Very slow navigation

[olly]

it's been a lot quicker on the forum in the last few days so maybe the problem has been fixed 

[VESPA]

Absolutely no different to me slow and jerky.

[walkingthedog]

The forum is responding very well. Much quicker.

[Chrissaf]

No response time issues my end either.......

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I did however make one minor amendment to my browser settings a week or two ago that might have a bearing on my perceived improved forum performance. I changed my browser setting to delete the locally stored cache on exit. Now that my cache file folder is so much smaller, the browser takes less time looking up previous cached web pages (including Hornby's). Not an issue for me that the browser now looks to the Internet for what were previously locally cached pages as I have a high speed 'fibre based' Internet service.

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PS - I didn't change the configuration to delete ALL the browser history on exit, I went deeper into the settings options to just select the cache for deletion leaving my cookies and other history data intact. Browser is Firefox 57, but most browsers have similar option settings.

[walkingthedog]

Well I've done nothing and the response time is fine. 

[VESPA]

I must be the only one using this website with poor response and yet every other website I access except Hattons is almost instant. I can download video with no buffering taking place so there must be problems on here. I am also using Firefox latest version and have cleared everything just in case I was collecting cyber junk and still no better. I loved coming on here but now it is a chore as it takes far too long to get pages loaded. If you look at one page and move to the next it has a delay. If you wish to go up or down a page it's jerky. On no other site inc Hattons do I get jerky up and down side bar movement. My connection is not superfast at 72mbs but faster than many around me. Also using the same Hornby site via my phone I get the same resposes, slow and jerky.

[RB51]

Perplexing Vespa. I AM on a superfast connection - 56Mbps just now (last 300M is copper so a little less than advertised) - so it is not that. I am sure our (non) resident IT expert will be able to shed some light on the issue for you/us. Hail Augustus Ceasar. R-

[RDS]

@Vespa

There have been problems recently with the site, regarding slow update times and it is probably true to say that we have all experienced this at one time or another.  There were cases yesterday when members were obviously suffering from the problem, because we saw on a number of occasions, repeat postings and this is caused by a member (and I have done it myself) pressing the submit button again whilst the system is loading the first press.

However, I don't think (and somone like AC would be better to confirm this) that moving up and down a page would be affected by a slow internet connection or a problem with a particular site.  This is more likely to be a computer running slow issue.

[VESPA]

Tried it on my phone and just on my wife's laptop and still the same. No other website is affected except Hattons secondhand section with just a slow to load page there. It's a problem on here I am sure even typing in the messages has a fractional delay. On no other site, and I look at many from trains to cars to shopping, does it happen.

[Chrissaf]

Browsers, email clients and Anti-virus programs are so inextricably linked these days. The symptoms you describe 'jerky scrolling' I have seen my browser exhibit (not necessarily on the Hornby site) when my anti-virus has been running background scans. Similar effect noticed when drafting occasional emails as well, where my typing cursor disappears for about 15 seconds then comes back after a flurry of hard disk activity.

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What AV product are you using?

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Can you temporarily disable it to see if Hornby navigation is improved (just purely as a brief diagnostic check). My AV gives me a 'pause protection' option to do a timed disable where you configure a count down timer within the AV program to auto re-enable it after the timer expires.

[VESPA]

Firstly, thank you all for your suggestions. I am running Firefox browser, BT MacAfee av and firewalls, Ghostery, and Adblock plus and all latest Windows 10 updates. I have spent much of this afternoon on Model Rail Forum, RM web and my Jaguar car Forum along with some visits to retailers, all without the hassle I experience on here with slow loading pages and jerky side bars. It never did this until the disappearing posts was fixed along with auto logging out. To log out now takes 4 secs for part 1 and 4 secs for part 2. So I am using this Forum really just to get a fix sorted. The actual pleasure of the General Discussion section is not worth the hassle for me anymore. Sad but I think my time with the Hornby Forums has finally come to an end.

[Chrissaf]

Before giving up completely. Worth a try at least. Go into Firefox 'Options' / 'Privacy & Security' / 'Cached Web Content' and use the 'Clear Now' button. It may take some time to process, but it should clear the cache to 0MB or very near 0MB. Close and re-open Firefox and test Hornby forum again.

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If this does illicit an improvement, then change the History Settings to clear the cache on exit (if not already set that way).

[Augustus Caesar]

@Vespa

 

I've taken into account what you have on your system and would like to offer up a few suggestions if you don't mind attempting them to see if your issues are sorted...

I did have a long protracted post to go on here offering all kinds but I think we should start from the beginning.

Also noted is the attempts you have thus made to try and get this problem sorted with help from others but please do stay with this and we can see with this or subsequent help we can get stuff done.

 

First off let's see if you have an issue with the nework... I note more than one piece of equipment is having the problem re slow page loads.

I would assume you have taken a look at the router and restarted it a few times.. if not do that first. If so there may be a DNS issue with network cards (although all equipment would not necessarily have a problem at the same time). You could try and flush the DNS on your main PC to see if this clears things there first by doing this:

Open a command prompt as an administrator and type then and enter: ipconfig /flushdns (the space is important).

You'll get a message saying it was done successfully. If not let me know.

Flushing thumbnail cache and memory cache can also help but not too likely across many forms of tech with the same issue. A simple search tells you how to do this if you want to and it is by no means complicated.

After flushing DNS you should now disable McAfee, Ghostery and AdBlock as much as you can and then check your page loading from there.

It is still possible you may have the same issues. What I would do now is completely stop all background programs in Windows from starting at first boot when all they do in reality is take up either processing power or bandwidth as they send communiques to wherever while your system is running and all this is done behind ones back so to speak.

A check on my Help Site will guide you through this for Windows 10 Application Settings and Windows 10 Privacy Settings. On that same site I suggest you install and run the programs I state for AV and spy/malware etc. Ensure that while the scanning with these is being done that McAfee is disabled. See the reasons for using these on my site. (Link below opens in a new indow).

https://octaviancs.com/railmaster/rm.php

Check the link for Anti-Virus and any other areas you think may be of interest. Although McAfee can mostly interfere with RailMaster through its own protection (firewall in particular) it can also cause issues with browsers. Again I do acknowledge other tech with the issues you mention but solving one can often lead to solving another even with non identical methods.

 

One other point is you say you have a fast broadband connection so I assume you use fibre? That in itself will not cause individual sites to suffer from lag so basically speaking at this stage it can be discounted as either analogue or fibre should not create this kind of problem.

Who is your ISP? Virgin, Sky, PlusNet or other? This COULD have a say in your problem. If you let me know which you use then I can maybe advise on that too.

 

There is plenty more that can be checked but rather than give a long post here I think the basics should be sorted first. Again if you have tried these that's fine. Best to clear up though before suggesting further potential help.

[VESPA]

Thank you all for your input and I have already covered most of the suggestions. I clear all caches at the end of each session and also defrag and clean the disc about every two days. I use MacAfee clean up also which gets rid of loads of junk also all cookies are cleared. My ISP is BT which is fibre up to about 50 yds from my house and then copper for the rest. My download speeds are around 70mbs. The best Sky is offering around me is a measly 25mbs. I have stopped many start up programmes to speed up the system by trial and error and my phone is 4G. That too has the same problem with this site. It is only this site and Hattons secondhand that are a problem. I assume that Hattons servers are just slow because of the massive amount of listed stock. Once loaded the secondahand sect is fine but not super fast. One thing I noticed today was that the sidebar moves OK and then stops for a second or so then continues and stops for similar periods. I can only think that as it is basically just the Hornby site that is affected it is nothing to do with my set up at my end. As I am typing my download speed today is 60.02mbs and upload speed 18.88 mbs

[Augustus Caesar]

May I ask if you are running all systems and phones etc. in the home under DHCP allocated IP's from the router or have you got everything on fixed IP addresses? Dependent upon the order in which they are switched on and allocated dynamic IP's you may sometimes be getting an IP clash. This may not be happening at all of course but it is better eliminated. If you can set each bit of tech that uses the router up with a fixed IP that would be instantly better even apart from your issue as the data will then reach each part of your network faster as the router knows exactly where to send any data and no clash can occur. This is one reason why some routers often need a switch off for a few seconds to clear the cache so data is not corrupted in the router cache for a long time which in turn can stop data reaching your tech.

 

If your phone is using 4G, which for those who don't realise, does not use the router or home network at all, is also affected then it could well be down to the coding on the site itself.

JavaScript and large imaging can cause lag as can some CSS structuring but this is rare. Precisely the kind of thing you are mentioning is symptomatic of the causes I describe above and will be completely independent of fibre or analogue download speeds. Unfortunately this issue is talked about across the web although most topics or posts in forums will invariably mention fixes related to one PC or one piece of tech and not treat causes being brought about by certain web sites and causing problems on more than one part of your network or several pieces of tech at the same time. If you can even attempt to disable JavaScript while looking at the Hornby site for example and test that to see if that does anything it doesn't preclude the phone. That will also have a JavaScript interpreter. By testing the JS part of the problem on the PC you may find a difference. If not then the whole thing may just be a possible lag through Hornby's site as you suspect.

 

Data from the Hornby site has to pass through servers other than theirs and your ISP’s (BT) and each one will transmit everything through their network before it reaches you. If the coding is not structured correctly then that alone can cause problems. The tricky part of that is trying to discover which networks your data from the Hornby site to you is going through. If any one of those has poorly connected cabling, network equipment that is not up to the task or servers which are being under maintained or, indeed, are being used by several other servers and networks simultaneously then problems will almost arise most of the time.

Try doing a test on this and see where possible timeouts may be occurring and where lags are holding up data.

Open a command prompt as admin and type “tracert hornby.com” (without the quotes) and press enter for starters.

This gives you the full route data takes from Hornby servers to your own PC at home.

If you don’t understand it a simple search on what the data shown means will tell you exactly what it is shown and how you can read it.

 

Have a shot at that and let me know what you get. Even a screen shot rather than type the whole list on here.

[VESPA]

Thank you for trying to help with this problem. Why is it only the Hornby website that has this problem? I visit many websites every day and only this one has the problem so I doubt that it is my router or anything to do with BT as I have also skipped out my router to try a BT hotspot connection. My phone is 4G connection and again going through Vodaphones connections it is the same. I have tried Microsoft Edge to see what happened there and that was slightly faster loading but still slow compared with other websites (over 200+ bookmarked)

I think I will give up on this one. Thank you anyway.

[2e0dtoeric]

I'm about two miles from Vespa's place, and just for curiosity I ran that check of A.C's - and got this - (cropped and enlarged) - if it tells you anything!

/media/tinymce_upload/21a628dc8dcb042499863c5ce1b6cabc.jpg

[Howbi]

By comparison, my tracert appears much faster.......but I'm on fibre @ 37Mbps........HB

/media/tinymce_upload/1e1c5d50611adb0d9a59a172a85dd386.jpg

[2e0dtoeric]

Ah - didn't say - I'm on fibre too - supposedly 200mbps - (and the other leg goes ding-a-ling!)

I've not run a speed check recently. Last time I did, it was 2.5 down and 0.5 up, but we've supposedly had a speed increase in the last couple of days, not that I've noticed!

(edit to add a comment)

[Augustus Caesar]

My own trace route shows slower speeds as my connection is not fibre. Although I do require remote access to servers fibre is not going to achieve much more than what I have at this point so it is not worthy of using coz I don't download vids or stream anything.

Anyway... if you do a few trace routes using the same command obviously you will notice that each route can be different as it takes different paths to reach the destination requested by the user. This can drag sites down and no-one has any control over where the route is taken. Each port is scanned by the router dealing with the transaction and looks for the next open line on which to send its carrier and if the previous ones used are closed or busy then another route is taken.

 

Try it and see...

What you would look for in order to decipher poor connections is the longer it takes (significantly) in milliseconds (ms) and also time out reports before a connection is made on each step (or line of information as you see it in your report).

 

You may note that any trace route you do on any site or IP address is better the less steps it takes before the scan is done.

 

@Vespa

The cause of your issue does indeed appear to be either associated with Hornby or its transmitted information through networks to your router. The most likely thing that would be your cause is the route the data is being sent through or along in that the equipment used is either old, not fast enough or is being hammered by other servers around the country (or, indeed, world if other nation's users are accessing information traversing through those servers). This will not help your problem but it is the MOST likely issue. Your systems cannot be at fault as I said earlier as there are many forms of tech you have used that show similar problems.

 

Data travelling through 4G networks still take data from servers around the world which hold and transmit the information required (here it is Hornby's site) via many servers before hitting a transmitter which passes that information to you on your phone etc.

 

If you want to change ISP's then that may help as each one chooses virtually where to route their own requests and will use different paths than what the rest do (however, once the data leaves THEIR servers they too cannot control where it goes to reach its destination). If a dodgy cable (or bad equipment) is not replaced at a specific point on the route then until that cable is fixed any site having its data transmitted through it will not get better until that fix is done. These points could literally be anywhere in the world.

 

You could ask your ISP to carry out trace checks of their own on Hornby's site and they may suggest a couple of things like changing your primary or secondary DNS servers (which stops usage of your ISP's main servers to that of, say, Google's). That may help. To do this a search on this topic will tell you how easy it is to change these. They could also test the traceroute for you so it gives independant results to your own scans.

 

It may all sound over the top to do this stuff but while it can seem daunting it certainly does open one's eyes. I've been doing this for many years and still see folk suffer stuff they shouldn't and it can all be down to some absolutely stupid reason which would cost pennies to fix... however, if the ISP is not informed of problems they can't fix them.

 

I'll leave it there unless you have any info you wish to be added or questions answered Vespa. It's no problem.

[2e0dtoeric]

It seems the forum is on a go-slow again, taking anything between 30 seconds and a minute to change pages.

[hedley_reynolds]

Hi 

I have noticed that it’s been on a go slow for me all day but I have been blaming my IPAD for it taking ages to change pages and topics and I didn’t realise that it’s a common problem and I’m not the only one having difficulty with the forum as I too have no problems with other websites or other forums being slow 

Hedley

[Chrissaf]

Slow for me too during late afternoon, but improving as the evening gets later. As per other's.....no other web site affected, only Hornby's.

[96RAF]

Seems to be OK this morning but last afternoon was dead slow.

Rob

[96RAF]

Very slow forum reaction again today.

Its the same on all platforms and its only bad for the Hornby site, other forums, sites, mail, etc all respond in normal time.

I have also,seen the odd Gateway Timeout errors.

Anyone else seeing really slow refresh rates recently.

Rob