a second.

Could it be ad rendering that's causing the problem? I'm using ad blocker software, so I don't see ads. On another site I frequent, they recently had an issue with ads bringing the site to a screeching halt. The pages would start to load and then just sort of stop for a minute or more when it hit an embedded ad. The page would eventually come up, but it took forever. I don't know what was done to fix it, but my assumption is they tweaked or replaced the ad software.


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## cave76

I haven't noticed any problems. I have AdBlocker, use Chrome, a 2 year old Dell laptop.


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## Andy M.

I use Ad Blocker Plus on Firefox and have never seen an ad on this site since.  If they are still mucking things up behind the scenes, I cannot say.


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## pacanis

I'm not a computer whiz but... I would think an advertisement or pop up blocker would use a computer's resources in order to work. 
I can understand the statements made on how one never sees an ad because they use an ad blocker.
I cannot understand the statements made on how ad blockers speed up a page loading.

Anyway, sometimes a page takes a while to load and sometimes it doesn't. 
And sometimes I still get that commercial trying to vocalize and sometimes I don't, but my blockers always turn it off after a few noisy words are spoken.
And sometimes I can see the Thanks button and sometimes it's a red X like I posted a pic of.
And of course I still get "compatability issue' and the page reloads every now and then.

DC is glitchy for me, too, but not to the point I would say it's slow.
Unless you are talking about the post count, lol.


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## cave76

This isn't to be considered as a reason but just a SWAG (Seriously Wild Assed Guess)---- but sometimes when my computer runs/loads really slow (which isn't often) I find that Windows or something else is updating 'stuff' behind the scenes. I only find out later after all is updated or loaded.

Just a SWAG.


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## bakechef

pacanis said:


> I'm not a computer whiz but... I would think an advertisement or pop up blocker would use a computer's resources in order to work.
> I can understand the statements made on how one never sees an ad because they use an ad blocker.
> I cannot understand the statements made on how ad blockers speed up a page loading.
> 
> Anyway, sometimes a page takes a while to load and sometimes it doesn't.
> And sometimes I still get that commercial trying to vocalize and sometimes I don't, but my blockers always turn it off after a few noisy words are spoken.
> And sometimes I can see the Thanks button and sometimes it's a red X like I posted a pic of.
> And of course I still get "compatability issue' and the page reloads every now and then.
> 
> DC is glitchy for me, too, but not to the point I would say it's slow.
> Unless you are talking about the post count, lol.



For me with Chrome and Adblock plus, ads don't even get a chance to start, it's like they were never there.  

I never get the red X on the Thanks button, and DC runs smoothly for me and never glitchy.  

It's weird how people are either having issues or it's running perfectly for them.


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## pacanis

I don't understand how an ad can not even get a chance to start. How would the ad blocker know to block it if it didn't sense it lurking when the page was opened?
But that's besides the point. This has always been a forum that either runs smoothly or doesn't. Fortunately it has been OK for me lately. Well, fortunately for me ;^)


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## Kayelle

Is there a reason why anyone *should not* have an Ad Blocker?

I'm just wondering why anyone is opposed to having it on their computer.

I know "wikki" doesn't hold a lot of weight for some but I found this interesting reading..
Ad filtering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW, DC is working perfectly for me too.


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## Steve Kroll

bakechef said:


> It's weird how people are either having issues or it's running perfectly for them.


If the problem were DC then everyone would be having issues. It sounds to me like the problem lies elsewhere.

In any given part of the country DC takes a different path to get from point A to point B. Sometimes it has to go through dozens of different routers to reach its final destination. If any one of those routers is having a problem, then that can slow things down.

A good analogy is driving from your home to another city. You can map the most direct route to get to your destination, but there might be obstacles that impede your progress - road construction, for example.

If you are on a Windows computer, just go to a command prompt and type in "TRACERT DISCUSSCOOKING.COM". It will display all of the different routers the request is sent through before it finally reaches DC... AND the amount of time it takes in milliseconds for each "hop".

Here's what it looks like for me:







14 hops for me and, as you can see, it goes through Rochester MN, Chicago, and NYC.


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## pacanis

I just typed that in and it said DC is _in my home_...


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## PrincessFiona60

That's where all the bacon is going...


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## Andy M.

I really appreciate all the advice and suggestions you all have offered.


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## taxlady

Thanks Steve. I tried it with and without the VPN. It actually took fewer hops with the VPN, but with only one try each way, it's statistically invalid. Funny, it showed the name and IP number of our firewall computer the first time, but not with the VPN.


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## bakechef

Steve Kroll said:


> If the problem were DC then everyone would be having issues. It sounds to me like the problem lies elsewhere.
> 
> In any given part of the country DC takes a different path to get from point A to point B. Sometimes it has to go through dozens of different routers to reach its final destination. If any one of those routers is having a problem, then that can slow things down.
> 
> A good analogy is driving from your home to another city. You can map the most direct route to get to your destination, but there might be obstacles that impede your progress - road construction, for example.
> 
> If you are on a Windows computer, just go to a command prompt and type in "TRACERT DISCUSSCOOKING.COM". It will display all of the different routers the request is sent through before it finally reaches DC... AND the amount of time it takes in milliseconds for each "hop".
> 
> Here's what it looks like for me:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 14 hops for me and, as you can see, it goes through Rochester MN, Chicago, and NYC.



Yes, the ISP could be the problem in some cases, often they are routed poorly which can slow stuff down because it ups the chances that you'll hit a slow server or switch somewhere.  

I'd be interested in seeing people's ping times.


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## taxlady

bakechef said:


> Yes, the ISP could be the problem in some cases, often they are routed poorly which can slow stuff down because it ups the chances that you'll hit a slow server or switch somewhere.
> 
> I'd be interested in seeing people's ping times.


Is there a command for that? What's the syntax?


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## bakechef

taxlady said:


> Is there a command for that? What's the syntax?



You can use a site like pingtest.net


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## taxlady

bakechef said:


> You can use a site like pingtest.net


I got 30 ms and 33 ms with the VPN. I'm in Montreal and my ISP is in Toronto.


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## bakechef

Those are good pings, mine are usually around 40ish.  I haven't tested with my VPN


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## Andy M.

I got 35ms and 36ms.


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## roadfix

DC always ran slow on my old laptop while other sites loaded quickly on that same laptop.  
On my new Chrome laptop DC is lightening fast.


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## PrincessFiona60

I got 33ms and 34 ms.


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## FrankZ

Simply pinging DC is not the best test.  That tests the round trip time of a special type of packet.  Nothing more.  It doesn't test processing time of the web servers and it doesn't test the time to other sites that you are making calls to when you come here (ad sites, the cdn, etc).

If there is a particular part of the loading experience that is slow you should notice that in the status bar.


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## Roll_Bones

Chef Munky said:


> It's been extremely slow here to.
> I've done all the usual updates that should be done regularly.
> Still hasn't helped. Some pages takes 2+ minutes to load.
> It's slow to even post a reply. We wait and wait some more...



Who is your ISP?



Zhizara said:


> DC has been running faster for me since the latest Firefox update that eliminated that pesky add on bar at the bottom of the page which was taking up too much valuable screen space.



https://adblockplus.org/en/firefox



Kayelle said:


> Is there a reason why anyone *should not* have an Ad Blocker?
> I'm just wondering why anyone is opposed to having it on their computer.



It's how the site operates and pays their bills. Ad clicks are income for DC.
It does not hurt to click an add now and again.  Just to help support the forum.



taxlady said:


> Is there a command for that? What's the syntax?



Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test


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## cave76

Roll_Bones said:


> It's how the site operates and pays their bills. Ad clicks are income for DC.
> It does not hurt to click an add now and again.  Just to help support the forum



This is true, unfortunately. 

Although most of the conversations on this thread are beyond my mental pay grade----I've been following it.

Then, because of a chat with a neighbor yesterday with a new computer I just thought of this as a possible (just possible) reason for some computers to be slow and others not.

The first thing I did (with some help from a friend) when I got a new laptop was to "try" to remove all the bloatware that comes with a new computer. One of the tools used was DeCrapifier. But there are others that may be better or just as good. 

It took a while and I'm sure I didn't get all the 'crap' off---- but it was worth it.


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## taxlady

taxlady said:


> Is there a command for that? What's the syntax?





Roll_Bones said:


> ... Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test


BakeChef already posted the name of a site that does a ping test. I was wondering if there was a command line prompt to ping DC and tell me how fast the ping was.

Both pingtest.net and the site linked in your response are just pinging between wherever the server is hosted and your computer. DC isn't in there at all. It does give you an idea of how fast the service provided by your ISP is.


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## Steve Kroll

taxlady said:


> BakeChef already posted the name of a site that does a ping test. I was wondering if there was a command line prompt to ping DC and tell me how fast the ping was.


The command line prompt is simply PING.

For example, "ping discusscooking.com".

I agree with Frank that pinging a server isn't a very good test. All it really tells you is that there is a server there.

I'm also glad he mentioned that DC uses a CDN, or Content Delivery Network. That can play a big factor in how fast or slow a site is. CDNs essentially duplicate a web site's content (images, etc.) in various locations around the globe. In theory, you are supposed to be fed content by the server closest to your location. Perhaps the one closest to Andy is having some problems. This might also help explain why he was seeing images with red x's, while others were not having any issues.

I work in the IT department of the world's largest real estate network, and we use a CDN to distribute web traffic to our websites. We have millions of visitors to our websites every day, and having the images and what not available in dozens of servers around the world keeps traffic from all going to one single location, which would make things unbearably slow for anyone browsing our sites. The down side is that it sometimes takes a while to replicate the content everywhere, so it can occasionally appear that images are missing.


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## Andy M.

Steve Kroll said:


> The command line prompt is simply PING.
> 
> For example, "ping discusscooking.com".
> 
> I agree with Frank that pinging a server isn't a very good test. All it really tells you is that there is a server there.
> 
> I'm also glad he mentioned that DC uses a CDN, or Content Delivery Network. That can play a big factor in how fast or slow a site is. CDNs essentially duplicate a web site's content (images, etc.) in various locations around the globe. In theory, you are supposed to be fed content by the server closest to your location. Perhaps the one closest to Andy is having some problems. This might also help explain why he was seeing images with red x's, while others were not having any issues.
> 
> I work in the IT department of the world's largest real estate network, and we use a CDN to distribute web traffic to our websites. We have millions of visitors to our websites every day, and having the images and what not available in dozens of servers around the world keeps traffic from all going to one single location, which would make things unbearably slow for anyone browsing our sites. The down side is that it sometimes takes a while to replicate the content everywhere, so it can occasionally appear that images are missing.




No red x's for me.  Just slow.


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## taxlady

Steve Kroll said:


> The command line prompt is simply PING.
> 
> For example, "ping discusscooking.com".
> 
> I agree with Frank that pinging a server isn't a very good test. All it really tells you is that there is a server there.
> 
> I'm also glad he mentioned that DC uses a CDN, or Content Delivery Network. That can play a big factor in how fast or slow a site is. CDNs essentially duplicate a web site's content (images, etc.) in various locations around the globe. In theory, you are supposed to be fed content by the server closest to your location. Perhaps the one closest to Andy is having some problems. This might also help explain why he was seeing images with red x's, while others were not having any issues.
> 
> I work in the IT department of the world's largest real estate network, and we use a CDN to distribute web traffic to our websites. We have millions of visitors to our websites every day, and having the images and what not available in dozens of servers around the world keeps traffic from all going to one single location, which would make things unbearably slow for anyone browsing our sites. The down side is that it sometimes takes a while to replicate the content everywhere, so it can occasionally appear that images are missing.


Well, it also tells me that it isn't really internet traffic between me and DC that is causing any slow downs. I got an average round trip of 38 ms. But, I don't know if that is even relevant if the content is being delivered by a CDN. How would I ping that?


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## Steve Kroll

taxlady said:


> Well, it also tells me that it isn't really internet traffic between me and DC that is causing any slow downs. I got an average round trip of 38 ms.


We're not talking apples to apples. Ping uses ICMP protocol, which does nothing more than relay simple messages back to the originating address. Websites use the TCP protocol, which has error-checking and congestion control mechanisms. It's much more complex and designed around the guaranteed delivery of data. If you think of a web page as a puzzle made up of many bits of data, TCP basically sends one piece of the puzzle at a time (called a "packet" in internet jargon) - and waits for acknowledgement that each piece was received correctly - until the entire page is completed. If there are transmission errors that cause the data to be resent, or heavy traffic, or a server doesn't receive an acknowledgement from the requestor, it can cause slow downs.



taxlady said:


> But, I don't know if that is even relevant if the content is being delivered by a CDN. How would I ping that?


I have no simple answer here. It depends on how the CDN is set up. In most cases a CDN works through DNS. You send a request to DC for an image and the DNS server (the internet address book) decides which server can best handle the request. Sometimes the decision is based solely on proximity, but can also have other rules. For example, it might have a load balancing mechanism that decides which server has the least amount of traffic and route your request there.


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## Steve Kroll

Andy M. said:


> No red x's for me.  Just slow.


I was actually referring back to this thread. I'm just wondering aloud if it's another symptom of the same issue.

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f29/no-icons-just-text-89688.html


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## taxlady

Steve, of course there can be many reasons the site runs slow for some of us. I'll admit that today, it's running fast for me. We were discussing ways of figuring out if it was our ISPs that were causing the problem. I'll run some pings on a day when the site is running slow for me.


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## Andy M.

Steve Kroll said:


> I was actually referring back to this thread. I'm just wondering aloud if it's another symptom of the same issue.
> 
> http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f29/no-icons-just-text-89688.html




Oh yeah, that one.  That's been fixed for a while.


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## CatPat

It is perfect today!

With love,
~Cat


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