What did the IT people do to the site?

[christine55]

Every since the site was down last week going back and forth between posts takes about twice as long. I've noticed the same thing on some other sites. What ever software changes made were not for the good. I don't know if the changes were necessary because of increased traffic but just letting you know it is not an improvement on our end.
Hugs, Christine

[SatinDreams]

Have you tried clearing your cookies and emptying your cache? It may help.


Satin x

[christine55]

The problem I am referring to is two sites in particular acting differently, this site and yahoo portal. Everything else works normally. It seems to me there has been some kind of server change.
Hugs, Christine

[Kieron Andrew]

try running...........http://www.ccleaner.com/ it cleans alot of useless rubbish off your machine!, and should make it run faster, beware you will most probably have to re-enter any passwords you have saved on sites!, as it clears ALL caches and cookies

[Tamara Croft]

There is a thread going in this section about this very thing.

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27801

What I can tell you is the forum was moved on to a new faster server. The main admin has checked everything out his end, but they have found nothing wrong. I did a few checks myself as I've been having the same problem lately. The only thing that I'd done about the same time as the server was moved, was windows updates. One of those updates was for IE. Before I removed it, I tried the forum in FireFox Browser and it worked fine in that. So, I've removed the windows recent update for IE and all is working fine.

So, I suggest first, try another browser, clear temp internet files AND cookies. Ping www.crossdressers.com and paste the results here.

[christine55]

I just ran all three anti spyware programs, ad aware, spybot search and destroy, and microsoft anti spyware and seems to be working better.
The two sites where I have noticed a real slowdown has been this site and yahoo news. Both sites have a feature kind of like a tool tip where you put your curser on the link and a few lines of the post or news item come up. I think that this applet (small program) which does this has been interacting with some spy ware and causing problems. This applet also seems to take a bit of time to load at times, delaying page functionality. I don't have a problem with temp internet files, I have my browser set to delete them every time I close it. Ping was fine . Any how your site seems to work fine now, yahoo news is still slow, but if you check it out you'll see they have all sorts of little programs running to supposedly enhance it but only seem to slow it down. That is also working better than it did for me but is still kind of slow. Too many fancy little features only degrade a site. As with makeup, sometimes less is more.
Hugs, Christine
heres that ping, just for your info, I deleted my IP address, I just don't want the world to see.
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\>ping www.crossdressers.com (http://www.crossdressers.com)
Pinging www.crossdressers.com (http://www.crossdressers.com) [209.0.144.94] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=108ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=108ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=52
Ping statistics for 209.0.144.94:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 98ms, Maximum = 108ms, Average = 105ms
C:\Documents and Settings\

[Sam-antha]

For me the stuttering delay on crossdressers.com lasts about 8 secs before the entire page settles.
Temp files are removed.
Just how do I remove most but not all of the cookies.
Ping timing 93msecs repeated on several days/entries.
It is slow.
Elsewhere I achieve around 30ms
On broadband 2.2mb
What gives?
Folowing christine, I find that yahoo news = 144ms

[DanaJ]

Maybe it is a routing problem, I consistently get around 18ms pinging. Christine, are you on dial-up?

[christine55]

Dana, I am not on dial up. I tested my speed and am getting 383kb/sec down. and 276kb/sec up. that shows about average for my isp, cableone.net. Like I said above the site seems to work much better after running spyware applications. Samantha above described the problem as a stuttering delay which kind of describes what I was experienceing. It also seems to run a bit better on Firefox.
hugs, Christine

[Tamara Croft]

I've spoken with Admin and his team of techs. The most likely problem is routing, this happens sometimes and can only be fixed by your own ISP.

[christine55]

Thanks for all the effort you put into this. I don't know about routing issues but I still have a strong suspicion that I had some spyware that was interacting with your site. After running 3 spyware removal applications the site is running much better. It was not slow loading, but as Samantha said kind of a stuttering.
Hugs, Christine

[Sam-antha]

Thank you Tamara, the reply is logical. However, what can I do about the ISP routing methods to improve things ?
I do seem to remember something somewher about such routings and the involvement of "firewalls" in the problem ?

[Tamara Croft]

I had some nasty spyware too grrrrr!!! All gone now ;)

Samantha routing is basically getting from point A to B... but it's not that simple. For example, you want to drive from the north coast, to the east coast, a to b... but obstacles like ring roads, diversions, traffic jams etc get in the way, this is the same for routing. There could be noise on a line which is a part of the route from A to B and therefore causing a problem getting to point B. Does that make sense?

You have to contact your ISP with the issue and ask them to check their routing. However, you are with BT it seems, good luck with that, they wouldn't know a server had routing issues if it ran right up their front door ;)

[Sam-antha]

Um, thank you for the BT info, I expected such.
Anyway, my memory suggests that the delay could be the presence somewhere of another firewall, between me and you.....
Then there is Christine with the same problem..... different routing tho', has to be, except where we two meet at your place.
Thank you again,
Samm

[Ms. Donna]

heres that ping, just for your info, I deleted my IP address, I just don't want the world to see.
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\>ping www.crossdressers.com (http://www.crossdressers.com)
Pinging www.crossdressers.com (http://www.crossdressers.com) [209.0.144.94] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=108ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=108ms TTL=52
Reply from : bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=52
Ping statistics for 209.0.144.94:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 98ms, Maximum = 108ms, Average = 105ms
C:\Documents and Settings\


Just did a ping:


C:\>ping crossdressers.com

Pinging crossdressers.com [209.0.144.94] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 209.0.144.94: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=53
Reply from 209.0.144.94: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=53
Reply from 209.0.144.94: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=53
Reply from 209.0.144.94: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 209.0.144.94:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 13ms


Respectable response time.


You can also do a Tracert:


C:\>tracert crossdressers.com

Tracing route to crossdressers.com [209.0.144.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
2 8 ms 10 ms 8 ms xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms dstswr2-vlan2.rh.stjmny.cv.net [167.206.39.162]

4 10 ms 12 ms 9 ms r2-ge0-2-0.mhe.hcvlny.cv.net [167.206.39.133]
5 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms 65.19.111.201
6 10 ms 13 ms 10 ms 451be0b3.cst.lightpath.net [65.19.96.179]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 13 ms 11 ms 11 ms ae-2-54.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.68.97.97]
9 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms ae-0-0.bbr2.Newark1.Level3.net [4.68.128.146]
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms ae-21-52.car1.Newark1.Level3.net [4.68.99.37]
11 13 ms 12 ms 14 ms unknown.Level3.net [64.156.0.58]
12 13 ms 11 ms 11 ms beano1.techiemedia.net [209.0.144.94]

Trace complete.


TRACERT will show just how many hops your connection takes and where there might be a possible bottleneck.


Another problem could be host-name resolution. If there is a bottleneck at your ISP's DNS, that could also slow things down.


Love & Stuff,
Donna

[Tamara Croft]

Tracing route to crossdressers.com [209.0.144.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms ***.***.***.***
2 17 ms 27 ms 8 ms ***.***.***.***
3 9 ms 10 ms 10 ms nott-t2cam1-a-v159.inet.ntl.com [81.109.167.13]
4 10 ms 11 ms 12 ms nott-t2core-a-ge-wan74.inet.ntl.com [80.1.79.73]
5 11 ms 10 ms 12 ms lee-bb-a-so-300-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.33]
6 12 ms 11 ms 13 ms lee-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.187.186]
7 11 ms 15 ms 12 ms man-bb-a-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.193]
8 23 ms 34 ms 24 ms 212.187.137.1
9 24 ms 25 ms 23 ms so-6-1-0.mp2.manchesteruk1.level3.net [4.68.113.118]
10 89 ms 94 ms 91 ms ae-0-0.bbr2.newark1.level3.net [4.68.128.146]
11 90 ms 90 ms 90 ms ae-11-51.car1.newark1.level3.net [4.68.99.5]
12 92 ms 89 ms 89 ms unknown.level3.net [64.156.0.58]
13 92 ms 90 ms 91 ms beano1.techiemedia.net [209.0.144.94]

Trace complete.

Hop 9 to 10 seem to be an issue :(

[Ms. Donna]

9 24 ms 25 ms 23 ms so-6-1-0.mp2.manchesteruk1.level3.net [4.68.113.118]
10 89 ms 94 ms 91 ms ae-0-0.bbr2.newark1.level3.net [4.68.128.146]
11 90 ms 90 ms 90 ms ae-11-51.car1.newark1.level3.net [4.68.99.5]
12 92 ms 89 ms 89 ms unknown.level3.net [64.156.0.58]
13 92 ms 90 ms 91 ms beano1.techiemedia.net [209.0.144.94]


Actually, your local (UK) times seem pretty good. It's your pipe out of the UK hitting ae-0-0.bbr2.newark1.level3.net, which is Level 3 Communications server in Newark NJ (I'm assuming), seems to be where things slow down.

Still, it's not so bad that there should be perfomance issues.

Love & Stuff,
Donna

[Tamara Croft]

Yeah Donna, that's what I meant. Was fine right up to manchester, then it slowed right down. I guess my route doesn't like going over the sea ;)

Oh I'm not having any issues now, I fixed them ;)