Slow speed forum ...

[tegemu]

For some reason this, one of my favorite and most used forums, has gotten so ponderously slow that I find I just check out rather than sit here super annoyed as I wait for the forum to recognize and respond to my inputs. Am I doing something wrong and if so, how do I speed the forum up?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[ccw9mm]

Donate to the cause.

[Scott]

Greetings,

Well unfortunately right now there is nothing to do about it. This past weekend the owner (Bumper) decided to begin to accept donations to move the forum to a dedicated server. This is the only thing that will help the performance of the forum.

Watch the News and feedback area for news on how things are progressing.

Also since this is related to news and feedback I am going to move this post to that forum.

[P95Carry]

Sadly yes, these days we are having some major slow speels - and it is not always predictable. So we go from good to bad to sometimes terrible, and then back again.

We have to bite the bullet for a while until changes can be made. Bumper has tried about everything to gain us speed but in the end we seem at the mercy of a server that we share and which I guess gets heavy traffic spells (including ours) that suck bandwidth.

[dr_cmg]

For some reason this, one of my favorite and most used forums, has gotten so ponderously slow that I find I just check out rather than sit here super annoyed as I wait for the forum to recognize and respond to my inputs. Am I doing something wrong and if so, how do I speed the forum up?

You are doing nothing wrong. We are experiencing the results of being a very popular site - more traffic. Our hosting service does not provide dedicated hosts and evidently one or more of the other sites on the same host with us also has very heavy traffic.

Not using a dedicated host is one of the reasons that Bumper has been able to bear the cost of this site by himself. Now that we are at the point of needing a dedicated host he has reluctantly agreed (reluctantly may be too weak a word - you should see the moderator thread on this) to accept donations to help fund the site.

So, ccw9mm is exactly right when he answers your question:

how do I speed the forum up?

by stating:

Donate to the cause.

[INTJ]

I started getting "server is busy" messages for the first time yesterday. I noticed quite a few users online and did not give it a second thought. Today with 9 users and 1 guest online I'm getting the same message.

Info only, no reply needed

[P95Carry]

Art - it is interesting that these prob's are not purely linked to our own traffic.

I have no idea what other sites we share with for bandwidth but - have to assume that competition is fierce at times. I expect also, we do not have CPU % allocation either - and so no guarantee that we get first bite at the cherry when calls made for page loads.

Hang in their folks - and hope for better things before too long.

[QKShooter]

Yep, it's been slow & sporadic.

We're growing like wildfire & getting overloaded with hits.

[Bumper]

I understand your frustrations with the site as it currently stands. My frustrations are even greater since I now find my hands tied to do anything but move us, which we will do at the earliest opportunity. Donations have been pretty good so far and some of you have been very generous in your support of the site.

A year contract for dedicated hosting where we are on a server by ourselves runs about $2400-3000 per year. After doing a lot of research I finally found what I had been looking for and that is how many different websites are typically hosted on different plans. I was shocked, quite frankly, and have no doubt about the root of our problems now.

It breaks down like this:

Shared hosting, where a host makes a server available on their network, then starts selling space on it, is the most common. This is what we and most "start up" sites are hosted on. All the memory, the processing power of the CPU and the bandwidth available through the NIC is shared through a first come/first served basis. What I found out yesterday was that many host will put up from 100-200 sites on a single server. Even on an extremely beefed up server, we are getting a damned small shot at the resources during any single request. And, with a forum, there will be traffic back and forth between the hosting server and the database server to acquire and build all of the data into a page for you to have displayed. These hosting plans run from free to $40/mo. We are currently paying just over $40/mo on a two year contract.

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a shared server made available to a limited number of sites (usually about 10 as best as I can find out) but with provisioning software that splits resources between these 10sites. That means everyone gets there 1/10 of the resources reserved for their use, whether they are using it at the moment or not. From what I have read, when a site grows out of shared hosting, a VPS usually serves them pretty well for awhile. These setups run about $80/mo on a one year contract, but the prices vary quite a bit.

A dedicated server is just that. It is a hosting plan that is basically a lease on a single server. Whether we have have one person or 1000 on the site, we have the resources that we purchase available to us. Additionally, we don't have to compete with other sites on the bandwidth coming out of the NIC. The prices vary widely from maybe $150-500/mo depending on how you configure it, what you have installed and who manages it. I think we would probably be in the $200-250/mo range to have the resources available to last us for at least the period of the initial one year contract. That would provide us with enough resources that we could continue to grow and still provide our members good performance on their end.

Just moving to a dedicated server, it is not, by itself, a silver bullet. The host has to also have a good amount of bandwidth coming into their facility to handle everyone they have hosted. If they oversell, they can actually create a "shared hosting" situation on a grand scale. You can have hundreds, or even thousands, of servers in a host facility competing for what seems like a huge amount of bandwidth and the result is, when split between too many servers, can be less than adequate. It's also important to have a large, established host with high quality of bandwidth, backup and support capability and an uptime backed by a service level agreement. I want to move us to the right place the first time.

I can't do this overnight so our performance problems will probably continue for a bit longer....

[lowflyer]

I am sure it has been discussed before, but advertising sure seems like a good way to help fund the site.

[retsupt99]

Slow and Come Back Later...

Hey, stuff happens...I'm confident the problem will be taken care of...

I'll be here waiting...I appreciate this forum, and apparently...so do 4.5 million other folks...

ret

[Pete]

So, following Bumper's math, we need either $960 or $3000 depending if we get a VPS or dedicated server.
I'm sure there are many motivated contributors here who would give more if they were aware of the running total, that is how much we need to reach the goal.
It would be easy to arrange a temporary graphic to illustrate the donation status;

• Goal - $960
• Received - $350
• Donations needed - $610

Then we could all see the progress and as we got nearer to the goal amount motivation would increase.

[TN_Mike]

We may have speed problems from time to time (more frequently recently) but I understand the problem and I am not complaining. I think Bumper has done a great job, the asst. admins too and I appreciate the hard work that everyone on the admin and mod teams put in.

I will be donating as soon as I am able. I hope everyone else who loves this site and is able to afford a donation does the same.

[mech1369dlw]

BUMPER, MODS, SPECIAL GUESTS, don't slam me too hard, please.

Ladies and gents, I looked at the total active members on the bottom of the home page, it indicated 3,221. Everyone throws in one buck, this forum runs great for a year, we do five each and we get a kickbutt system with money in the bank drawing interest till it is removed to do something to better what we have. come on, that is 1 pack of cigs, one beer in a bar, 7 sodas from a machine; we all have that much in the cushions of our sofa. Know some have money problems, underatand that. But, also LOTS out there could still shove a little into Paypal for this site.
Probably gonna get in trouble for this, but I say what is on my mind. Don't buy next month's Playboy, send it to pay for upgraded site. The next time you go out to eat, eat a little less and use the money for this site. For the next 2 months, drink generic soda instead of brand name. Send the savings to paypal so you can read more here. Take your own popcorn to your next movie, send the saved money to help this site. Buy 1 ply toilet paper instead of 2 ply and send the savings here. No, I'm not crazy, just have a great sense of humor. Laughter makes the world go smooth. If I have made anyone grin, send 5 bucks to help with this site. I'm not affiliated with anyone that runs this site, I just love it and want to help it.
Come on, you will never notice a few bucks. Just do the right thing and help with this site. That way you will go to sleep feelin' good, knowing you did a good thing today. No one put me up to this, I'm probably gonna get grilled by one or more mods, but I can handle it. Gotta go now, take care and remember, Give what ya can.

Thanx, david

[P95Carry]

Mech - no sweat - your enthusiasm is appreciated

One thing that does need remembered however - like most boards, CombatCarry will not have potential input as high as the apparent membership number. It's the way it goes.

Folks come across a board and join, only to drift off and forget! So in truth I would say that we have three categories .......... those who have signed but never came back - the ''intermediates'' who drop in from time to time and ........ the rest of us! Now it could well be that the true core of CC where all the activity is generated may only be something like 200.

I am just being realistic and would reinforce Bumper's comment that donation is certainly not mandatory and ... the last thing we'd want is folks digging too deep when their circumstances should not permit that.

However - simple math on my estimate figure of core folks means that if averaged out, donations were approximating the $20 region, we are still good to go. This maybe reflects a closer assessment - my 2c anyways.


Lowflyer .......... ad's have been considered but - we are going to try and avoid that if possible. It would leave us ''clean'' pages, no annoying intrusions and also, no extra burden on our bandwidth, even we finish up with a healthy margin to spare.