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General discussion

Excessively long page loads...

Mar 16, 2007 1:46PM PDT

This was a previously reported (and resolved) issue, but it has come back to bite us again.

When opening old threads, typically those greater than four months old, it may take an excessively long time for the thread to open. The older the thread, the longer it may take, regardless of the connection speed. Meanwhile, recent threads can be opened readily. This is more evident now that some older threads, such as this one by Toni, have been given a lift to the top of the forums due to the recent addition of stickies.

Lee, on the off chance the engineers have too much free time on their hands, could you have them look back into this issue?

Thanks!
John

Discussion is locked

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Same here
Mar 16, 2007 11:34PM PDT

Yes I've noticed this as well.

Whilst recently started discussions open up very quickly, it seems that older discussions, especially from 2005 and before, take a while, and risk failing with CNET's 404 page loading error.

What I haven't tested, (or at least taken note of), is whether such "older" posts open quicker once they are eventually displayed, viewed, replied to if necessary, and closed again.

It's as if these older posts have to be fetched from a different location, and that takes time.

Mark

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When the servers are busy, sometime you need to...
Mar 18, 2007 10:17PM PDT

...solicit help from Togo.

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(NT) ...either that or get a T1 connection.
Mar 18, 2007 10:19PM PDT
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Will let the engineer know about this, but what I believe
Mar 20, 2007 8:54AM PDT

is happening is that older threads since they are less likely to be viewed will take a bit longer to load because the cache on those threads aren't hot, so it takes a while for them to warm up--while newer discussion or threads are cached frequently so they load faster. Regardless I will bring this issue up with the engineer.

Thanks John!
-Lee

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Quick question John
Mar 21, 2007 7:40AM PDT

after you click on one of those old threads that take a long time to load, if you go back and visit that particular thread again, is it equally as slow or is it faster?

Let me know.

Thakns!
-Lee

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(NT) Faster for me once accessed.
Mar 21, 2007 8:57PM PDT
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It gets faster...
Mar 22, 2007 6:41AM PDT

The second time onward is much faster, but that's simply a result of the webpage being cached locally. If I keep clearing my cache and reloading it increases slightly with multiple loads, coming close to normal if the old thread once again becomes 'hot.' I didn't know that Cnet implemented a cache for recent threads, so that explains it.

Still, old threads take too long to load. As a test, I opened the thread I linked to above in one tab, then loaded one Cnet forums thread after another in another tab until the old thread by Toni loaded. It came out to be 7:1, a steep performance drop after a year or more of being dormant.

The cache is apparently doing it's job quite well, but there's got to be a way to eek out better performance when it's not in the picture.

John