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excited_Genie16B8
Legend
May 31, 2009
Answered

[Locked] Forum Speed

  • May 31, 2009
  • 5 replies
  • 9734 views

I'm curious what kind of speed folks are getting with these new forums.  For my own experience, they're drastically slower than the older forums.

Using Firefox 3 and 3.5b4, I get page load times of around 20 seconds on average for a page to fully load.  IE8 is slower still.  This is on a 768 DSL connection.

Using the new Chrome browser, I get a more acceptable 2 second page load time on average.  (Which clearly shows there's nothing wrong with my connection.)

That is a VAST difference.  With other web sites, Chrome and Firefox display pages in very similar time frames.  It's only with these forums that Firefox is slowed to a crawl.  I wonder if any forum techies can chime in with theories as to why?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Jochem van Dieten

    Jim Simon wrote on 2009-05-31 11:20:

    Using Firefox 3 and 3.5b4, I get page load times of around 20 seconds on average for a page to fully load. IE8 is slower still. This is on a 768 DSL connection.

    Using the new Chrome browser, I get a more acceptable 2 second page load time on average.

    I wonder if any forum techies can chime in with theories as to why?

    Caching. As Adobe is improving the caching mechanisms for the content on

    these forums subtle differences in the caching algorithms of browsers

    become more pronounced. For instance, all the CSS and images that belong

    to the forums have been switched from invalidation based caching to

    expiration based caching and are now cached for 30 days on some browsers

    without rechecking the server on each page load. But not the user

    avatars, because when a user changes his avatar you don't want that

    cached for 30 days.

    As a result even the way you are measuring exactly will make a huge

    difference in what times you get. For instance, compare the results you

    get in the following circumstances in Firefox 3 or 3.5b4.

    1. Go to http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments and

    click a few threads to load the static content into your browser cache.

    2. Open a new tab and direct that tab to

    http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments as well. This

    should take about 5 seconds.

    3. Go back to http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments

    and click F5. This should take about 12 seconds.

    4. Clear your browser cache and go back to

    http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments. This should

    take about 25 seconds.

    The difference is that by reloading through F5 you implicitly instruct

    the browser to invalidate parts of its cache. More then if you just open

    a new tab to the same URL, less then explicitly clearing the cache. The

    remaining speed difference between the fully cached instances of Chrome

    and Firefox is probably because the rendering engine and the javascript

    engine of Chrome are faster (and Chrome appears to use more simultaneous

    threads to download images).

    All of this can be observed by inserting a recording proxy between your

    browser and the forums and analyzing the results.

    Jochem

    PS The times I mention are my average times recorded in 4 different

    countries.

    --

    Jochem van Dieten

    http://jochem.vandieten.net/

    5 replies

    Ramón G Castañeda
    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    May 31, 2009

    The bottom line is that, all other things being equal, these new forums on a good day are a little slower than the WebX forums were on an average day.  On good days, the page loading time was practically immeasurable in the WebX forums, to the point I never even saw the progress bar in Firefox.  It was just like changing channels with the remote on a TV.

    When WebX was having a bad day, they were much worse than the current forums.

    To my astonishment, these Jive forums perform a little faster with all the Stylish scripts and AdblockPlus filters on than without them, saving about 1.5 to 2 seconds.

    I'm still making liberal use of the Mark All As Read function here, which was never necessary in the old forums.

    MichaelKazlow
    MichaelKazlow
    Legend
    May 31, 2009

    Personally, somedays like today I find the forums fine. It  takes a second or two to get a page to load. On some days, I just don't bother. It can take forever---just like the old forums.

    Kath-H
    Kath-H
    Inspiring
    May 31, 2009

    Same here. Occasional slow-downs, just like the WebX forums, no better, no worse. Some stuff is slower because of the different system, like replying, because there's no ever-present reply-box. Also, not so many topics on a page can mean more clicking around.

    S_D_A_
    S_D_A_
    Inspiring
    May 31, 2009

    2 seconds is the fastest ?  I guess that's bearable. With so few Ads on their pages I would expect it to be useable for most folks -- It usually is for me (I know typical AOL answer).


    Do you have any funky software firewall or extensions loaded in Firefox ? Sometimes when behind a corporate firewall, public forums of any kind are subject to extensive filtering I/O. I've run into this at companies I work with. A lot of variables, I don't envy Adobe troubleshooting this aspect of the forums.

    J
    Jochem van DietenCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    May 31, 2009

    Jim Simon wrote on 2009-05-31 11:20:

    Using Firefox 3 and 3.5b4, I get page load times of around 20 seconds on average for a page to fully load. IE8 is slower still. This is on a 768 DSL connection.

    Using the new Chrome browser, I get a more acceptable 2 second page load time on average.

    I wonder if any forum techies can chime in with theories as to why?

    Caching. As Adobe is improving the caching mechanisms for the content on

    these forums subtle differences in the caching algorithms of browsers

    become more pronounced. For instance, all the CSS and images that belong

    to the forums have been switched from invalidation based caching to

    expiration based caching and are now cached for 30 days on some browsers

    without rechecking the server on each page load. But not the user

    avatars, because when a user changes his avatar you don't want that

    cached for 30 days.

    As a result even the way you are measuring exactly will make a huge

    difference in what times you get. For instance, compare the results you

    get in the following circumstances in Firefox 3 or 3.5b4.

    1. Go to http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments and

    click a few threads to load the static content into your browser cache.

    2. Open a new tab and direct that tab to

    http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments as well. This

    should take about 5 seconds.

    3. Go back to http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments

    and click F5. This should take about 12 seconds.

    4. Clear your browser cache and go back to

    http://forums.adobe.com/community/general/forum_comments. This should

    take about 25 seconds.

    The difference is that by reloading through F5 you implicitly instruct

    the browser to invalidate parts of its cache. More then if you just open

    a new tab to the same URL, less then explicitly clearing the cache. The

    remaining speed difference between the fully cached instances of Chrome

    and Firefox is probably because the rendering engine and the javascript

    engine of Chrome are faster (and Chrome appears to use more simultaneous

    threads to download images).

    All of this can be observed by inserting a recording proxy between your

    browser and the forums and analyzing the results.

    Jochem

    PS The times I mention are my average times recorded in 4 different

    countries.

    --

    Jochem van Dieten

    http://jochem.vandieten.net/

    J
    JayJhabrix
    Inspiring
    May 31, 2009

    To cut a long story short, they're slower... much slower... which is why, coupled with lack of NNTP support, a lot of serious, knowledgeable contributors to the forums have dropped out.. Yup... Double whammy!

    A
    Anonymous
    May 31, 2009

    Your remarks are justified Jim but we've been through all that in the early days of these Jive forums going live.


    The Adobe people responsible have said they are aware of the speed problems and in some cases are attempting fixes. Other things seem to be "hard-wired" into the forum software and can't be changed.


    There is a laborious process involved in attempting to get changes implemented by Jive.


    Also I think Adobe is already two releases behind the current one!




    Nobody seemed to realise when Jive was chosen that, while it is a nice pretty forum software for certain undemanding situations, it is just not up to the task of providing the standard of service we had with the Web X forums.  

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