Do search operations cause a dramatic hit on the web server's performance?

Glenn

The under laying BBS data is held in a database and
the search functions are implemented through this.

I'm not currently aware with the search functions
causing too much stress on my server.

Have you experiences any performance problems?

Regards

Paul

In reply to:

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Have you experiences any performance problems?

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Not sure if anyone else has, but I have been experiencing a noticable slowdown in network response to the BBS site today (3/14/2001).

From two different connections (in New England), pages are rather slow to load, sometimes seemingly timing out. Anyone else noticing this?

Oh well...

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greggerm 09000991

I've been noticing the same slowdown. In the past, when this happened, it was a problem with one of the transatlantic links. One of my internet accounts had the problem, and another one didn't. Tracerts revealed the problem to be with BBNPlanet's transatlantic link, which the other account didn't use.

Dunno if that's the problem now, but you might want to try a tracert.

___________
Tony Fabris

Absolutely! Very slow today! Is activity extremely high, or is something wrong?

- Jon

From here (holland) it's fast. response times < 1 sec

Frank van Gestel

You know, everytime people have mentioned a slow-down, I've experienced nothing. The only times I've experienced problems with it have been when something was seriously wrong, and that's only happened like 3 times as long as I've been here.

I am, however, noticing a problem with the thread icons. Is anyone else seeing this? Has this been mentioned already? It appears that on the thread listing, there's one icon that just doesn't show up. I think it's the poll icon.

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

I can also confirm some slowdowns on the site recently, off and on in the past few days, including right now. Pings are great, around 100 ms as I speak. The site responds immediately, but pages take forever to load, and that's on a 640kbps DSL connection, and other sites load fine. Same thing from my work account (T3.) I had suspected that it's server related, but who knows. In fifteen minutes it might be fine, it seems sporadic.

-Tony
MkII #554

I am, however, noticing a problem with the thread icons. Is anyone else seeing this? Has this been mentioned already? It appears that on the thread listing, there's one icon that just doesn't show up.

There's a bug in the BBS where certain people using certain browsers will actually corrupt the icon when creating a new posting. It has something to do with the characters that get inserted into the URL. You'll notice those icons are all posts by the same few people.

I don't know the technical details, but it's definitely something the wwwthreads people should know about if you wanna go post to their bug boards...

___________
Tony Fabris

I take that back. You're right. It is the poll icon. I was thinking of another unrelated bug. I'll make sure Paul hears about it.

___________
Tony Fabris

For some reason, the BBS is back to a quick speed...

Yay!

- Jon

Reason I asked, I was getting slow responses from the web server (very much out of the ordanary) and when performance picked up I checked to see who or how many were online. There were only about 4, but one was reading a search result. Hence the question about searches causing an inadvertant denial of service.

Glenn

From here (holland) it's fast. response times < 1 sec

Earlier today (10 hours previous) it was so slow from here (Alaska) that it actually took me more than 20 minutes to get to and display a Private Message from tfabris. Now it is back to normal speed.

??

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

In reply to:

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Earlier today (10 hours previous) it was so slow from here (Alaska) that it actually took me more than 20 minutes to get to and display a Private Message from tfabris. Now it is back to normal speed.

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Same here...
-mark

...proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

I'm not aware of any load problems on the server.

I will restart the database as it has been up a long time -
14076525 queries and counting since last restart.

Cheers

Paul

The strange thing about the slowdown (that I am still experiencing 3/15/2001, 9:15ESTish) is that it doesn't seem to be effecting posting of messages. The speed of the posting is normal. The speed of viewing threads, however, is what's dogging.

And I don't think we want to sound like we're complaining... I'm not - we just want to let the admins know what we're experiencing so they can make a good diagnosis.

I take it this server is located in the UK?

(EDIT)
Ok - I take that back... it seems to be back to speed now... Cagey little problem, eah?
(/EDIT)

Edited by greggerm on 15/03/01 02:18 PM.

Well the load on the server looks fine, and the db isn't
complaining about any slow queries.

Its running fast enough for me so I'm hoping its not
related to my server.

Thanks for the feedback

Paul

What I did notice on the thread about pioneer remote controls
was that there where some links to images on a server
using a dyndns.org server which doesn't seem to be
up - this caused my browser to slow down.

CHeers

Paul

Well I see you fixed the icon problem. And, as before, the speed seems fine to me now, so good job, PaulH

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

I didn't know it was broke until Tony pointed it out

Cheers

Paul

I saw the slowdown too, and I check some traceroutes, and it didn't look like a network problem.. I have a couple of questions...

When was the last time the tables were dumped, and reloaded.. it can sometimes help table preformance to just drop everything to flat files, and reload all the data.

How often, and where is the database dumped to for backups? this BBS has a huge wealth of knowlage, and I would hate to see it lost accidentaly. I dump my mysql tables to disk every 12 hours, and have nightly backups to DLT tape for example.

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

Yeah posting is LIGHTNING fast. Viewing takes about ten minutes to load this thread over a T3. Strange problem indeed, hope it goes away soon.

-Tony
MkII #554

I didn't know it was broke until Tony pointed it out

Actually, it was DiGNAN17 who pointed it out to me. And I didn't even listen the first time.

___________
Tony Fabris

I'm still getting slow downs, even after all the posts saying "it's back to normal". It's more intermittent, but it's the same problem. A page will begin to load fine, then suddenly stall half-way through the load of a big table. I can work around it by hitting "refresh" when I notice it stalling.

I have no way of knowing right now whether it's an internet problem or not, as I can't figure out how to get tracert to work through my new proxy server.

___________
Tony Fabris

I still think this is very strange. I don't know how you guys with T3's could experience 10 minute load times when me and my measley cable modem have a normal experience with the site.

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

I still think this is very strange. I don't know how you guys with T3's could experience 10 minute load times when me and my measley cable modem have a normal experience with the site.

If you haven't been having any slow-downs over the last couple of days, then it's definitely an internet-related problem. You're just lucky that your routes to the site are different than ours.

___________
Tony Fabris

Maybe some fiber got cut somewhere along the line. I havent had any problems here though.

In reply to:

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If you haven't been having any slow-downs over the last couple
of days, then it's definitely an internet-related problem. You're just
lucky that your routes to the site are different than ours.

---

So it would seem. I haven't seen anything really weird the last days
running over 56K modem here in Sweden. One or two page loads that have
seemed to stall, but on a back + reload the page loaded with normal
speed.

/Michael

here are some network stats from my server to empeg.comms.net, if anyone is interested

Frank van Gestel

Well, the route does indeed have something to do with it, but don't routing protocols figure out that a nearby router is dropping packets and adjust accordingly?

Anyway... Some of my traceroutes clearly show that packets are being lost. Medium-sized pings (1K, 4K, etc) rarely come back. The fact that some are seeing it and some aren't probably has to do with some TCP settings, possibly those of us who are having problems have a higher RWIN (receive window.) This would make recovery of lost packets more problematic.

Temporarily, I suggest anyone who's having the problem as bad as I am to use a public proxy server so that you can "route around" the troubled link. I'm using 211.61.250.240 right now and I can load the BBS okay. There's a big list of public proxies at

http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm

-Tony

-Tony
MkII #554