N gauge Forum access slowing down

[Bob Tidbury]

I've been trying on and off all day Just sent an Email to Tank to say that  I keep getting message Server Not Responding Tried again and it's working ,what is going on is it because there are too many members , or is it because there are too many posts .Do we need to delete some of the older threads or some of our own P M s I am not well up on this sort of thing but I wish it can be sorted soon I really enjoy the Forum and all the help and tips we get here but it's very anoying when it's not working properly.
Bob

[Tank]

It's looking likely to being an issue with the forum itself and the way that it's coded. I'm waiting for updates and a possible fix.

[Geoff]

Would not let me in for 3-4 hours, hope you can sort the code out Tank.

[Tdm]

If Tank you don't get a satisfactory answer to the problems currently being experienced with the Forum, it may be worth while considering swapping to another hosting company.

I don't know much about "SimplePortal", but a number of other Web Forums I use are hosted by "vBulletin" and that seems to handle lots of members and lots of posts quite easily. Don't know what they charge though.

[Tank]

Thanks TDM.  We changed hosts not so long ago (May?) and although everything was fine at first, the problem did follow us.  So, it is likely to be some problem with SMF (Simple Machines Forum software).  One of their engineers/developers is looking into it for us, so I am reliant on them.

SMF is highly customisable, which is it's attraction.  Something somewhere must be creating a lot of load for the server.

[Lawrence]

Something somewhere must be creating a lot of load for the server.

Perhaps hosting all the media files is causing issues?

[jonclox]

Something somewhere must be creating a lot of load for the server.

Perhaps hosting all the media files is causing issues?

Those must certainly put a strain on the on the allocated bandwidth that the forum is entitled to.
I know of at least one non railway related board that has had to ban the storage of photos etc and only allows links to Photo.bucket / Utube and the likes.
The cost to them had dropped considerably and much more bandwidth freed up for threads 

[DesertHound]

Ah - I'm posting pics on my advent calendar until Xmas. They are railway related - happy to have them removed after December if it helps. I think it's the videos that are the problem if it's related to data sizes.

[Malc]

I wouldn't have thought video or picture storage is the issue, that doesn't really affect the bandwidth used. That is related to users accessing the site. The data sent to your PC as a result in you looking at pages added together for all concurrent users gives the bandwidth. Sometimes I have seen memory leaks in software causing memory and processor overloads which also can cause server issues.

[DesertHound]

I thought as much too Malc. Just thought "if" it's anything to do with data then the videos are monstrous. I think it's something at SMF's end. That said, I'm not qualified in IT so I'll leave it to the experts.

Dan

[Oldun]

Don't know if its any help but, the Series 2 Club forum uses -

Powered by SMF 1.1.9 | SMF © 2013, Simple Machines LLC

This gives instant access for logging on/in and going round the various posts.

Is there much difference between the above and the one we/you use -

SMF 2.0.9 | SMF © 2014, Simple Machines SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal

Roger

[Trainfish]

Not too slow here although slower than a few weeks/months ago. It takes around 5 seconds to load a page without pictures (like this one) which is not as quick as some but ok by me. If it was as slow as I am at building a layout then we would have serious problems.
I'm using Sky broadband by the way with a current download speed of 11.3Mbps according to Sky and others of 9.68 and 10.46.

[longbridge]

I tried to access the forum for 5 hours last night but could not get on, I also found another railway forum I am a member of has the same access problems.

I don't know how true it is but I read in a computer magazine a few years ago that one day the internet would be full and severe access problems would be the start, rather like a near full glass of water with only a few drops left before it overflows 

[Lawrence]

I wouldn't have thought video or picture storage is the issue, that doesn't really affect the bandwidth used. That is related to users accessing the site. The data sent to your PC as a result in you looking at pages added together for all concurrent users gives the bandwidth. Sometimes I have seen memory leaks in software causing memory and processor overloads which also can cause server issues.

I stand corrected  just thought if people were accessing it a lot it could compromise the accessibility

[Newportnobby]

Running pretty damned well at 21.05 5.12.14

Edit: running so well that I've read everything in a quarter of the time it would have taken. Hope everyone else is finding the same.