Is it just me - getting onto this site?

What is going on? Is it just me? I am having major problems getting onto this site after 4pm and still at 7.53pm (dial up speed i.e huge crawl delay) and yet a speedtest tells me I am going like a bat out of hell. Diagnose and repair on Vista says there is no problem. I have cleaned out all the junk with CCleaner.

To add to that, the screen is looking different when I do crawl onto it - how do I explain that? It looks as thought each question segment is twice the size in depth (not font) of normal.

I run Avast that tells me I am as clean a whistle so what is it? I have a complaint into Voda (my IP) that I believe that Tcom have switched my line (long story) to a more crowded line but does any of this make sense to anyone else? Traffic? So why is the site different?

Just to add to that, I just Googled stuff.co.nz and it opened with minimal delay as did NZ Herald so what is going on? Is it my settings? Help!

It's okay for me and I just clicked on active topics and the search time was 0.01seconds so the server is up to speed.

If the thread titles are looking longer it could be because the icons to the left of the thread title haven't loaded.

Is anyone else having issues? If so, what isp are you accessing the site via?

Cheers
Kate

You could try deleting the lsb cookie and see if that helps...

Kate, I deleted the cookies via CCleaner and logged back on this afternoon after I was having problems. I use Google and I have had delays with that but given that the other sites open for me without to much of an issue, it just seems to be this site that is crawling for me. You haven't blacklisted me have you? BIG GRIN!

I have been having problems with speed for a while off and on and I put in a (numerous) complaints to Voda. Voda send me a sheet to fill in and I haven't yet done it. The reason - it goes like a bat out of hell for the next four days and there is no delay. The minute they text me to say that they are closing the complaint, it all turns to custard again! If I was paranoid (laugh) I would think they are trying to get me to move my plan up to something way more expensive. Not that logical given the number of customers they have but I pay about half of what a new customer would have too!

If it is just me having problems then I know it is not the site (and this has been going on for a few days) so just trying to get a benchmark (not critisise you or the site!) for my next complaint to them. Appreicate you being onto this so quickly Kate.

Jeez - I live on the perifery of Auckland. What IP are you using?

Kate;327757 wrote: It's okay for me and I just clicked on active topics and the search time was 0.01seconds so the server is up to speed.

The Active Topics result page always says that in my experience, which means that the server is performing as it should.

However, I would agree that the site has in recent times become a bit slower, to the point where you frequently wait a few seconds after clicking on a thread until such time as the contents are displayed.

To be honest, I don't see it as a problem, it's simply an observation from a long-time user of this site

On other sites that I have used where similar things happened, it turned out to be caused by Google's ad servers. Most pages on LSB have an ad or two tucked away somewhere, so I wonder if that could be the cause?

My ISP is NetSpeed and other sites are performing as they normally do.

I use Firefox and open my homepage on Alta vista, because it is not full of pop-up ads and loads quickly. I don't have issues loading LSB, but do have some trouble with an American site I go to occaisionally. I think theirs is a server issue though.

I'm happy to go with that explanation Grant so how do I turn off the Google ad servers or do I need to go to a new search engine becasue this is driving me crazy!

After replying above, it took forever for the reply to load and when it wasn't I hit the Back button and then I waited forever for something and then (without result) ended going back to Discussion Forums and there was your reply - neither of which showed up on my computer prior to that.

I WILL admit, that with a normal download speed of around 4Mbps, perhaps I am just being horribly impatient (apologies to those on dial up) but you get used to results and expect that to be the case at all times. However, this site for me is crawling and other aren't mostly so thus the question.

DiDi;327769 wrote: I'm happy to go with that explanation Grant so how do I turn off the Google ad servers or do I need to go to a new search engine becasue this is driving me crazy!

To be honest, I don't think this will help DiDi, but it won't hurt to give it a try. If you are running Firefox, use this ad blocker:

adblockplus.org/en/

Or for IE, use this one:

simple-adblock.com/

I have to say I'm hesitant to suggest either of these, because I haven't tried them personally. But I have seen such software recommended by others whose opinion I respect, so I don't expect you will do any harm by trying them. However, I don't really think this is the problem in your case, because I am not seeing anything like the amount of delay that you are.

The forums only use google ads on the footer so they shouldn't impact on how fast the page loads. We do use Google analytics though. I have an upgrade to the forums to load and that may make a difference. I'll schedule it for sometime this week.

Cheers
Kate

Thanks for the info. Kate. I have heard of slowdowns caused by Google Analytics before, so hopefully your forum upgrade will make a difference. Like I say; it's not a major, just seems not so fast as it used to be.

And - at 10.02 - it is flying again. Just to add to your info. Thanks guys