Slow Forum?

[anthonyTD]

yep,
same here!!!
A...

[The Vinyl Adventure]

shit here too.. maybe you need to find someone else to host it for you

[Mark Grant]

Same here, has been like it intermittently for a week or so.

[Rare Bird]

Ive had an ongoing thing where i read a PM, sign off but on re-signing the same message comes thru again.

[Beechwoods]

I've been having the same issues. It's definitely a server issue, and seems worse in the morning, though there's no real rhyme or reason to when it slows down... we will need to riase a ticket with Bluehosts but I know Steve has been in touch with the recently about another issue and their 'budget' support package shows My guess is we're either sharing a box with another high traffic site, or there's some shared infrastruxcture in their datacentre that is causing a bottleneck.

It's not good

[Mark Grant]

Its not the server ( IMHO), its packet loss on the way to or from the server,

I will post some screenshots in a few minutes.

[Mark Grant]

A few screenshots of traceroutes.

Traceroutes created with the free version of 3d traceroute http://www.d3tr.de/
in 'as List' mode as I dont like the 3D view.

I use that because it's free, if anyone knows any better program let me know


Most of the screenshots captured and uploaded with http://screencap.net/ ( free )

---------------------
First traceroute of Art of sound forum taken just a few minutes ago:





21 hops and total ping time of about 170ms.

note the 'total loss' on hop 11 washington1.level3.net

another from 25th March:




loss at hop 16 and 17 Denver1.level3.net
note the ping time as high as 589 ms total sometimes.

another one from the same day:




lots of packet loss.

-------------------

an example of a fast and probably expensive hosting at www.avforums.com



only 9 hops and a total ping time of 18 ms. WOW

That is with global gold.
http://www.globalgold.co.uk/

-------

My own website on a server with www.1and1.co.uk



10 hops and 31 ms fastest, some slow pings though on the first few hops at my ISP.

----------------------

A really cheap host that I have heard people suggest but never used myself is streamline http://www.streamline.net/

I found a furniture website http://www.furnitureworldcornwall.co.uk/ that is using streamline hosting as an example of a traceroute from streamline service:



10 hops and 24ms and thats a very cheap service.
Looks like streamline.net use fasthosts.net.uk

-----------

The number of hops to bluehosts ( level3.net) looks too many and it is very slow.

A forum mentions a few problems here recently:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=932094

I would look at moving to a faster service with less hops, Streamline would be my favourite for a low cost option to try or go for it with global gold on the low cost package if that is enough.
http://www.globalgold.co.uk/dedicate...m_hosting.html

Hope that helps a bit

(I am not a network expert, just a beginner )

Mark.

[MartinT]

Nice one, Mark, and agreed. From work, I can see all the pings from Washington1.Level3.net onwards have slow pings and display some packet loss. It's not even as bad now as it was this morning, I will double-check tomorrow.

[Beechwoods]

Excellent info Mark - thank you very much. Some real data to support thinking on a change of hosts. Not a trivial thing to do but definitely something we need to start considering seriously.

[Marco]

Excellent info Mark...

Indeed - *IF* you can make head or tail of it!

Could someone explain in layman's terms what the feck "packet loss" is and why lots of it is bad?

Also, who's to blame for the packet loss - Bluehost or what/whom... What causes it, and how do we remedy it?

I'm afraid all this technical mumbo-jumbo goes WHOOOOSH............ straight over the top of my head!

Marco.