The SDMB is still usually slow. Let's face it, that's never going to change, is it?

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1

I’m tired of cussing it, tired of hearing lip service about it, tired of paying for something that isn’t reliable.

Why don’t y’all just cop to it and tell us.

Don’t try that weasely crap about it being the user’s problem…our ISP, sunspots, the price of tea in China, whatever.

I have perfectly wonderful internet speed, at home and at work, for every single site I ever visit, except for the SDMB.

So, I’m giving you a chance to come clean and just be honest about it. You won’t cause me to think any worse of the situation by doing it. That horse is well out of the barn and all the way out in the back 40 now.

Just do it. It’ll be a great relief for you to finally admit it, really.

2

I have “perfectly wonderful internet speed” for all sites, including the SDMB. Why would that be if the dope is the problem? I visit at all hours, midnight , 6 a.m., 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. just to name the last 24 hours.

3

Thanks for the input. I wish that were the case for me and many others.

4

What KayT said. The SDMB was slow as a dog for me for a really long time, but these days it loads as quickly as anything else, regardless of when I’m surfing.

5

For me the lag comes and goes. I try to interpret it as Og telling me to get off of the internet. If I stay away for twenty minutes, it’s usually all right again.

6

It varies for me, but it definitely still has problems on and off. There seem to be fewer timeouts, but I have had it take a couple of minutes to respond numerous times.

7

I should clarify and say that it’s really hit-or-miss for me; sometimes it’s fine, sometimes not. Of course, I likely notice the slow times more than the not-slow times. I guess my problem is that I must seem to pick the wrong time to try to surf the SDMB, like during normal waking hours in the US.

8

There is definitely a problem with the SDMB.

I use the internet on at least 6-7 different networks a week (work at large firms, public libary, internet cafe). While I get slow responses and timeouts occasionally on all of the sites I visit, the SDMB is the one where I consistently have the most, frequent problems, no matter what time I using it.

Additionally, mid-afternoon Saturdays, I’m almost guaranteed a 10-20 minute period where I can’t do anything at all, SDMB-wise, in addition to the ones I’ve mentioned.

9

For the past few minutes at least, I have been unable to load either the Straight Dope main page or the boards’ main page. Ping & tracert to straightdope.com and boards.straightdope.com worked, but no web page could load. Both are working now.

So maybe the slowdown led to a crash and now it’s fixed?

Maybe not. It just took me 90 seconds to post this message.

10

I also had a terrible problem in the last half hour. I have no explanation for this.

11

I read this thread an hour ago, and was not moved to add to it, but now I just want to “ditto” what the 2 posters above me said.

12

I’ve found that, in general, the SDMB is much more reliable to access than it was a couple/four years ago. But, yes, I still find occasional problems. They are, however, in my opinion, far fewer and far less long-lasting than they used to be. I can deal with it.

13

That worked for me, but only once. :smiley:

14

In 1960?

15

That decade, yes.

16

Same here, and I virtually never experience any slowness.

EDIT: Whoops, should have read that timestamp a bit more closely. I had a problem in the last hour counting from now, not when samclem did.

17

I have few SDMB problems during business hours Central Time. I might notice a slowdown or a page load failure twice or three times a week.

[Colombo-turns-around]

Just one more thing … there is a more frequently-recurring “error”. It’s so easily mitigated that I hardly notice it anymore.

Maybe 5-20 times a week, I will enter a reply to a thread, and the message board will time out or something and not return my browser to the thread (“Page Can’t Be Found” or some such error appears). It will look like the reply didn’t go through … but it invariably has gone through. Therefore, no real issue. I just go back a few windows, go back to the thread, click F5, and, – 95% of the time – all is well and my reply is in line.

18

I have gone through a two-year period where I used the Dope more than anyone else in that period has. I have used it from many PCs and networks.

There are periods where it slows down. I find this especially common from 4:30pm to 6pm EST. However the periods vary and we do know that many of the slow downs are tied to too many searches going on at the same time. In the two years, I have been on the Dope the performance has improved a lot, but it is still worse than most places on the internet.

I have found other sites to have delays; Wikipedia usually has a lag time as an example.

There are cases where the Users computer, or their network or their ISP or one of the many hops along the route back to the SDMB is at fault, however, I am pretty sure that most of the delays and timeouts are the SDMB server & Especially the Database not being able to handle the demands placed against it.

I report this as both the heaviest user until a few weeks ago for two years and as an IT professional with 15 years experience in related fields.

Jim

I forgot to mention: *Obviously I do not let these minor annoyances, annoy me much. *

19

I’m completely unable to post to the SDMB right now. This post is imaginary.

20

I am always on this site, and I’ve only had 3 instances in the years of lurking and posting where I’ve timed out and probably as many instances of general sluggishness.