Misc The chronic Basenotes brownouts

[CookBot]

This is mostly an FYI thread for @grant. I know everyone's aware of the site slowdowns that happen routinely in the middle of the night, but I've just noticed a daytime pattern too.

In my time zone (Eastern U.S.A.), the night brownouts occur from about 11pm to 2am. Lately they're bad enough that I just get a 504 error page.

I've been tracking a similar brownout for a few days that happens pretty much every day from about 11:30am to 1pm. It happens in spurts between those times and is not consistently slow. It's happening right now, to the point that it took 45 seconds for each of my last three page transitions, and took so long to quote a reply in a thread that the software gave up and stopped trying after about two minutes.

If this affects you too, please click the "upvote" number in the tinted bar to the right of this post. -------->>

 

[FiveoaksBouquet]

This is mostly an FYI thread for @grant. I know everyone's aware of the site slowdowns that happen routinely in the middle of the night, but I've just noticed a daytime pattern too.

In my time zone (Eastern U.S.A.), the night brownouts occur from about 11pm to 2am. Lately they're bad enough that I just get a 504 error page.

I've been tracking a similar brownout for a few days that happens pretty much every day from about 11:30am to 1pm. it's happening right now, to the point that it took 45 seconds for each of my last three page transitions, and took so long to quote a reply in a thread that the software gave up and stopped trying after about two minutes.

It’s been happening here too. I did not take note of the total time frame as I haven’t been online that long but it’s happening now. Long waits with white pages.

 

[David Ruskin]

I am not aware of any particular pattern to the slow-downs. In my experience they happen at random; early in the morning until late at night. I have stopped bothering to note when it happens, as it is so often. I have stopped bothering to mention when it happens because as far as I am aware if times are mentioned there is no response. Grant did say that he was going to pay someone to investigate, but other than that there is no information. I think it is far worse to be given no feed back rather than truthful, bad news. I do not like being ignored, and it seems that we are being ignored when we express our frustration at the slow responses we all experience.

Moderators are quick to act in other areas, why not here?

 

[DoctorM81]

I am not aware of any particular pattern to the slow-downs. In my experience they happen at random;

Likewise. I too have been unable to identify any pattern to the slow-downs I experience. All I can say is that it's been going on for about 3 months (off the top of my head), and is still happening now - I've experienced it today in fact, very much as cookbot describes, taking between 30 seconds and 2 minutes to either log-in or move from page to page.

 

[CookBot]

Moderators are quick to act in other areas, why not here?

I don't think the mods have any control or influence over server issues. Probably the most they could do is commiserate.

 

[RedRaider430]

I used to only notice loading/server problems from 12:17 am CST to around 12:45 am. (It used to be only a 10 minute outage late at night, but now it's 30+ minutes.)

But now, it seems the site is intermittently slow no matter when I sign on....day or night. It never seems to "just work" as it's expected to anymore. It always seems to lag at least a little bit.

 

[David Ruskin]

I don't think the mods have any control or influence over server issues. Probably the most they could do is commiserate.

I'm not asking the moderators to fix the problem if they are not qualified in IT. I would expect the moderators to inform Grant of the problem, and inform us of what is happening.

 

[aikj55]

So that's what the lag is about the, I too have noticed at various times a very slow loading or response time when accessing the site.

 

[foxbins]

I am not aware of any particular pattern to the slow-downs. In my experience they happen at random; early in the morning until late at night. I have stopped bothering to note when it happens, as it is so often. I have stopped bothering to mention when it happens because as far as I am aware if times are mentioned there is no response. Grant did say that he was going to pay someone to investigate, but other than that there is no information. I think it is far worse to be given no feed back rather than truthful, bad news. I do not like being ignored, and it seems that we are being ignored when we express our frustration at the slow responses we all experience.

Moderators are quick to act in other areas, why not here?

Moderators don't have any access to the underpinnings of Basenotes. To the best of my knowledge, it's all (and only) Grant. ETA: Grant knows there's a slowdown, but the mods don't have any more information than you do.

 

[otterlake]

Yeah, I've been seeing this.

 

[Brian Buchanan]

It's not going as fast as it used to here in France, but it's intermittent and nothing like you're getting on the other side of the pond.
Maybe the transatlantic connection has something to do with it.
That's assuming BN is hosted in England - or somewhere close by.

 

[Martialisaragon]

It's not going as fast as it used to here in France, but it's intermittent and nothing like you're getting on the other side of the pond.
Maybe the transatlantic connection has something to do with it.
That's assuming BN is hosted in England - or somewhere close by.

I agree with this. Especially in the mornings, CET, there's a recurring issue with loading slowing down. It seems to be considerably worse Stateside, though.

 

[RedRaider430]

It's so horribly slow for me right now, the site should be shut down for maintenance. It's taking a good 45 seconds in between clicks. But of course, it's inconsistent.

 

[Grant]

As I've mentioned before, I've been attempting for months to locate the cause and have got nowhere. I've currently got someone looking into it. Sadly there's not much I can do until they can report back.

I'm not sitting around ignoring it, if it was an easy fix, I'd have done it months ago

 

[CookBot]

As I've mentioned before, I've been attempting for months to locate the cause and have got nowhere. I've currently got someone looking into it. Sadly there's not much I can do until they can report back.

Thank you, Grant. Do you think there's any validity to the idea that the problem may be more pronounced in the USA?

 

[David Ruskin]

Thank you, Grant. Do you think there's any validity to the idea that the problem may be more pronounced in the USA?

I have no way of telling, of course, but I doubt it. If it were any slower than here it would not be working at all!

 

[DoctorM81]

Thank you, Grant. Do you think there's any validity to the idea that the problem may be more pronounced in the USA?

I have no way of telling, of course, but I doubt it. If it were any slower than here it would not be working at all!

I agree with David Ruskin - there are several of us here in the UK also reporting serious slowdowns.

 

[RedRaider430]

Don't know what's going on, but the site is noticeably faster than it's been in a long while tonight. 😃

 

[Jean-Sté]

Site down during an hour in France, this morning.

 

[teardrop]

lt's been the case for a long time now that basenotes shuts down for about 10 minutes at 6.15 am UK time for some sort of maintenance/reset, but lately it's down for more like 45 minutes. For me this is irritating as this is the time that l browse while eating my cereal/drinking my coffee before going to work. lt's meant that l have to log my SOTD almost immediately when l get up, otherwise l won't get a chance to do it until much later. And l have to rush to catch up with all the threads l'm following before it shuts down. 6.30 would be a much better time for me, as that extra 15 minutes would make all the difference.

lt's slow at other times too, but l haven't noticed a regular pattern to this. l guess after all these years on basenotes l'm so used to it that l just put up with it. And, you know, first world problems...