Why is the forum so slow?

[Astpro]

1) Yesterday I put the wrong link in my post. The correct link was www.teenhelp.org/groups if anyone was interested. If only editing was possible.

2) Also how do you do a poll on these boards, I have seen topics about polls, but I can't find a link to start one. Could someone please tell me where it is?

[Adrian]

Greetings Astpro,

Thank you very much for your further comments.

The PHP board that you provided the link to are very basic, and limited only to forums. That isn't a criticism, I am just stating the facts. These forums do much, much more. I could put up basic forums which would easily be faster than the ones you referenced, but I prefer the functionality and Astral Pulse benefits from the functionality.

As for polls - only moderators and administrators can create one.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Pi]

Hi Adrian!

This has been an interesting thread. I came across a piece of software which might be of interest.  It is called Ping Plotter, and is available from pingplotter.com and gives a graphical report on the network.

Of course the first site after my own that I had to try was this one [:I] Some of the time (NOT all the time), it looks like there is a bottleneck right at the very end between the last two hops on the network path. Most of the time there isnt one, however.

Interestingly, Im also experimenting with the Invision board the previous poster mentioned. Part of the reason for it's phenomenal speed it that it uses data compression software called gzip (as used by Google, no less). There are ALL the equivalent Portal-type "Mods" from Crash's site and probably as many lines of code if you add them up![] I looked at converting my Portal from snitz to Invision but decided not to, as people are used to and like the snitz format.

There IS compression software for Windows2000, from
http://www.xcache.com/home/default.asp?c=32&p=642, but it aint free[B)] It looks very impressive though.

Anyway, I love astralpulse just the way it is. Using SQL you have a rock solid foundation for a hundred times the number of users and a million posts![]

[Adrian]

Greetings Pi,

Thank you very much indeed for your comments.

I agree with your trace routing software, in that there appears to be a bottleneck from time to time out on the Internet, and which is likely the reason why only some people, a small minority, are having speed problems. People in Australia for example have no problems at all, even on 56kbs modems!

I am aware of all of the forums options, but for this particular platform, this one is easily the best, and as you say, people have got used to using it. Thank you for your suggestions anyway.

Nothwithstanding the complexity, the number at the foot of each page is the time taken for page to generate and be sent to the browser - this page for example reports: "This page was generated in 0.81 seconds". Many pages take just 0.25 second or even less.

Unfortunately, compression sofware would not help - it seems to be entirely a matter of location, and in particular speed of the client/browser PC - we have seen time and again where the slower the PC is, the slower the pages load.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Tia]

It's soooooo sloooooooow.  Why is the Forum so slow?  Takes me 38 seconds to open a page, another 38 seconds to close it.  That is over a minute per page!  I have been here for ages and only looked at a couple of posts.  Please dont send me any more private messages it's too painful.