Why has the JREF Forum become so slow?

[Just thinking]

Hello,

Can anyone explain to me why this site (JREF Forums) has become very slow recently? I admit I haven't got the fastest computer on the block, but recently this site has slowed (for me) considerably. Pages now take sometimes as much as 30 seconds or more to fully load ... and I'm not even going to mention the snail's pace of the search feature. Really, what's going on?

[madurobob]

From what I remember from reading a few threads on the topic in the past, its the database SW. Its known to have performance problems with large volumes like we have here. IIRC we can help by not using search functions too heavily (including "new posts") and not overloading with images.

[Just thinking]

Thanks ... at least I'm glad it's not me. Is there any hope of this improving in the future ... or will it simply get worse over time with increased demand?

[Drudgewire]

I often wonder if this place is subject to regular DDoS attacks. Certainly the folks who have the biggest problem with JREF often fall into the same categories as those who wouldn't be above such tactics.

[madurobob]

There is always hope! It does seem to get better after each announced "maintenance", so there is good news in there somewhere. But, the DB admin is volunteer and has a day job, so he cannot focus all his attention on JREF performance issues.

My gut feeling is one day in the not-too-distant future they'll take the forums down for a weekend to upgrade the a new/better version or to re-build on a different platform. Until then I guess we'll have to live with the slow days.

[Corsair 115]

Yeah, I've also found this site to be incredibly slow sometimes. It's quite irritating, actually, since I like stopping by here.

[Soapy Sam]

I often wonder if this place is subject to regular DDoS attacks. Certainly the folks who have the biggest problem with JREF often fall into the same categories as those who wouldn't be above such tactics.

Got any evidence to support that view? (You may be right, but it never hurts to ask ourselves this.)

[rjh01]

There has been a number of threads on this topic. See for example this one http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=110402

[A W Smith]

Slow again yesterday and today, When posting new replies progress bar in IE stops at halfway mark, Then times out to a

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

page. Go to sub forum page under new tab (eventually loads) and new post does not show in forum thread tree. But if you open the thread you posted in the new post appears. But is not listed as a new post.

[webfusion]

The forum has the new SnapShots function, and I think it is causing the slowdown.

[Soapy Sam]

Darat says snapshots are likely to be removed this weekend.

My experience of late is that a post once sent simply sits there, with nothing apparently happening. If I back out of the page and refresh the thread however, the post has been sent.
This morning- 23 May, the forum seems to be much faster than yesterday. Has something changed, or is this just a load factor?

[robinson]

It is a mystery. Sometimes it is just terrible, then a few minutes later it is all zippy again.

I blame the slurp spiders. Those bastards are always doing multiple crawls. Always.

Often they outnumber the users by 10 to 1.