Sign-on Slowness

[Howard Acheson]

For the past couple of weeks, I have been experiencing very long sign-on times. I haven't done anything to my computer that should be causing the problem. Is it something on your end?

 

[SubGuy]

I have not experienced any slowness. You may want to clean up your cookies and browsing history in you Internet Browser. If you need help doing so I can assist. You may PM or post here.

 

[Mike Davis]

My two computers, at work and home are as fast as ever. Zach is probably right, you need a little maintenance.

 

[gfernandez]

No problems here on my work, home or personal computer.

 

[ehpoole]

There has been no apparent slow down from my perspective either.

However, it is worth keeping in mind that the "Home Page", "Articles" and "What's New" pages are very large pages, both in terms of text (much of which you don't even see) and in terms of graphics, stylesheets, and so forth that must be retrieved when you hit the very first page of the site. The very first page, when retrieved and when all the elements of the page are retrieved, (especially if your web browser's cache is set to be cleared upon exit) can easily approach 0.5-1.0MB in size. Much of this content will then be cached for subsequent hits on the site, so other hits and page loads will seem to download faster after the initial.

If there has been any slowdown in your network (and this is especially true of mobile devices using 3G/4G for their connection, which can vary in speed considerably) or any slowdown of your PC, then you will probably see it most strongly on that first page when you login to the site.

You can also run into slowdowns when using WiFi for your internet connectivity as WiFi speed varies considerably depending upon the quality (both Signal Strength and Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of the connection between your PC/device and the Access Point. Your WiFi connection will become slower the further you get from your Access Point, but it will also slow down if there is a large amount of noise or interference being injected into the signal (such as from a neighbor's new Access Point). Which is why I prefer to network most of my PCs and hardware via wired Ethernet (which offers a consistent 100Mbit or 1Gbit speed versus WiFi) and only depend upon WiFi for non-critical and highly mobile devices where speed and reliability are of lesser consequence.

 

[Howard Acheson]

Thanks for the come-back, Ethan.

I seem to recall a similar problem a year or two ago. One of the responses was that my ISP had a problem and was not connecting to this site correctly. I contacted the ISP and the problem seemed to have gone away. As I recall, it may have been you responding at that time. Maybe it was some other technical expert at your end.

Could the same thing be happening now?

 

[ehpoole]

Thanks for the come-back, Ethan.

I seem to recall a similar problem a year or two ago. One of the responses was that my ISP had a problem and was not connecting to this site correctly. I contacted the ISP and the problem seemed to have gone away. As I recall, it may have been you responding at that time. Maybe it was some other technical expert at your end.

Could the same thing be happening now?

Sorry for the delay, I needed some time to gather some connectivity statistics.

I can't speak for more than about 48-72 hours ago, but starting about that time I have seen some glitching on the site (but this glitching and slowdown is very random and does not affect any specific page more than another).

There is evidence of congestion and occassional packet loss within Cogent's backbone (a major internet backbone provider), which serves a backbone that is common to the connection between the NCWW server (in Texas) and your provider (ATMC), as well as between my own servers (Charter Business) and NCWW's. The packet delays and occassional drops will sometimes result in a page that takes longer to load and render, sometimes considerably more so if you don't just go ahead and reload, however, like I said above, it is very random and can affect any page on the site, so it is not limited to login.

If you're having issues only with login, then the issue is likely unrelated and unique to your computer or connection. However, I can only test up to your provider's DSL cloud router (I'm assuming you are a DSL customer based upon their router's name), I can not test the actual connection between you and your ISP (namely, your DSL line).

If you suspect issues with your ISP connection, you may want to visit SpeedTest.net. It is best to run this test from a wired network connection to avoid possible slowdown and reliability issues related to a WiFi connection clouding the test results. As a residential customer, you can consider the test successful if the test results show uplink and downlink connection speeds of at least half your subscribed (contracted) bandwidth (e.g. if you have a 3Mbit downlink, 1Mbit uplink, then you want to see speeds of at least 1.5MBit/0.5Mbit -- or 1.5Mbit/500Kbit). If you fail this test the first time, try it at various times throughout the day to rule out peak use period congestion. If you continually fail the test more often than you pass, then contact your ISP to have them (or your telephone company) investigate possible line quality issues.

 

[SubGuy]

You may also want to talk to you neighbors as well. I know that I have lost connectivity before due to line quality issues. I still suspect it to be based off of something in your PC. Are you still having the issue?