Iflyrc4fun

My Feedback: (132)

Is it just me or have others noticed a trend of RCU running slower, loading slower. RCU pages use to load lightning fast now sometimes I get messages saying they are not responding. RCU is the greatest RC site in the world but it is getting frustrating sometimes waiting. What gives?

Silvanskii

My Feedback: (17)

Same problem here. Sometimes I just get sick of waiting and leave... Pretty annoying, but then again look how fast it's growing.

depfife

My Feedback: (14)

I haven't noticed a general slowdown here. There have been a few short term slowdowns in the past. Usually when something broke or RCadmin was working on the system.

Eric

GrnBrt

My Feedback: (5)

HMMMMMMMM??? Same here, nothing earth shattering. a little slow at times but just for a short while.

skypupmut

Same here
quite slow for a week now
just have to go and build some more when fed up with delay
but it still the best and fastest growing site in the biness

mvigod

I just addressed this in my sitewide sticky post. I am fully aware of it and have been negotiating with my provider for better pricing on adding 1 or 2 additional servers and a load balancer in addition to what we have right now (2 dual processor servers). Their pricing has delayed me a bit as I know I can do better so I'm shopping around if they don't come to the plate.

I'm fully aware of the issue at peak times and it is being addressed and will be blazing fast as soon as we finalize hardware pricing and configuration and then complete the balancing.

The site has grown rapidly since our last upgrade and caught me about a month behind the curve as a result. Be assured I will be taking all necessary steps to ensure the blazing speed exists even at the heaviest usage peak times.

thanks.

bentgear

Thanks Marc, even a little slow its still the best site on the net,,,, at least RC related site.
Ed M.

JoshFlies3D

Its just having growing pains .

Josh

Lynx

The slowdowns are frustating as hell, but a lot more bearable when you say you're doing something about it => Good work so far by the way. I hope I speak for a majority of the users here, it's a fantastic site.

mvigod

Oh yes...unfortunately few providers budge unless it is the end of the sales month (coming in 5 days!) and one needs real competitive quotes to get services for a realistic price. Lets just say that one quote from my current provider for a quad processor server was over $6000 for setup and another $6000 per month to "lease" it....better solutions are being explored as they do exist for far less.

4*60

My Feedback: (41)

Also receive this below once per night. Perhaps backup is kicking in. If so OK. It only lasts a few minutes. I know that's not strictly logons, but actual backend connections to the actual database.



Warning: Too many connections in /sda1/rcuniverse/admin/db_mysql.php on line 40

Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /sda1/rcuniverse/admin/db_mysql.php on line 40


"There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.

An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience."

Minnreefer

I know that most are not being critical of this site, but most people do not know how much time and effort and cost go into maintaining this large site. My wife and I have a similar but smaller site for salt water aquarims and I know first hand how diffucult it can be. I think this site may get a little slow at times but for what everyone pays a month for it, it is a great deal.

Thanks

mvigod

4*60,

that message is actually not related issue...we dump our whole database at 4AM EST at which time it takes anywhere from 8-15 minutes to back it all up. During this time all dB tables must be locked to preserve the integrity of the backup. In english this means the webserver cannot talk to our database server during the dump and I note your time stamp which was at the time of backup for us.

klank

Havent notice any slowdown!

mvigod

It is only at very peak time...approx 8pm to 11pm EST...will usually be intermittent as transient heavy usage spikes come in...our database is getting in excess of 400 queries PER SECOND at times!

Tippie

I don't think that the RCU server can be the whole problem. The entire internet system is becoming more and more "loaded down". If you have a dial-up connection it will depend on how many others access the internet on your "partyline" network connection. Cable modems will suffer similar slowdowns depending on the load of the local network. DSL is the least likely to slow down but in a nut shell the internet system is growing at such a pace the technology (and expense) has difficulty keeping up. I have noticed that around 7-8pm on Sunday nights seems to be the hardest hit. At least that is when I see problems and at times can not even get signed on until about 9pm. I understand that Marc is also overwhelmed by the response but cut him some slack and have a little patience. Thanks Marc!

Marv

mvigod

Not to worry as I said..new hardware is forthcoming...we are seeing heavy loads...the bells and whistles on RCU take a toll on CPU's and we need a bit more juice.

Furyflyer2

My Feedback: (117)

RCU rules! I can tell you first hand, the owner takes this site and it's performance very seriously. He will make any changes necessary to make ALL the users happy.

mvigod

paul has seen how nuts I am about speed firsthand...to me slow loading is not acceptable. I do know why the slowdown...it is our ad serving software. It is not the most efficient and when we simply changed the code to serve a different banner from top of the page and bottom (requires 2 calls) along with the little tiny ad in the rcu header it created 2 extra calls. Well that was enough to bury the server. I tested it tonight by disabling some of those ad spots and watching speed and loads tonight during the test. All came nicely under control and acceptable levels as many might have noticed despite almost 1300 people online at once.

We are close to securing the extra hardware and I hope to wrap up a migration within 2 weeks but these things are always complicated as our stuff is very custom so lots of source code recompiling.

4*60

My Feedback: (41)

Does it hiccup around 1:00 AM PST every night for some type of backup, also????? Seems to take many minutes to become available. 10-15.
I know normal people aren't up at the time but we're not normal, right?

mvigod

yup...at midnight EST we backup our logfiles...RCU's webserver logs generate several 100MB's per day of data so at midnight we rotate, compress and archive which takes about 5-9 minutes depending on current server load...the site can be slow or not responsive during the archive but these functions are critical and I like to do that one on the stroke of midnight.

Lynx

Do you guys have your caching system setup properly to make sure all the ad stuff is permanently in memory and what not? Is it the connection speed or the server speed, and if it's the server what on the server? Too many disk hits too much I/O I mean where's the bottleneck? Given the nature of the site and the repetitive nature of the information being sent out a little bit of cache will go a lloonngg way. Just out of curiosity if you guys don't mind posting it, what are the stats on the beast that runs RC Universe?

WreckRman2

My Feedback: (5)

I have noticed it to be a little slower lately as well. Usually during peak times though...

mvigod

Lynx,

we run 2 dual proc servers with 10k SCSI Raid 1. One is 1.2 dual and the other 1.5 dual procs. front end webserver with backend database server.

Problem is the massive php calls are too much for the webserver so we need to upgrade that server and offload all ads to a dedicated ad server and that will buy about 4 months at current growth. After that we go to load balancer and add servers as load increases.

All php files on the webserver are actually cached so they don't process with every page run (don't compile each time). This saves alot of heat but with 300,000 page views per day and upwards of 500 queries per second to the database it gets a little hot with the current hardware.

I'm close to final hardware selection and negotiations so once done I will migrate everything over asap and the speed will be again like day one.

WreckRman2

My Feedback: (5)

Just surfing RCU here this morning and several times I'm getting page not found... Just FYI.