ODP complaints .....

[Mark Drysdale]

Looking through the ODP forum, in amongst the many different Topics that one can choose from, I am unable to find a complaints / gripe / feedback section where we as members of this site, are able to "voice" things we are unhappy or disappointed with. If there is one I apologize up front for being old and blind!!!

Having said that.....
I personally know that access to the respective administrators is always open, and I can only compliment them on their willingness to help....

However....
Other than the standard disgruntled smiley that one can use, there is no "public" means of giving feedback to the administrators / owners of this site, on problems that we the members are having, so as to improve the site.... and put in place a yard stick to measure those improvements. Hopefully after this thread something might be done about that.

My first and only complaint that i must voice is...... THE SPEED OF THE ODP site. Whether you are simply browsing or posting or uploading, the site seems to hang (imagine trying to moderate on it!!).... I know that this problem does not exist with my ADSL, because if I browse other well known Nature or Birding sites the speeds are much faster. I see this as a rather big issue because members have complained to me about the speeds, and in a disgruntled state choosing to post elsewhere. I am not a financial benefactor of ODP and can assure you that it disappoints me profusely to see talented photographers going elsewhere.....

ODP you need to address this issue because its been going on for a while, and nothing is being done about it. If this little site that started back in 2005 has turned into a beast that cant handle all the information its getting...... then do something about it. Otherwise very soon I think this wonderful family site will start to hemorrhage..........

Hanging in there.........

[lonetree]

Mark, not to jump on the band wagon - I thought it was just me. I've had similar experience and recently (yesterday specifically) the site was very slow. It gets frustrating when one can't post or view other images - at one point I just logged off (thus sparing my screen a phenomenal 'dwarsklap'... as one does ;-))
ODP is a phenomenal forum and it's ALL good - please address the issues around speed!
Thanks for everything else.
Cheers,

[Peter Veitch]

Scroll down a bit to here.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Mark,

We have been working behind the scenes for the last few years on various options to try and find solutions for speeding up the site and overall site experience.

Some of the options we have tried was to:

- Move the site to a Local (SA) server
- Add a second server just to handle the database queries
- move the site to larger and newer spec servers (abroad - bandwidth costs were killing the site)
- upgrade software (which sped up the site quite a bit)
- dumbed down the CSS and Templating to speed up load times
- moved our ad-server local to speed up load times on ads/notifications
- investigated Caching options like Cloud Flare
- Moved all other ODP sites to a third server to downgrade load

Some things we have tried and met furious resistance

- More compression on gallery images
- smaller gallery images
- Smaller max file size (currently 200kb per image)

We have not been standing still and have not ignored the slowdowns that some experience.... but the fact that not everybody sees the slowdowns, makes it very difficult to source the problems!

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

load speed test

Ok... I did a few speed tests now... Every page loaded in under 2sec... the longest page loads were in the gallery: 9 seconds for the gallery frontpage, 3 seconds to a category and 5 seconds to specific image...

See the problem?

[AllanB]

The problem is not constant...I also did a few tests and all pages loaded in +-5 sec, then all of a sudden it took 50 sec for the Gallery page to load.

Then about 3 pages later, again a slow 55 sec.

This is even worse when posting a comment. I know the vast majority of our member don't comment on images, but for those of us who do...hell it takes forever.
It's so slow that I open three pages and go from one to the other. I open and image, type a comment (and boy, do I type slowly) post this comment, go to the next page, do the same again, next page again, and then when I go back to page 1, the comment has sometimes still not loaded.
OR
You get a data error and have to start all over again. Check the thread poasted by Charissa. http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/forums...Database-error

The site has really been troublesome and I have to agree with Mark and Lonetree, that sometimes it's so slow and painfull, that I reather log off and try again later.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

@Allan, I comment fairly frequently and I personally do not have the problem...

Also I have posted to another database thread... we couldn't trace the problem on that either, except that the database connections timed out, however the server logs showed normal traffic patterns, so we would expect the problem to be somewhere between the server and the user's computer... that means about 16-25 bounces through peered ISP routers... all of those could have a had a problem. Caching servers could be a problem, international connections could be a problem... I understand that every other site is fast for you and charissa and a few other people, but just so, since the Telkom line break has been fixed, all my activities on this site has been fast as well...

Please do a tracrt for me from your side and lets see if that resolves anything...

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

@Allan, I comment fairly frequently and I personally do not have the problem...

Also I have posted to another database thread... we couldn't trace the problem on that either, except that the database connections timed out, however the server logs showed normal traffic patterns, so we would expect the problem to be somewhere between the server and the user's computer... that means about 16-25 bounces through peered ISP routers... all of those could have a had a problem. Caching servers could be a problem, international connections could be a problem... I understand that every other site is fast for you and charissa and a few other people, but just so, since the Telkom line break has been fixed, all my activities on this site has been fast as well...

Please do a tracrt for me from your side and lets see if that resolves anything...

[Mark Drysdale]

Sean

I am glad to hear that things are being done behind the scenes, but unfortunately we have no results, the problem exists (and Allan is entirely correct when he says that sometimes its ok, but I can assure you most of the time its unacceptable).I can assure you that if my page took 5 secs to load i certainly would not have started this thread............... How I started this thread was to make mention of the fact that we had no section in the forum to view complaints etc..... AND so that we could measure the progress of the complaint. I dont want to start a debate in this thread, I have posted this in order to achieve a solution for all, to a real problem!!!

Lets get a solution so that we all can be kept happy doing what we love doing.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

...Lets get a solution so that we all can be kept happy doing what we love doing....

ok... so lets all get working on the problem.

I think we should start by installing a browser like webkit and disabling all apps and functions like the adblockers, toolbars etc so that we can have an absolute clean slate to start from.

Then we need to start monitoring your browser and your router to see what happens when these time-outs and errors occur. This will give us the data we need to see exactly which part of the system is causing the slowdowns and time-outs.

If everything runs clean, then we can start installing things back onto the computer that also use the internet (as well as apps into the browser) one by one, run them for a day or so while browsing, loading and commenting, until we get the trigger that causes the time-outs on the server.

I think this will be the best way... if everybody that has these problems can give us a week or so in this configuration, we have the data to track and trace the problem.

[SimonDP]

For me the slowness is also erratic, whether I'm on ADSL at the office or 3G at home or office. Forums generally loads fast, but posting an answer can take 30+ seconds to load. Same with comments in the galleries, the front page loads OK mostly, then individual images can take for ever to open or show the posted comments. I tend to switch off auto loading of images in the galleries, then select only those i want to see in an effort to speed up things. Helps sometimes for me.

[SimonDP]

FWIW - the reply below took 20 seconds to load and display, on a good 3G connection, with image loading switched off.

[Leo Theron]

Ooooo ....

It is very easy to blame the site that you are trying to access for speed problems - in reality there is so many areas that can cause a slowdown, that it might be impossible to pinpoint easily.

For example: You connect to the internet via your ISP - your ISP then connects you to ODP. Do you know how you (your connection) gets there? Directly? Indirectly? Overloaded bridge? Strained router? Unless you use specialized software tools - you will never know. The only thing is you will blame the site originator - in this case ODP!

If things slow down, I clear my browser's cache and at the same time reset my ADSL router. In many cases that get things rolling again.

[Mark Drysdale]

Leo,

My speed issues only exist with this site, I do not have similar problems on other sites, at all.......

And Sean, I am not conversant in "computer speak" so if thats what you gotta do then go for it mate, if you need me to help........ I am good at picking up heavy objects!!!!!

[Charissa]

All fine and dandy Leo, but if u did the things u suggested, and u don,t have any problems with ANY of the other sites, i should think the problem is here somewhere.
Don,t think anyone "blame" them, but i am sure it would be nice for them to know about the problem, in order to get a solution. If people can,t access anything on ODP, they would stop trying to. I for one, am
about to ask for a sms as soon as the problems is solved, as it is very irritating to type the whole thing 10 times over, before it get posted.....if it get posted at all.
While typing this, database error on the gallery tab i had open, so don,t even know if this will go through.....

Sean, for interest sake, why would apps and toolbar's i had installed for ages, now suddenly cause a problem? Also, will the browser only be monitored while browsing on ODP? How would u go about all u suggested, what should we do?
Really not knowledgeable with all this stuff, so excuse the stupid questions.

[Roberto]

I only have speed problems when trying to load from the Google Chrome home page. Once in all is good.

[Wessel du Plessis]

Don't know anything about technicals, but the site is frustratingly slow at the moment - especially the last two days.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

@Charissa and Mark:

Sorry... I re-read my post and it may come over as a very sarcastic post. It wasn't!

My problem is this: I have a very standard basic DSL connection and right now have absolutely no problem with the site, whatsoever... If I myself had problems, I could simply switch off everything on my computer, besides the bare basics and start hunting for the problem, but because I can't replicate the problem, I don't even know where to start looking.

When I also got the database errors a few days ago, I started on the server... the server logs shows my request coming in and the server sending the request out - no error, although on the same request, I got an error on this side. I did a tracert on the request and found that after a few hops the system timed out:

What that means is that the internet doesn't work like a hosepipe with one end connected to the other, but rather like a spiderweb of pipes... if the data stream finds a problem along the line, it re-directs the data traffic and goes on:

A tracert right now from my computer looks like this:

traceroute to outdoorphoto.co.za (85.10.215.48), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 0.930 ms 0.727 ms 0.649 ms
2 dsl-241-224-01.telkomadsl.co.za (41.241.224.1) 7.642 ms 7.890 ms 10.004 ms
3 cdsl1-rba-vl2460.ip.isnet.net (196.38.72.217) 10.577 ms 30.247 ms 25.053 ms
4 cdsl1-rba-vl150.ip.isnet.net (196.38.73.17) 10.620 ms 10.985 ms 10.694 ms
5 core2-pkl-t0-7-0-0.ip.isnet.net (168.209.1.163) 67.580 ms 12.496 ms 11.991 ms
6 168.209.201.73 (168.209.201.73) 284.672 ms 304.901 ms 208.117 ms
7 linx-2.init7.net (195.66.226.175) 304.072 ms 306.899 ms 307.005 ms
8 r1fra1.core.init7.net (77.109.128.38) 193.077 ms 194.542 ms 207.421 ms
9 gw-hetzner.init7.net (82.197.166.86) 307.573 ms 296.852 ms 295.531 ms
10 hos-bb1.juniper2.fs.hetzner.de (213.239.240.243) 410.006 ms 293.000 ms 295.802 ms
11 hos-tr4.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.115) 309.782 ms 283.188 ms 279.473 ms
12 dedi448.nur4.host-h.net (85.10.215.48) 224.428 ms 224.599 ms 223.911 ms

It took 12 connections from my computer to the server and tested each of the connection's data transfer three times. The time it takes tells us a lot about the connection and how well the data is traveling - and because the data doesn't come from the ODP server, we know that any problems here is on a line, a router or an ISP/DNS error.

Step 1 is my router at home: takes less than 1 millisecond to travel
Steps 2-4 is the Telkom ADSL Network - For once working fine, with the worst hit stil only 30milliseconds to transfer the data.
Step 5 it goes to the main trunk line in JHB
Step 6is the last point before leaving the country - here you see it's slowing down as it hits the bottleneck of international data

Step 7 Welcome to the UK! - as you can see the data transfer took about 300 milliseconds - so we know that chances are pretty good that we are on the fibre optic undersea cable. if the data is around 600 milliseconds we generally know that we are on the satellite connections which run slower.

step 8-9 we bounce around europe, through Switzerland until

Step 10 we hit germany and the base for two of our servers in step 12, the Hetzner Data server-farm.

Now... if any of those steps went over about 700ms or gives you a * in one or more of the three tries, we know that there is a problem at that specific location (broken link or overloaded routers) and the system will re-direct you down another path (along with a few million other people)

So that is part one - check if your path is clear.

How to do this:

On Mac, spotlight Network Utility, Choose [Traceroute] tab, and type in: outdoorphoto.co.za in the text box. Click on [Trace] and wait for the results

On PC:

Go to Start | Run | Cmd

This will bring up a DOS Prompt that may look like this: c:/>

at the prompt, type in:

Tracert outdoorphoto.co.za

... and press enter. Results should follow soon after.

It would be helpful if you can posts those for me here...

[elsahoffmann]

dont know how long you want to wait for the * to end - but here goes

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to outdoorphoto.co.za (85.10.215.48), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 9.508 ms 9.224 ms 9.962 ms
2 41-132-74-1.dsl.mweb.co.za (41.132.74.1) 69.913 ms 19.115 ms 19.860 ms
3 te1-1-0.508.cpt-ipc-1.mweb.co.za (196.28.178.190) 20.233 ms 19.417 ms 18.748 ms
4 vlan92.cpt-hscore-1.mweb.co.za (196.28.179.11) 20.729 ms 67.182 ms 21.254 ms
5 tengige0-2-0-0.11.cpt-up-1.mweb.co.za (196.28.178.97) 28.728 ms 108.002 ms 71.143 ms
6 pos0-0-3-0.lon-up-1.mweb.co.za (196.22.164.2) 288.933 ms * 339.209 ms
7 te6-4-rt1-ldn1.core.noris.net (195.66.225.39) 179.913 ms 170.777 ms 177.838 ms
8 vl835-rt1-ffm2.core.noris.net (213.95.14.2) 190.083 ms 248.400 ms 189.564 ms
9 hetzner-gw.noris.net (213.239.242.249) 191.508 ms 219.511 ms 190.464 ms
10 hos-bb1.juniper1.fs.hetzner.de (213.239.240.242) 248.929 ms 219.062 ms 190.060 ms
11 hos-tr4.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.115) 239.792 ms 239.122 ms
hos-tr1.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.67) 190.213 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
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20 * * *
21 * * *
22 *

[DaveK]

Traceroute has started ...

traceroute to www.outdoorphoto.co.za (85.10.215.48), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 3.461 ms 1.081 ms 0.917 ms
2 dsl-146-80-01.telkomadsl.co.za (41.146.80.1) 18.117 ms 17.997 ms 20.030 ms
3 196.43.35.150 (196.43.35.150) 18.271 ms 20.227 ms 20.212 ms
4 196.43.35.145 (196.43.35.145) 18.723 ms 18.263 ms 18.501 ms
5 * * *
6 196.43.10.130 (196.43.10.130) 62.134 ms 58.849 ms 56.390 ms
7 196.43.33.5 (196.43.33.5) 58.248 ms 58.571 ms 56.441 ms
8 lon-ip-dir-telecity-gig-4-0-1025.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.18.121) 377.390 ms 264.260 ms 407.633 ms
9 1329.xe-3-2-0.mpr2.lhr3.uk.above.net (213.161.92.181) 265.428 ms 407.351 ms 264.354 ms
10 ge-3-1-0.mpr1.lhr3.uk.above.net (64.125.27.153) 452.529 ms 266.390 ms 450.017 ms
11 so-1-1-0.mpr1.ams1.nl.above.net (64.125.28.198) 289.367 ms 286.782 ms 429.597 ms
12 xe-0-0-0.er1.ams1.nl.above.net (64.125.26.81) 278.346 ms 279.276 ms 436.805 ms
13 r1ams1.core.init7.net (195.69.144.210) 614.986 ms 614.006 ms 614.463 ms
14 r1fra1.core.init7.net (77.109.128.153) 614.620 ms 613.568 ms 614.880 ms
15 gw-hetzner.init7.net (82.197.166.86) 512.035 ms 511.701 ms gw-hetzner.init7.net (77.109.135.18) 614.625 ms
16 hos-bb1.juniper2.fs.hetzner.de (213.239.240.243) 578.596 ms 511.776 ms 614.495 ms
17 hos-tr4.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.115) 614.431 ms hos-tr1.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.67) 615.644 ms hos-tr4.ms-ex3k1.rz11.hetzner.de (213.239.236.115) 559.145 ms
18 * * *
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20 * * *
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25 * * *
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28 * * *
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33 *



Stopped there. Help you sean?
Dave.