Unread posts and slow site

[susiann]

Like others here, I've found things working beautifully until about a week ago. Now I find the site running slowly and clicking on some of the posts leads to a delay, then a blank page being displayed, with FF reporting "done".
Clicking on "show unread posts" always leads to "no new TOPICS since your last visit" even when there are the darker icons indicating new posts.
Is there a difference between "topics" and "posts" here?
Clicking on "show all unread topics" leads either to a blank page, or the new posts.
I'm using Firefox, not made any changes, and other message boards are working fine.

(I have just tried to post this, and again got the blank page and no posting)

[Dr Keyboard]

I locked the topics elsewhere on these subject because I'm fed up saying the same thing over and over again. Try clicking Refresh as soon as this happens. Only some people, all
based in the UK, are having this problem. I haven't been able to
repeat it from France, Ireland and London. Jon equally had no problems
from Italy and the UK. I honestly have no idea what the problem could
be or why it's happening or how to fix it since I can't make it happen
to me.
Sorry/

[panjang]

Only some people, all based in the UK, are having this problem.

I'm in France, problem comes and goes. OK this morning so far.

[panjang]

Message posted immediately, everything as fast as it should be on this most excellent site.

[panjang]

I just ran tracert as Jon suggested. 13 hops of about 80 ms three times for each hop.

I have copied trace to Word, but cannot find how to post it here.

When I returned here it was hanging as previously, now OK again.

I just clicked on "Preview", it displayed "Fetching Preview" and hung (not seen that before). Trying again ...

Displayed preview immediately on this try. Posting...

[panjang]

When I posted above, I received a message in red that session had timed out and message was not posted.

I had not saved a copy, so went back to what I had previously written and hit "Post" again.

I got "This message has already been posted".

I went back to the Topic, Refreshed, and the message is posted.

[Wickham]

I haven't entered into the argument before about the new site being slow to load because I have an ISP that throttles bandwidth and does other things at peak times so I blamed the slow loading of this site on my ISP.

Since DrK has now retired I hope he won't see this post!

Most of the people that have complained have been English and the internet here is very busy now. I get 6000kbps down at 7am but only 200kbps down in the evenings.

The DrK site pages usually time out, sometimes it is the post pages but the list of topics pages are better at showing although sometimes these time out too.

The time out occurs after only about 10 or 15 seconds which is much too short when my ISP is busy. Other sites, when they are unavailable, usually have a time out delay of 45 or 60 seconds.

So my theory is that somewhere the time out delay needs adjusting. Would this be at the DrK host server, in the forum settings or in the viewer's browser?

(I've just had about six time-outs either trying to log in or to get to a board or to get the reply box and it's 7.50am when my ISP usually provides a good service).

This problem just won't go away.

[Dave Robinson]

I have found the new site to be FASTER than the old one.

I would suggest that anyone having problems, should look at their own setup or their ISP rather than the DrK web server.

[Dr Keyboard]

In London earlier this week I found this site fine in the mornings and impossible at night, on a Virgin megaband something or other deal. What I did find though was that, if the page won't load, clicking refresh brought it up almost instantly 99% of the time.
Back in France on a grown-up internet, it works as perfectly as you'd hope.

[Dave Robinson]

I'm just outside London on a Virgin broadband and no such problems here.

The symptoms you describe sound like a connection having problems loading the adverts at the top of the page

[Dr Keyboard]

Either way, I don't think there's anything I can do about this with the board's software. I've been through the settings and check the FAQs and help and forums, and this does come down to a problem at the user's end.
Sorry chaps.
Topic now firmly closed.

[panjang]

This site seems to work perfectly for me now, since 2 days ago, despite previous problems.

I have made no changes, but believe problems may have been due to using a bookmarked link to access the site. Is this likely?

[Dr Keyboard]

No.
And as I said before, this subject is closed.