The BritishV8 Pub

I received an e-mail today from a loyal BritishV8 regular reporting that he's having lots of problems with this message board. Honestly, it's the first I've heard of this. Here's a snippet from the e-mail:

Quote:

It is nearly impossible to upload anything without the server timing out. It's not my connection - other sites are not a problem. It's not the browser - I've tried 'em all. At what point do I just throw in the towel? 7-8 times (or more) to upload a single image? Come on. Needs to be better.

The server that this message board is hosted on is in one of the major data centers located in Loudoun County, Virginia. Physically, it's ~1600 miles from where I'm at in Colorado, so I use the same sort of connection to log-on as everyone else. I don't believe I've experienced any issues uploading posts or images. Incidentally, the main BritishV8 is on a second server and BritishRacecar.com is on a third. All three servers are, however, shared with other websites.

How about you? Have you received "server timing out" errors lately?

Please give me any comments or feedback that might help me understand or troubleshoot the problem.

Please tell me the exact wording of any error messages you're receiving.

If you are having problems with the server timing out, it might be particularly instructive for me to know what sort of connection you're using. For example, I'm using DSL and I've just tested my own (home) connection using [www.speedtest.net] - My results: ping in 47ms, download speed is 3.99Mbps, and upload speed is 0.73Mbps.

No issues here and I'm in California this week. Is it possible someone is trying to load pics that are too big and mistaking that error for a server error?

That's an interesting theory.

When I tested the theory by trying to upload a 2GB image, it took over thirty seconds before the Phorum message board software returned its "No file can be larger than 600KB" error message. I don't understand why it should take that long! For comparison, uploading a 592KB jpg test image only took about seven seconds. In that second case, the Phorum software displayed the message "Your file was successfully attached to your message."

I suppose there's a chance the user's browser is giving up on his uploads before the "No file can be larger than 600KB" error message comes through. I need to get more information about the specific error message he's seeing to verify whether its really being created by the server.

Wonder if there is any connection with the hurricane?

Jim

Curtis,

I'm on Comcast, using a cable modem. I believe it's basic DSL service.Like many folks (I think) I tend to try and be on the board in the evening (around 7-9PM on the East coast) so I'm wondering if the problem is related to peak load periods on the server. I tried again early this morning (about 5:45 EST) and the site worked like a champ. Added to my project journal, uploaded 4-5 new shots. Easy peasy as the Brits would say.

As some additional information, during the periods when I'm having trouble on the site, I can edit my journal, but every time I try to upload any images, the server times out. Sometimes when this happens I can back up a page and get my new edits back, sometimes I get a message window as if I was trying to respond to a post and all is lost.

David

Addendum: Image sizes I was trying to upload were less than 300k so size shouldn't have been the problem. When I get home tonight, I'll see if I can duplicate the problem and copy the error message for you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2012 09:11AM by DC Townsend.

I'll keep prodding.

One tool I use to monitor how the site is doing is "Google Analytics". A long time ago, I added a snippet of Javascript to every page of the website. Everytime a page is downloaded, those little Javascript programs share a little data with Google Analytics. I can view the data all different ways. Based on a sample set of ~100,000 unique visits since August, I can see that peak traffic is usually heaviest between 3pm and 5pm eastern time, but that all the daytime and evening hours are busy. Midnight until dawn are very quiet. Mondays are busiest, and Saturdays are least busy.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly to make of this data (below) - is it good news or bad news? - in either case, it's a little off-topic because it's showing download speed instead of upload speed:

Quote:

Avg. Page Load Time (sec): 4.58
Avg. Redirection Time (sec): 0.03
Avg. Domain Lookup Time (sec): 0.05
Avg. Server Connection Time (sec): 0.04
Avg. Server Response Time (sec): 0.31
Avg. Page Download Time (sec): 0.31

Google Analytics explains their jargon: "Avg. Page Load Time is the average amount of time (in seconds) it takes for pages from the sample set to load, from initiation of the pageview (e.g. click on a page link) to load completion in the browser." Interestingly, that 4.58s average can be parsed out by browser type. Users with Firefox are, on average, seeing BritishV8 pages 0.7 seconds quicker than Internet Explorer users. Safari users see their pages in only 2.89 seconds, on average. Average page load time of 4.58 seconds sounds really slow to me... but I expect it's inflated by extremely photo-rich pages such as the project journals. I haven't figured out how to drill down to specific types of pages within BritishV8. I expect pages without photos should surely display quicker than two seconds.

Any additional info from people experiencing problems will be extremely helpful.

Curtis,

I was having a similar problem. I turned out not to be the server but the DSLAM port I was connected to at the Century Link DCO. They ended up doing a module swap. I also found the information about DSL tweaking and testing located at the following to be helpful >>> [www.dslreports.com]

Well, 4.5 sec. to load a page is slooooww. If I was doing Google research & a page took that long to load, I would back up, try again, then move on to something different. Here, I would wait for it while I flipped to another tab to check on other things.

For reference, I use Charter cable. If all the neighbors aren't surfing at once, I get right at 30Mbps down & 3Mbps up. I like it. :) So does my son, the online gamer.

Oh, I use Firefox. My son says Google Chrome is faster.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2012 05:11PM by MGBV8.

Here you go Curtis. Tried posting this afternoon at 4:40PM Eastern.

Safari can’t open the page “[forum.britishv8.org]” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.

Repeated attempts, same result, Occasionally when this happens, the server will randomly take the upload. I didn't have any trouble opening my project post to edit the text but it can't be saved and I can't upload any images.

BTW, the rest of the site always works just fine. No delays, no page lags, perfect behavior. Only happens when I try to upload an image.

Follow up. Again, I attempted several times to upload images from home...all around the same time in the evening with the same results. Last night, I uploaded a number of shots to my work server and then posted to the thread and uploaded the images from there using a PC and Google Chrome ( about 9Am EST). Perfect. If anything, way faster than from home, even in the mornings when the connection seems solid.

Not sure what to take away from all of this. Mac vs. PC problem? Operating system/browser combination and/or time of day? Connection load related to peak use? All of these?

Hope this info helps you Curtis.

One last post to this for me and then I'll let it go.

I've now successfully posted using my PC and Google Chrome at my office at any time of day. Not so on the Mac side of things no matter what browser I use. Seems odd, but that's my experience and I'm reasonably familiar with the known upload/display issues surrounding different platform/browser combinations.

In any case, thanks for looking in to it Curtis. I'll just adjust my posting habits to align with the working equipment.