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View Full Version : Horrible portal performance



Robert Kosek
11-10-2007, 02:10 PM
For the last week and a half, two weeks even, I've been having a tough time loading the portal. The header appears, the ticker is displayed, and then the loading seems to stop for minutes at a time. Dunno what exactly is going on, but someone should look into it.

NecroDOME
11-10-2007, 02:19 PM
Same here.

Huehnerschaender
11-10-2007, 02:54 PM
Yep.... terrible and annoying :)

Hopefully its nothing serious or something that costs money!

Legolas
11-10-2007, 03:23 PM
inc(counter);

Last days I had some problems with snap.com previews (minutes to load a page). Btw, today seems a bit faster here

Traveler
11-10-2007, 03:46 PM
Hmm, can't say I recognize this.
I visit PGD daily, on at least two pc's. Usually a page is loaded within 3 to 5 seconds when cache is empty. It's even less when I browse to a different section.

jasonf
11-10-2007, 04:29 PM
I visit quite regularly 8) ... maybe I'm hogging all the bandwidth :oops:

Legolas
11-10-2007, 04:29 PM
I'm 99% sure it is snap.com. When I have loading problems I can see on my browser "Waiting for snap.com" or "Waiting for i.ixnp.com" (redirects to snap.com) and it takes forever for loading :think:

deathshadow
12-11-2007, 06:38 PM
Yeah, I'd blame SNAP as well - I hate that crap as it just unneccessarily bloats out the page for useless bullshit - it's not bad enough the page already has so many usability failings I use a custom user.css to fix things under Opera (like the baby sized fixed px fonts that are utterly USELESS), but now I've got to nueter that crap via a user.js as well?

Of course, that the header itself, specifically that stupid ticker thing is broken on large font machines making the whole page jump up and down doesn't help. Go figure, dynamic fonts on the ticker when that should be fixed - and fixed fonts where dynamics should be...

But one can't expect too much from something based on that steaming pile of crap known as phpBB.

Seriously, 543k in 97 files? On broadband the overhead for just the number of files is 15 seconds or MORE... I pity the poor fools trying to access this on a choked out work connection or dialup.

arthurprs
12-11-2007, 07:06 PM
Yeah, I'd blame SNAP as well - I hate that crap as it just unneccessarily bloats out the page for useless bullshit - it's not bad enough the page already has so many usability failings I use a custom user.css to fix things under Opera (like the baby sized fixed px fonts that are utterly USELESS), but now I've got to nueter that crap via a user.js as well?

Of course, that the header itself, specifically that stupid ticker thing is broken on large font machines making the whole page jump up and down doesn't help. Go figure, dynamic fonts on the ticker when that should be fixed - and fixed fonts where dynamics should be...

But one can't expect too much from something based on that steaming pile of crap known as phpBB.

Seriously, 543k in 97 files? On broadband the overhead for just the number of files is 15 seconds or MORE... I pity the poor fools trying to access this on a choked out work connection or dialup.

But better options are expensive like IPB or VB

WILL
12-11-2007, 07:27 PM
:lol:

EDIT:

Actually, I've decided to say something on this. I find it kind of funny how the majority of the visitors and members here manage to take the time to really look into the flaws of the site and the community portal as a whole, but never EVER offer to help or pitch in to make things better on any capacity at least. Save for a very select few that have in the past.

Now I don't really care so much about those few that get all irate and opinionated. They just make me laugh because I know what they will do for the community as a whole. And they have the right to their opinion as poorly was it was expressed.


The remaining factor is that this is a niche community for a niche (but great, with high potential) programming language. HOWEVER because of this there is still a huge need for those that are willing to provide the support mechanisms for it to grow. ie. community sites and tools and development projects and public commercial efforts, etc...


So... if you have issues with the site, thats fine, but frankly and as honestly as I can put it, unless someone actually offers up some assistance on the matter, you can keep complaining all you like, it isn't getting done. :)

Besides the point, I've been a 1.75 man show (thanks to Dom as he really made up more than his 0.75-ish in gold!) keeping the site going when I was down. I can't do that anymore so someone else is going to have to step up and help out. PGD's support is shrinking not growing without you guys to help out.

Some of that could be organizing things or redevelopment of the site in such a way that allows for others to offer up some of their free time to help moderate and such, but it takes the people to really care or want to put back into the community. That means YOU! *see me pointing at you*

So by all means make your complaints, they're valid, but consider how useless it is unless someone is there to fulfill all these requests. :roll:

LP
12-11-2007, 10:59 PM
I haven't experienced delays while loading portal. I usually load the front page and look for posts in "Recent Topics" - don't have time for anything else.

As for the rest features: unless it's broken, don't fix it. ;)

The forum has been for quite a while and it works. Perhaps attachments could be an interesting feature here, but for the rest of it - I don't see how much different would it be with IPB or VB.

arthurprs
13-11-2007, 01:17 AM
What about a donators group? Im in.

marmin
30-04-2008, 01:28 PM
A of this date, the main portal is buggy. It gave an error. But I can make posts and access the forums. Just to let you know..

Wizard
30-04-2008, 05:33 PM
I get the same error and can't access the news page. I can view and post in the forums. The error: "XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 3".

savage
30-04-2008, 07:13 PM
Damn, no idea why this is happening, will need to investigate.

arthurprs
30-04-2008, 08:30 PM
Damn, no idea why this is happening, will need to investigate.

while that set index.php as index :?

Legolas
30-04-2008, 09:40 PM
I think it could be an error in a xml rss feed :think:

WILL
02-05-2008, 05:30 AM
I get the same error and can't access the news page. I can view and post in the forums. The error: "XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 3".

This is the RSS feed code for the external site news headlines. portal.php is the file you have to look at. Might want to look at handing those XML parsing errors if you want something more elegant to happen instead. :)

marmin
03-05-2008, 11:13 AM
This problem is ocurring again.

I think it should be addressed a.s.a.p., a malfunctioning site is bad for the 'Pascal' image.

No one will visit the ste if the site is corrupt. I'll be willing to make a donation if money is the problem. Let's keep the site healty.

chronozphere
03-05-2008, 09:04 PM
I got this error a few days ago. Then it disappeared, and now its there again, all the time. :(

I would like to help, but i don't have the skizzles. I'm not a web-developer. :razz:

Hope someone has the time to take a look at it. :?

WILL
04-05-2008, 01:13 AM
It's the code that parses the XML from the other site's RSS feeds. When their site cannot provide a nominal XML data as it expects it doesn't know what to do, hence that error and page breakdown you see.

Not nice, I know, but it requires proper error handling code to take care of this. If you know enough PHP and work with XML before you could fix it. I myself just don't have the time as much as I don't like to see it either.

Leaves you with a few options:

A) remove the external site feeds
B) fix the error handling code
C) just remove the one that is less reliable. (most likely the GameDev.com feed)

Mirage
04-05-2008, 06:39 AM
Seems that the option A) is best.;)

noeska
04-05-2008, 10:06 AM
Go fix it. It stopped my from visiting the site for a few days. Until i was daring unough to click on the forum button. While you are at try to make the frontpage more lightweight (e.g. loose the scrolling banner.) Have a look on the delphigl.com site.

savage
04-05-2008, 11:59 AM
Since the RSS feeds from other sites were causing problems, I've killed them as we can't have other sites breaking our front page. I don't have the time to introduce some proper error handling to removing it seems the quickest fix.

Legolas
04-05-2008, 12:39 PM
As far as I have seen, the culprit was DevMaster.net's sql server: it was down and their rss feed came out malformed

marmin
04-05-2008, 03:04 PM
Fantastic! :thumbup: :thumbup:

Legolas
04-05-2008, 03:09 PM
Savage, maybe you have commented out too much lines, because some things aren't showed anymore, e.g. the personal box doesn't show the avatar nor the title, or the space for comments on the news shows the comment counter only. :wink:

savage
04-05-2008, 05:25 PM
Yes I got carried away with the commenting out. It should be a little better now.