# New Thread on Board Performance **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 30, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442 "2014-07-30T19:59:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2014, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/141 "2014-09-28T09:29:19Z")
> [@SiamSam222](#): > > Every Sunday at 2am CST in the US, the Board does something like back itself up. It’s down for about a half hour at that time. That’s probably what you encountered, as it would be about the right time frame. Thanks for that. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2014, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/142 "2014-09-28T13:32:38Z")
> [@SiamSam222](#): > > Okay, I’ll stick with my usual browser at home, which is Firefox. But again, since I’ve had this sock account, I’ve been zapped once on it and once on my real account, both on Firefox, although in the past I’ve been zapped on IE too. Ahh. I missed that - sorry. So it’s not the account. We already knew it wasn’t the browser in general, based on other people (like me) not using Firefox and getting hit. But it’s good data to have it with a single person. I’m not sure what else we can learn with the experiment. Anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/143 "2014-09-28T20:06:25Z")
is anyone going to answer **Giraffe** ’s question in post #128? It’s been three days. I’m starting to wonder if the problem is indeed server based and you guys are too embarrassed to admit it. ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/144 "2014-09-29T01:21:11Z")
I hadn’t been zapped for a while, but it’s happened a lot more lately. Not daily again, but still more often than I’d like. I do not have this problem on any other message board. I can usually tell it’s going to happen because while I’m loading the site, it gets exceptionally slow. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/145 "2014-09-29T03:20:20Z")
> [@Fair\_Rarity](#): > > I hadn’t been zapped for a while, but it’s happened a lot more lately. Not daily again, but still more often than I’d like. I do not have this problem on any other message board. I can usually tell it’s going to happen because while I’m loading the site, it gets exceptionally slow. Frequency of zapping seems to go up and down. I can go days or weeks without a zap, then have several clustered together. There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as far as patterns go. Monday morning over here and my last zap was Thursday. I had two zaps that day – one on my real account in the afternoon and the other on this sock account that night. Nothing since then. I’m using only my sock account now. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/146 "2014-09-29T04:05:48Z")
I don’t know if this is a clue, but the board was acting a bit slow yesterday. I had the GQ page up and since it was loading slow, I hit the URL bar to refresh it. However, the page loaded just as I hit the refresh, and when it loaded the second time I was zapped with the same symptoms that you describe. The two significant things seem to be (1) the board was slow and (2) I did a very quick refresh after the page loaded. It might have something to do with the server getting bogged down and/or retries. Just a wild guess. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/147 "2014-09-29T04:30:37Z")
FWIW, I tried refreshing pages here for the last 15 minutes or so and wasn’t able to trigger a zap. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/148 "2014-09-29T08:42:52Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > FWIW, I tried refreshing pages here for the last 15 minutes or so and wasn’t able to trigger a zap. The zap, at least for me, happens only upon login. If I’m not zapped right away, I won’t be zapped. I think once it happened otherwise, but only once. I just forgot and logged in on my real account without thinking. No zap though. And no zap this time on this sock account. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/149 "2014-09-29T17:01:00Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > is anyone going to answer **Giraffe** ’s question in post #128? It’s been three days. I’m starting to wonder if the problem is indeed server based and you guys are too embarrassed to admit it. I have no response from Jerry. I’ll try again. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/150 "2014-09-29T17:28:05Z")
My own experiences _might_ shed light; I also live in Thailand. Logging-in isn’t a problem for the simple reason that I never log-out. However sometimes, the SDMB site is extremely unresponsive; I get continual error messages for several minutes; then it finally clears up. I often have similar problems on others sites, especially MB’s but even Wikipedia, but SDMB is the 2nd worst. (I don’t know the rules about naming other message boards, but I’m thinking of one of the Mods here. 🙂 HOWEVER, if I fire up the Tor browser I can access SDMB and other sites from it (though sometimes getting a “Banned IP” message from SDMB) with no trouble. I have a very flakey local Internet connection, but the fact that I can access SDMB via Tor suggests my local Internet is not the problem. I wonder if it’s related to government filtering here. Sometimes SDMB works fine; sometimes it’s really bad for several minutes. I’ll click Submit Reply now — if I get an error message, I’ll do the same thing from the Tor Browser. ETA: It worked. An hour ago I could only post via Tor. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/151 "2014-09-29T18:03:01Z")
I’ve been zapped twice today, both times in Firefox. My normal board reading M.O. is to start at the top of the forum list and go into each forum and open any threads I’m interested in in new tabs, then go back and read them. Twice today (and several times in the past) I’ve gone into ATMB and then into GQ. When I go into GQ and subsequent fora, everything is marked read. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/152 "2014-09-29T18:40:22Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > OK, I’ve done a bit of hunting around in the code and the AdminCP. Before I expound on how the lastvisit is stored / accessed, I have a key question for Tuba / Jerry: > > **What is your AdminCP / vBulletin Options / General Settings / Thread/Forum Read Marking Type option set to?** > > There are three options: > > Inactivity/Cookie Based > Database (no automatic forum marking) > Database (automatic forum marking) > > Followed by another relevant field: Database Read Marking Limit, the time in days to store the thread and forum read times. > > No point is speculating about anything else until we know the answer to this question. If it’s cookie based, that puts it on the user / browser. If it’s database based, that puts it on the server. Jerry sez: Thread/Forum Read Marking Type is “Inactivity/Cookie Based” and Database Read Marking Limit is “10”. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/153 "2014-09-29T23:27:05Z")
Whatever the outcome of this experiment, I do appreciate the attempt to get to the bottom of it and now plan to re-up my subscription for a couple more years after all. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/154 "2014-09-30T00:20:33Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > Jerry sez: > > Thread/Forum Read Marking Type is “Inactivity/Cookie Based” and Database Read Marking Limit is “10”. Thanks, Tuba! I’ll go through the code and pull out the relevant sections based on the cookie-based inactivity calculation. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/155 "2014-09-30T14:03:42Z")
> [@Turek](#): > > My normal board reading M.O. is to start at the top of the forum list and go into each forum and open any threads I’m interested in in new tabs, then go back and read them. > > Twice today (and several times in the past) I’ve gone into ATMB and then into GQ. When I go into GQ and subsequent fora, everything is marked read. This is largely the procedure I follow, except I don’t open threads in new tabs. I do start with ATMB and then move on to GQ. I wonder whether I would no longer experience the everything read annoyance were I to start with another board. If I can remember to do so, I might try by starting with the Pit and working my way up. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/156 "2014-09-30T14:07:13Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > This is largely the procedure I follow, except I don’t open threads in new tabs. I do start with ATMB and then move on to GQ. I wonder whether I would no longer experience the everything read annoyance were I to start with another board. If I can remember to do so, I might try by starting with the Pit and working my way up. I always go straight to User CP to check my Subscribed threads. Still no further zaps since last Thursday, five days ago. ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/157 "2014-10-01T01:04:09Z")
Hit again tonight. Clicked on message boards from [http://www.straightdope.com/](http://www.straightdope.com/) and they pulled up. Clicked on Cafe Society and it just loaded and loaded and loaded. Timer reset. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/158 "2014-10-01T01:45:42Z")
Dunno if this makes a difference but we do have some pretty heavy traffic right now. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/159 "2014-10-01T03:14:03Z")
Wednesday morning and now six days since my last zap. Interestingly, on that day, last Thursday, I was zapped on both accounts, real and sock. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442/160 "2014-10-01T06:17:27Z")
In the past couple of days, I’ve had problems with SDMB pages ‘loading’ until they don’t, while other websites are doing fine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-thread-on-board-performance/694442.md?page=9)