Problems with the pages loading?

[Naj]

Has anyone noticed as of late that when you come to the board and click on a thread to reply or whatever that it takes awhile to load the smilies? Or the page? Is it just me?

[tiger_lilly]

I've noticed that as well Naj, the smileys can take a little while to load.

Another problem I've had was that the site wasn't updated when I came back to it after leaving it. So I had to hit refresh.

[Naj]

Okay. That's good to know the site isn't updated.


Anyone else experiencing something not mentioned here already?

scully said:

I've noticed that as well Naj, the smileys can take a little while to load.

Another problem I've had was that the site wasn't updated when I came back to it after leaving it. So I had to hit refresh.

[Naj]

There also seems to be problems in the Fan Art where Longisland posted a bunch of avatars all in one post. Maybe there is a limit per post. I'm going to have to go over to the help board and get some help on this. Maybe this has been going on since she made that first large post of avatars all in one post.


I guess we could move some of the avatars into new posts and see if that makes a difference.

[eurache]

well, I did mention in the beginning I had trouble downloading with the new banners, but it doesn't seem to be a problem now..

I did notice that it took awhile for smilies to load, but I thought it was me b/c of all the computer problems I've been having..

avatars or posting of pics I try to avoid at times b/c of long download

I'll let you know if I encountered any other problems

[longislanditalian2]

Sorry that I caused the problem . I have reduced the number of avatars so now there is three per post.

[Naj]

It seems better now. Let's all keep an eye out and see if it continues to be okay. This was just one thought I had about slow loading. If not then I have to go inquire at ProBoards.

longislanditalian2 said:

Sorry that I caused the problem . I have reduced the number of avatars

[longislanditalian2]

How about the banner sizes ,that can also cause a the pages to uploaded at a slower speed

[Naj]

I've addressed five different things on the board. If anyone is still having any problems or notices anything with slow loading of the board please let me know.


There still is one problem that is not corrected with the banners.


A reminder: ProBoards is best viewed in Internet Explorer.

[irishkale]

I've seen this problem before -- I actually CAUSED it one time.

It seems to be related to banners, avatars, or even photos that are embbeded in either a message or even just in someone's sig or avatar field. When these images are no longer available for download -- either they're removed from the original server, or the original server simply is out-of-service, it seems to create a lag.


I saw this "lag" happen when my server temporarily went down for a day. I had one of my Vera images installed as my avatar (which was linked to the server that went down.) Any page of a thread where I'd replied (and therefore my avatar would've been loading) experienced L-O-N-G delay times.
I think it may be that Proboards sits there and waits for the image to load; it must have some sort of timeout, where it might wait 5 seconds or whatever, before it says "Ok, that image link is broken, move on and finish loading the rest of the page."

Adding less avatars/banner/images to a page would reduce the loading time, mostly because with alot of images to load, the lag times of each individual avatar/banner get added up and contribute to the long load times of the page as a whole.


One simple way to test this:

Start a new post in the "test" thread and put ALOT of avatars in the post, using your normal image-hosting sevice (photobucket or whatever). Then watch to see if that particular page of the thread gets bogged down when you try to view it.


If it does, then putting a smaller number of avatars per post MIGHT help. But it's really going to be the number of avatars PER PAGE that's important. For example, you could start a new post and put 100 avatars in it. Or, you could make 10 posts and put 10 avatars in each. The will be equally slow if they all end up grouped on one page of a particular thread.


Another solution that might solve this would be to post the url of the avatar instead of embedding it as an image when you're posting them to the fan art thread.

For example---

This:

www.kmrocks.com/avatar/Vera-bunny-rabbit-2.gif

Versus This:





File sizes of avatars and banners will enter into the picture for people with dial-up accounts (i.e. 56k modem). For DSL and Cable people, there's really not that much of a lag related to filesize.


Now as far as the smileys are concerned when you do a "reply" to a post, I would blame the number of smilies. If you notice when you reply to someone's post, you get a summary of the thread below the text field where you type your reply. But notice that in the summariy, all of the banners, and avatars are stripped out. So in theory they wouldn't contribute to longer loading times within a "Reply" command.


Sorry for the long-winded post

[Naj]

irishkale said:

I've seen this problem before -- I actually CAUSED it one time.

It seems to be related to banners, avatars, or even photos that are embbeded in either a message or even just in someone's sig or avatar field. When these images are no longer available for download -- either they're removed from the original server, or the original server simply is out-of-service, it seems to create a lag.

Hi irishkale,

Yea, I noticed the avatars. So I've been trying to go back to those posts where I replied in the Fan Art that I added the pics to the gallery and take out all the photo's in my reply. And we might need people to post a few avatars at a time as they make them not a dozen on one page.

Also we have to look at everyone's signature to make sure it isn't going above PB's requirements. I think that is causing so problems too.

I saw this "lag" happen when my server temporarily went down for a day. I had one of my Vera images installed as my avatar (which was linked to the server that went down.) Any page of a thread where I'd replied (and therefore my avatar would've been loading) experienced L-O-N-G delay times.
I think it may be that Proboards sits there and waits for the image to load; it must have some sort of timeout, where it might wait 5 seconds or whatever, before it says "Ok, that image link is broken, move on and finish loading the rest of the page.

I checked where I have the images uploaded and there is plenty of room. I did notice that after this new skin was put on some coding was replicated for the smiles. I *think* I may have fixed that today. I took some of that coding off.

Adding less avatars/banner/images to a page would reduce the loading time, mostly because with alot of images to load, the lag times of each individual avatar/banner get added up and contribute to the long load times of the page as a whole.

I noticed this too. If you or anyone reading this finds certain thread on the forum that are causing slow loading, please post the link to the thread here.

Another solution that might solve this would be to post the url of the avatar instead of embedding it as an image when you're posting them to the fan art thread.

For example---

This:

www.kmrocks.com/avatar/Vera-bunny-rabbit-2.gif

Versus This:

File sizes of avatars and banners will enter into the picture for people with dial-up accounts (i.e. 56k modem). For DSL and Cable people, there's really not that much of a lag related to filesize.

I agree.

Now as far as the smileys are concerned when you do a "reply" to a post, I would blame the number of smilies. If you notice when you reply to someone's post, you get a summary of the thread below the text field where you type your reply. But notice that in the summariy, all of the banners, and avatars are stripped out. So in theory they wouldn't contribute to longer loading times within a "Reply" command.

True. But I never really thought of it in relation to the smilies before. So Eurache needs to stop putting so many smilies in her replies. ;D That's another thing that should be checked on. How many smilies per post can be accepted on ProBoards to keep lag time minimal.


Sorry for the long-winded post [/quote]

[Naj]

Well besides having threads of pictures there isn't really any limitation we have with the boards. Except for our two chat clients. I may have to take one of them out. I was thinking that would affect things. So if you are having problems with the board loading slowly it is suggested you do the following:


deleting your cookies, cache, defraging your hard drive, using a Spyware/Adware program, Registry Cleaner, etc.

[irishkale]

I BLAME THE CHICKEN!!!

[Naj]

I thought it was a duck.

irishkale said:

I BLAME THE CHICKEN!!!

[eurache]

It's a chicken!! i don'ts put too many smilies on, do I? ;D

[Naj]

I may have to replace all the smilie coding. It might be better to just start from scratch. I'll give it some more time. The coding changed when the new skin was put on. But, anyhow, I can do a new code on a smilie generator. It's much simpler to go that route than to try and fix each one.

[LillyKat]

I don't know if this is happening to anyone else ... but today (Friday 3/30) ... in some of the folders whereby there is a banner to TVFan's Pass the Remote site (under the KMO banner that shows up in all the folders), when I go to do a normal reply (not the Quick Reply), the "box" where you normally type your reply, quote, modify, etc. appears to be a hyperlink to her site and/or it doesn't let me use my cursor to highlight, delete, cut/paste text, etc. It's very strange. I've had to resort to using the arrow keys to move left/right, etc.

In the folders where the PTR banner does NOT appear, everything seems to be OK. Anyone else notice this? I've cleared cache, cookies, etc. but I think it must be in the coding or something - especially since this isn't happening in all the folders.

[riche]

LK can you give us some more info on the OS and browser you've seen this in? I've tried replicating it in Firefox on my Mac and can't. Even after disabling several add-ons that tweak the page.

[LillyKat]

riche said:

LK can you give us some more info on the OS and browser you've seen this in? I've tried replicating it in Firefox on my Mac and can't. Even after disabling several add-ons that tweak the page.

Hi RichE ... problem is still happening for me this week (as I just posted in the "Stand Up and Holler" thread). Yet, in this thread, everything is fine. So strange.

I'm on Windows XP / IE 6 at work. I haven't tried it on my Mac at home (which would be OS 10.4.9 / Safari 2.something - don't know what version I'm on now, whatever the latest is - LOL!).

It's probably some quirky Microsoftism that has suddenly made certain board pages function strangely for me. Thanks for trying to help me, though!

[michelle]

"Microsoftism". That needs to be in the newest dictionary update. :-)