The SDMB is loading reallllly slowly on FF and IE, also it’s causing the browsers to crash, especially FF. All other websites are fine so it’s not a general problem I’m having.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Yep, same here. It’s hanging badly during page loads. The SDMB is the only site it’s happening with.
It appears to be related to the SDMB’s advertising affiliates, because when it hangs, the status bar often says “Loading api.viglink.com…”
Firefox 3.6.12; IE 8
No problems here. Quick as a whistle.
No problem here either. In fact I was thinking recently just how impressive the speeds on the SDMB were now compared to the bad old days of a few years ago when I’d be lucky to get here half the time. I couldn’t be happoer with the performance now.
Well, it’s working nice and quickly in Chrome, so it could be something related to Firefox add-ons. Still, rather annoying, especially since it’s clearly related to the advertising api, and every single other site on the whole internet works fine in my Firefox.
Also, i’ve only noticed it this morning. It was running fine all weekend.
Ooh get you 
I’m getting really frustrated now, maybe mhendo and I, mhendo and * me*? Anyway, maybe we need to change something on our browsers…? That’s the only thing I can think of.
I’ve just read mhendo’s post so will now try Opera or Safari or something. And then I’ll try a different browser 
yeah ok.
Exactly the same symptoms here, in NZ, using IE8, only started today and only when there is ads on the page.
Reported.
mhendo: since you are a member, it won’t hurt to get an Adblock and use it just to block that one problematic server.
Heck, I just have it enabled all the time here.
I have Adblock Plus, and have it enabled, but the site still seems to be trying to load api.viglink.com every time i have a problem.
No problems here. But I did note that a day ago, I got that odd error message once. But just the once. First time in a long time, but in the past that usually happened when the Board was going down.
Well, the problem seems to have gone away on my computer. Everything seems to be working normally now.
Wouldn’t an Adblock work for guests of the messageboard?
The problem seems to have stopped for me too, probably thanks to TubaDiva’s reporting, although for a second there I thought that she’d reported my post because I did something wrong…
It just started loading slowly at the top of this hour. I can now also not use Search, again just from the top of this hour, getting this usual error message instead:
**Database error
The Straight Dope Message Board database has encountered a problem.
Please try the following:
Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
Open the boards.straightdope.com home page, then try to open another page.
Click the Back button to try another link.
The boards.straightdope.com forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.
We apologise for any inconvenience. **
Suddenly okay again.
Of course. I was merely anticipating the moral objection I often get when recommending adblockers. The objection is usually that one is mooching off the site–a concern that is baseless for a paid member.
Haha! “Mooching.” I could be running an adblock right now and none of you would know about it. Mwahahahaha!
But seriously, the ads don’t bother me really. 