# Sluggardly forum pages



## Nunty

Good morning!

For the last two (possibly three) days, I encounter difficulty -- not to say impossiblity -- to read or post to the forums in the first part of my Jerusalem morning, which works out to around 0430 to 0700 GMT. Pages load so slowly that they time out, but the forum does not seem to be down because now and then a page *will* load. Then, at about 0700 GMT, everything is back to normal.

This does not seem to be a local problem, because the other sites I routinely look at in the morning are loading as quickly as normal.

Anyone else encountering this? Any particular reason? (I am perfectly willing to believe, in the absence of any other explanation, that the teeny-tiny puter people who live in the tower case are acting up.)

Thanks,
Sr Claire Edith


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## whattheflock

Maybe it's your ISP's time to compile their network. My network goes to heck in a handbasket early mornings here, too, USA Central time.
Sometimes I cannot even get a connection! Other than those few minutes of anguish and tears, the rest of the time I'm happily puttering along at a pedestrian 5 Mbps.


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## Nunty

whattheflock said:


> Maybe it's your ISP's time to compile their network. My network goes to heck in a handbasket early mornings here, too, USA Central time.


I suppose that could be, but why would it affect only WRF and no other sites, including those that "live" (as far as I can tell) in the US and Europe? I have no trouble with getting a connection. (I have an ADSL connection that is always "on".)


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## cirrus

Here I notice that weekday tea times - eg say from 17 to 18 GMT +1 are a nightmare. I'd always thought that was because it was a peak time because the US and Latin America are all logged on. However I noticed it was slow last night (Sunday) - presumably this is down to the pressure of homework deadlines across the globe.

BTW I think I shall make sluggardly my English word of the week.


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## whattheflock

Well, in that case it might be WRF host server time to compile, reboot or whatever it is that those thingies do for a living. [I have a FIOS connection: supposed to be always on, but for security reasons I close the local network connection everytime I step away from the computer. I'm so paranoid, sometimes I even turn off the computer!!!]


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## Heba

Nun-Translator said:


> Good morning!
> 
> For the last two (possibly three) days, I encounter difficulty -- not to say impossiblity -- to read or post to the forums in the first part of my Jerusalem morning, which works out to around 0430 to 0700 GMT. Pages load so slowly that they time out, but the forum does not seem to be down because now and then a page *will* load. Then, at about 0700 GMT, everything is back to normal.
> 
> This does not seem to be a local problem, because the other sites I routinely look at in the morning are loading as quickly as normal.
> 
> Anyone else encountering this?


 
Thanks for opening the thread.. I was actually going to ask about this. I have the same problem here.
I have a ADSL connection too. I do not have any problems with the other sites that I look at daily, but I have a problem with the site here, particularly with the forums.


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## Nunty

Ah... maybe it's a Middle East thing?


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## Jana337

Heba said:


> Thanks for opening the thread.. I was actually going to ask about this. I have the same problem here.
> I have a ADSL connection too. I do not have any problems with the other sites that I look at daily, but I have a problem with the site here, particularly with the forums.


In the same hours Nun-Translator reported in her first post? That would be weird because the traffic tends to be very low...

Jana


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## Heba

No, not only at the same hours that Nun-Translator mentioned in her first post. For me, it does not have a fixed time.. sometimes it happens at 5 pm CLT, 3 pm GMT... sometimes at midnight


Nun-Translator said:


> Ah... maybe it's a Middle East thing?


 
Yes.. perhaps it is a Middle East thing


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## Jana337

A suggestion (not a solution ): If you experience problems, try disabling avatars and signatures (click on options in your user control panel). The pages should load a bit faster. If you want to read only, our archives *might* work for you but the comfort of reading will drop.

Jana


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## Heba

Thank you Jana


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## Nunty

Thanks for the suggestion, Jana.  I wonder if I've just fallen on an odd coincidence two (or possibly three) days in a row. (My more paranoid moments find other explanations, given that I'm in Jerusalem and the server is in the US...)

I'd like to exploit this opportunity to thank you in general for your kind, friendly and knowledgable advice. 

Yay Jana!


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## Nunty

Jana337 said:


> A suggestion (not a solution ): If you experience problems, try disabling avatars and signatures (click on options in your user control panel).


Being a bit slow on the uptake, it just occurred to me that this suggestion isn't entirely practical. Being unable to log in to the forums, I would not be able to change the options in the UCP. But thanks again, anyway.


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## panjandrum

I don't think it's just You.

I'm used to things being a bit sluggish late afternoon my time, when the maximum number of users are around - but they generally keep going and this has been less obvious of late.

But I've seen things being really slow, and indeed stopping, on two early mornings recently - coinciding with SrCE's Jerusalem seize-ups.


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## maxiogee

I've noticed it also.
In fact I've been getting messages telling me that the page couldn't load as the connection was lost.
And again, it only happens to WR pages.




cirrus said:


> BTW I think I shall make sluggardly my English word of the week.



Should that not be "word of the weak"?


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## Nunty

Today there was no problem at the time I mentioned. Maybe it's truly a random glitch? (For you technical people, I am of course referring to the  teeny-tiny puter people who live in the tower case having a go at me.)


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## mkellogg

First of all, I think it was three nights ago, the forums were down for about three hours.

I have been hearing about a few problems from the Middle East lately, and can't quite figure them out.  Let me give you all some things to try.

Here are some simple Windows command line (from Command Prompt) tools to test connectivity:
ping forum.wordreference.com
tracert forum.wordreference.com

For a running trace of all the routers between you and the server, you can download PingPlotter. Both tracert and PingPlotter will show you the round trip time to each router on the way between you and the forum server.  Note that some companies block useful troubleshooting tools like this, so they might not work where you work.

Anyway, I _hope _these were just glitches somewhere in the Internet and everything will work well going forward.

Mike


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## Nunty

Thank you, Mike. As a firm believer in the teeny-tiny puter people, may I ask *why* I want to test connectivity? What do I do once I know the... is "connectivity time" right?

At any rate, everything was okay this morning, so maybe it's all better now
 and we'll all live happily ever after.  

And now a question from the aluminum-foil-hat department: Could... er... the US government be somehow slowing down "connectivity" from the Middle East for reasons of national security or something? I'm not asking for a political assessment, just wondering if it is technically a possiblity.


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## cuchuflete

Mac users--

You should have a utility program that comes with OS X called
"Network Utility".  It includes ping, traceroute, and a number of other useful programs to test connections to an IP address.


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## mkellogg

Haha.  Claire, you would want to test the connectivity if you wanted more information about why things are slow, and where the slowdown is occurring.

US government slowing things down?  I highly doubt it.  It isn't really technically feasible.  The world would just route everything around the "slow" lines.


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## Nunty

Thanks, Mike. 

Today everything was fine, so maybe it was just a glitch. If it happens again, though, I shall ping my little heart out.


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## KaRiNe_Fr

It occurs to me now just now, from about 2:43 to 2:56 (do you see a peak of connections during this slot of time?).
No way to ping forum.wordreference.com, and the tracert shows the server (fcr01.dal01.softlayer.com) just before reaching yours were OK.


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## ElaineG

The server was just down for a few minutes; it's been rebooted and seems OK now.


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## KaRiNe_Fr

Seems OK here too. Thanks Elaine for having confirmed this reboot. 
(No NSA conspiracy this time either, Nun-T! )


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## Hockey13

mkellogg said:


> Haha. Claire, you would want to test the connectivity if you wanted more information about why things are slow, and where the slowdown is occurring.
> 
> US government slowing things down? I highly doubt it. It isn't really technically feasible. The world would just route everything around the "slow" lines.


 
The Maginot Line of internet defenses.


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