# Has the site been having slowness issues? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [June 2, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117 "2025-06-02T19:30:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/21 "2025-06-03T13:40:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > This is bog standard behavior for a bad internet connection. Good bet it’s something at your end, not the server end. I don’t think so… 1. I’m only having issues with the SDMB. Other sites load just fine, same as always. Maybe a message board such as this, which involves interaction and uploading as well as downloading, reveals connection issues that sites I just download do not, but… 2. I’ve tested my connection with speedtest[dot]net twice this morning. Both times the download speed was well over 400Mbps and upload was over 40Mbps. I suppose my connection could have some sporadic wonkiness issues that don’t necessarily show up in an internet speed test, but… 3. Other Dopers are reporting similar issues in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/22 "2025-06-03T13:59:17Z")
I agree. The issues are definitely real, though very sporadic, and manifest only on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/23 "2025-06-03T14:08:50Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Another thing I’ve been noticing is when I’m typing a post, I keep getting a window saying “draft is open in another post” when that is definitely not the case. This has been happening to me for the past couple of days. And I’ve noticed absolutely no other issues with other internet sites. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/24 "2025-06-03T15:22:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The issues are definitely real, though very sporadic, and manifest only on the SDMB. I haven’t seen them today (yet) but there were absolutely problems yesterday that were isolated to this forum. No problem with any other site or any other program or device that connects to the internet. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/25 "2025-06-03T15:33:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I agree. The issues are definitely real, though very sporadic, and manifest only on the SDMB. Just corroborating: I’ve been noticing much the same issues as you and @kenobi_65 have reported in this thread. It’s not been all that frequent – maybe once in a day, and then it usually won’t happen for another day or two. Call it three or four times a week. Been this way for roughly two months. EDIT: _And as @Atamasama just posted: When I notice an issue with the SDMB loading, other websites I have open in other tabs are functioning normally._ And FWIW, I only notice these issues while surfing via Safari on my iPhone (latest version of iOS). On Win 11, Chrome browser (automatically most recent version), I’ve never seen a real issue. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/26 "2025-06-03T15:45:05Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > On Win 11, Chrome browser (automatically most recent version), I’ve never seen a real issue. Ironically, it was the opposite for me. My phone (also Safari on iPhone) has been fine, but Edge on Win11 was having problems. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/27 "2025-06-03T15:48:02Z")
I’ve been noticing the slowdown issues, as mentioned in my OP, on both my work PC and my iPad-- the two devices I visit the SDMB most often. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/28 "2025-06-03T15:48:58Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > And FWIW, I only notice these issues while surfing via Safari on my iPhone (latest version of iOS). On Win 11, Chrome browser (automatically most recent version), I’ve never seen a real issue. It’s probably premature to draw conclusions like that since the problems are indeed sporadic and fairly infrequent. But they’re there. Just today (with the Edge browser) I got the rotating circle when trying to scroll up in a thread for such a long time (several minutes!) that I gave up, shut down the browser, and restarted. The problem then went away. There may be some browser-related issue but this never happened before and just started approximately a week ago. I realize this kind of vague symptom may not be helpful to the developers, but I’m just reporting what I’m seeing. If there’s any message I want to convey to the development team, it’s that when a site is working well, sometimes the best policy is to just leave it the hell alone. I know that’s very hard to do when your whole job centers around continuing to change things, but dammit, sometimes it really is the best policy. ETA: That last paragraph was added as an edit. I thought the edit had been lost because it took more than a full minute to show up! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/29 "2025-06-03T15:52:57Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I’m only having issues with the SDMB. Other sites load just fine, same as always. Same here. I just ran an Ookla speed test: 13ms ping, 907mbps download speed. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/30 "2025-06-03T16:01:45Z")
Okay, slower to load today. No issue on other sites. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/31 "2025-06-03T16:15:43Z")
It’s possible that this whole thing may be due to a reallocation of loads to different servers and not a software problem at all, but, again, there’s no doubt that there’s definitely a recent issue that isn’t on the client side. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/32 "2025-06-03T17:02:50Z")
Yeah, from my experience this feels like a server overload issue. I know “feels” is a crappy way to put it, but you know darn well that anyone who works in technology for long enough can trust their intuition. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/33 "2025-06-03T17:22:25Z")
It’s hard to precisely troubleshoot these issues because the SDMB isn’t its own server/machine. It runs on shared Discourse infrastructure, which is part of shared Amazon infrastructure. As far as I know, our mods can’t really see the resource usage or hardware limits of this particular board; it’s all hosted and transparently handled by the company that makes Discourse. It’s all just in a virtual machine running in the cloud running amongst thousands (or probably hundreds of thousands) of other VMs in a huge shared regional Amazon data center. It’s entirely possible for there to be regional network issues/congestion, or problems with the particular shared Amazon machines that the SDMB runs on. In those cases, switching computers or browsers won’t make a difference. Speed tests and other websites won’t really isolate the problem either, beyond telling you that it’s not an issue with your particular device. It may still be a problem between your ISP and the SDMB’s particular instance of Discourse. But you can try a different network (like your phone hotspot or the Cloudflare VPN) or [open your browser console](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/network) and see what might be taking abnormally long… nothing should take more than a couple seconds under normal conditions, and usually way less than that. If you find something that’s taking 5000ms+, there’s your culprit. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/34 "2025-06-09T19:53:08Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > It’s hard to precisely troubleshoot these issues because the SDMB isn’t its own server/machine. It runs on shared Discourse infrastructure, which is part of shared Amazon infrastructure. Have the admins confirmed this? I was under the impression the Dope installed the software on their own servers similar to how the old software was managed. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/35 "2025-06-09T20:24:36Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Have the admins confirmed this? Unofficial answer: Mm, I feel like there was somewhere they (as in our mods) briefly mentioned this recently, but I couldn’t find the post ☹ But some evidence: [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) is just [an alias for straightdope.hosted-by-discourse.com](https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=a%3aboards.straightdope.com&run=toolpage) [![](https://fightingignorance.org/206d492e-f296-4a67-8a83-5d7f900bf593-network-tools-dnsipemail-june-09-01-22-40-pm-2x.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/206d492e-f296-4a67-8a83-5d7f900bf593-network-tools-dnsipemail-june-09-01-22-40-pm-2x.jpg) And when you load any SDMB page, your browser downloads a bunch of files from the Discourse CDN: [![](https://fightingignorance.org/7ed49dcc-85ed-4af0-9943-07221a6fd911-has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues-site-feedback-straight-dope-message-board-june-09-01-24-01-pm-2x.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/7ed49dcc-85ed-4af0-9943-07221a6fd911-has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues-site-feedback-straight-dope-message-board-june-09-01-24-01-pm-2x.jpg) Self-hosted Discourse instances do not have the above behavior. * * * Edit: Probably @What_Exit or @engineer_comp_geek could confirm this, one way or the other? ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/36 "2025-06-09T23:45:54Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Self-hosted Discourse instances do not have the above behavior. This isn’t my subject matter, but it seems a self-hosted instance could theoretically still use the discourse CDN. That said, the DNS does seem fairly conclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/37 "2025-06-09T23:59:45Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > This isn’t my subject matter, but it seems a self-hosted instance could theoretically still use the discourse CDN. It could in theory, but the CDN itself says it’s used by hosted instances: [https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/) > this is a domain operated by [discourse.org](https://discourse.org) for quickly serving static assets that make up [hosted Discourse forums](https://discourse.org/buy) It’s probably also why we are tied to their hosted software release cadence (which some of our members struggle with). At work, we run our own self-hosted Discourse instance and have full control over everything. By contrast, I think the SDMB mods/admins can only manage a few plugins and admin settings through the Discourse admin interface, but not the underlying software or network stacks. (Of course, if I’m wrong, hopefully one of the mods will be along to correct me shortly.) Anyway, if this is correct and we are indeed hosted and managed by Discourse\*, it just means we have limited control over technical issues experienced by the forum. That’s up to the company and AWS. But you’d hope AWS would do a better job of it than our non-profit owners that don’t even remember we exist… lol. It really is such an interesting arrangement we have with them. (\*Or rather, the company behind them… I always forget its name, something like Civilized Discourse Construction Kit or something… sounds like something out of the Fallout games…) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/38 "2025-06-10T00:12:20Z")
Found the old posts where @engineer_comp_geek discusses this (actually, ChatGPT found what I could not): > [@Apparently I'm going to be kicked off the boards (Discourse upcoming incompatibility){New cheap PC posts moved out}](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-im-going-to-be-kicked-off-the-boards-discourse-upcoming-incompatibility-new-cheap-pc-posts-moved-out/1016432/165): > > No, we are not self-hosted. > > Discourse provides our hosting and also provides some degree of technical support. I don’t know the exact nature of our agreement, but they keep our software up to date and respond to bug reports and issues. They don’t do admin stuff like manage our site settings and such though. > [@Do we know or have some idea of how much it costs to run the sdmb?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-know-or-have-some-idea-of-how-much-it-costs-to-run-the-sdmb/995036/5): > > When we first moved to Discourse I tried to look up how much we were paying. Based on the number of page views we get, we’re well up into the “call for a quote” cost category. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/39 "2025-06-10T00:20:46Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Anyway, if this is correct and we are indeed hosted and managed by Discourse\*, it just means we have limited control over technical issues experienced by the forum. This makes this annoying and persistent YouTube links bug all the more maddening. I had sort of given it a pass since I assumed a fix would require our volunteer IT department to manually apply a major version update and shut everyone out for maintenance and the inevitable upgrade bugs. But this makes it pretty clear that it’s Discourse that has continued to screw that specific goat. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117/40 "2025-06-10T00:21:23Z")
The fact that we’re hosted by Discourse is the reason we have no control over the 10,000 post limit per thread, one of probably many performance-related parameters we don’t control. Those who self-host can set the limit to be whatever they like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-site-been-having-slowness-issues/1019117.md?page=3)