TWC Today Forums
TWC Today => Questions, Comments, Suggestions => Topic started by: TWCToday on August 22, 2010, 05:40:20 AM
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Please rate on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being Poor and 10 being Excellent) how well the site and forum have been performing for you.
Some factors to consider:
Page load speed
Audio/Video load speeds
Search speeds
Latency
Database/mySQL errors
Thank you very much for your input!!
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Page load speed: Can take anywhere between 7-15 seconds, sometimes 30 seconds or more.
Audio/Video load speeds: I don't usually use those, but from what my tests are, same time to start the videos/tracks as above.
Search speeds: forum search speeds are typical for the amount of posts we have on the forums. They take on average 1 minute 15 seconds
Latency: ehhh, here's where we run in to issues... The site itself, depending on the time of day, can be fast, or it can be slow. Peak hours, the site takes an extra 2-3 seconds to load. Non-peak, it loads almost instantly, excluding the forums. The forums depend on the next answer I give...
Database/mySQL errors: The host usually has a tricky time making sure mySQL stays up and running efficiently. Database queries from the forums are taking a huge hit in execution time due to excess customer usage. They *ALWAYS* go down between 12:00-12:05am and can last up to approx 5 minutes. In the last two days, I have gotten about 15 "cannot connect to database errors," 4 of which were because it was midnight.
But what you're looking for is a score. On a scale from 1-10, 1 being piss poor, and 10 being "orgasmic," I would have to give the overall experience a 4.
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Page load speed: Usually from 5 to 30 seconds depending on media content if any
Audio/video: seems fine for my connection
Search speeds: a little slow and only query to posts forum-wide when only viewing the board index
Latency: It depends how many programs connecting to a port I have open and browser. In SeaMonkey, pages load in 2 seconds
Database/SQL errors: To my extent those happen at least any hour everyday at :05 past and are fixed in a refresh
Overall its a 6 for me
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This will be conducted in an honest manner.
Page load speed: sometimes it loads fast, sometimes it loads super duper slow, more like a minute or so. But do you see me complaining here? I'm practically used to it.
Audio/Video: Video content is good, Audio... not too sure. Haven't used that portion of the site yet.
Search speeds: *searches for Stephanie Abrams* Slow at first, but it does get the results to you. It requires some patience.
Latency: I would say it can depend on the internet browser and/or the internet connection the user has. Jesse has a good input about this, when the site gets a bit active, it slows down the speed of the site. When I lurk around here during after-hours (between the hours of 10 PM and 3 AM PDT) the site is a lot faster, more like 5 seconds.
Database/MySQL errors: I do get them at exactly 9 pm my time (12:00 am ET). It is a daily thing. Which is better for me to wait for them to wear off before making those birthday threads. :P To be honest I haven't gotten any this past couple of days, maybe it's because I've been busy and haven't checked the forums often.
Do "half" scores count? On a scale of 1-10, I'll give the overall performance a.. 7 1/2.
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Page load speed - 8.0
Audio/Video load speeds 7.0
Search speeds 8.5
Latency 9.0
Database/mySQL errors 4.0
Overall, about a 6.5-7.0. The database always throws me errors.
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Page Load Speed: 9.5 (Loads in fine for me)
Audio/Video load speeds: 7.5
Search speeds: 5.0
Latency: 8.0
Database/mySQL errors: 6.0
Overall: About a 7. I think the site is fairly managed but the search speeds are a little slow for me. (Maybe it's just my computer.)
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We will almost certainly be switching hosts within a week or so. I will make a more formal announcement later but there will be some downtime as we transfer services and backup everything.
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Ugh, that process is always a pain for the admins and forums. :thumbdown: Hopefully the switch will be as smooth as possible for you guys. :)
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Ugh, that process is always a pain for the admins and forums. :thumbdown: Hopefully the switch will be as smooth as possible for you guys. :)
It is a pain indeed, Andy, but I've been noticing all the quirks of our current host over the past few months like everyone else. I had a feeling we were going to switch hosts at some point.
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Not to mention the fact we are starting to get near our storage limit. Our hosts plans are not competitive with other high ranking hosts
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Our hosts plans are not competitive with other high ranking hosts
Wow, really? Unless you're not with HostGo anymore, I find that hard to believe.
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Our hosts plans are not competitive with other high ranking hosts
Wow, really? Unless you're not with HostGo anymore, I find that hard to believe.
Not necessarily with pricing but support and feature wise HostGo has fallen behind. I personally believe we can get a better bang for the buck and more reliability elsewhere. Their support has been slow and unresponsive at times, their servers have been hacked and our site has been modified as a result. Some time ago their servers were hacked and our forum and site index pages were changed to some arabic site with hate related content. Downtime on their end has resulted in corrupted databases and files. We have put up with a lot, I would like to see what other fish are in the pond. I am extensively researching alternatives.
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Have you found any other hosts yet? When did that server hacking occur?
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Have you found any other hosts yet? When did that server hacking occur?
Server hacking? :wacko:
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The hacking issue was quickly dealt with as to solve little interruption but the main pages of our site and forum were replaced by some arabic site. I think it was around Feb? No user data was compromised it was more of an annoyance than anything. Someone got root access to HostGos servers. It was not our end that was compromised
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Not necessarily with pricing but support and feature wise HostGo has fallen behind.
Having suffered through a lot of bad hosts, I'd say HostGo is one of the better ones. True, they're not perfect. No host is. Things happen. Some of it you can avoid, some you can't. It's the overall picture that matters to me. And overall, I have been very pleased with them.
As far as prices and features go, they are definitely the best I've seen. Sure you can get a gazillion MBs of space and bandwidth, and every feature you can think of from Fast Eddy's Hosting for $1 a month....but you're gonna "pay" for it sooner or later. I personally would rather shell out a few bucks more for a reliable host than get the cheapest possible plan I can find.
I don't know if you've had the problems I've had regarding video and audio downloads, but I found out something rather interesting this week. A few months ago, I downgraded my plan to the cheapest one ($6.95/mo). When I got this month's invoice, I noticed I was being billed at my old rate ($14.95). Naturally, I asked HostGo what the deal was. They informed me that some of my PHP scripts were using too many resources, so they had to change me back. I then asked if they could tell me what script(s) were resource hogs.
I was less than surprised to find out that two of them were the ones that people were complaining about (the flash player and audio clip downloader). So I converted all the video and audio links to direct download links. Problem solved (so far)! :biggrin:
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Not necessarily with pricing but support and feature wise HostGo has fallen behind.
Having suffered through a lot of bad hosts, I'd say HostGo is one of the better ones. True, they're not perfect. No host is. Things happen. Some of it you can avoid, some you can't. It's the overall picture that matters to me. And overall, I have been very pleased with them.
As far as prices and features go, they are definitely the best I've seen. Sure you can get a gazillion MBs of space and bandwidth, and every feature you can think of from Fast Eddy's Hosting for $1 a month....but you're gonna "pay" for it sooner or later. I personally would rather shell out a few bucks more for a reliable host than get the cheapest possible plan I can find.
I don't know if you've had the problems I've had regarding video and audio downloads, but I found out something rather interesting this week. A few months ago, I downgraded my plan to the cheapest one ($6.95/mo). When I got this month's invoice, I noticed I was being billed at my old rate ($14.95). Naturally, I asked HostGo what the deal was. They informed me that some of my PHP scripts were using too many resources, so they had to change me back. I then asked if they could tell me what script(s) were resource hogs.
I was less than surprised to find out that two of them were the ones that people were complaining about (the flash player and audio clip downloader). So I converted all the video and audio links to direct download links. Problem solved (so far)! :biggrin:
Ive worked on optimizing the forum code a little but reliability and speed still sucks. You haven't noticed any problems with the forums? For the site its fine. For something like a forum they seem to be very poor. I'm not bashing them or anything but I am just not happy with the service for the forums. It should not take up to 7seconds at times to generate a forum page. Their database server seems to be the main issue
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I doubt i could host it on a home server lol but how much bandwidth would be needed if i could? :dunno: and port 80 is off limits as well for security reasons from Verizon if i could :P
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I doubt i could host it on a home server lol but how much bandwidth would be needed if i could? :dunno: and port 80 is off limits as well for security reasons from Verizon if i could :P
Running a website on a residential system is not recommended for any situation. Its unreliable and slow even in the best circumstances
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Just an update: Our host has given us access to a few more server resources and refunded us for a month. Keep us posted on if things are better
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Searches are still slow.
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Searches are still slow.
Thats because the database is considerably large. I do not like clearing old topics and post because I thinks its valuable preserving posts and discussions. I think out database is like 50mb+ at the moment.
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Just an update: Our host has given us access to a few more server resources.
Really? Like what?
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Just an update: Our host has given us access to a few more server resources.
Really? Like what?
"The specified problem might be due to the lack of memory for the mysql query operations. I have increased the mysql query cash memory. This might have solved your issue.Please verify it from your end."
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"The specified problem might be due to the lack of memory for the mysql query operations. I have increased the mysql query cash memory. This might have solved your issue.Please verify it from your end."
Oh. They increased memory for me too. It didn't help. :)
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"The specified problem might be due to the lack of memory for the mysql query operations. I have increased the mysql query cash memory. This might have solved your issue.Please verify it from your end."
Oh. They increased memory for me too. It didn't help. :)
lol. :P Well things seem cool for now. Time shall tell. I am very pleased with their response though.
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The server has been pretty unstable lately. There are often connection problems.
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The server has been pretty unstable lately. There are often connection problems.
It's always like that. ;) You've just gotta be patient at times.
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The server has been pretty unstable lately. There are often connection problems.
It's always like that. ;) You've just gotta be patient at times.
Really? Even lately? There are occasionally database errors at certain times. I thought performance has been decent
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I just got a 505 Server error message, i think it was 505.
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The server has been pretty unstable lately. There are often connection problems.
That's likely just because of HostGo's incompatibility with message boards. Not really fixable. But I haven't seen much of them recently.
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The server has been pretty unstable lately. There are often connection problems.
That's likely just because of HostGo's incompatibility with message boards. Not really fixable. But I haven't seen much of them recently.
:blink: :blink: Huh?
A message board is simply a php webpage that accesses a MYSQL database. Not much more than that. I don't understand what you mean by incompatibility?
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Oh, it was just a thought since I've only seen this happen on sites hosted by hostgo (like this and TWCC). I figured it had to do with compatibility issues between the hosting provider and MySQL databases.
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Oh, it was just a thought since I've only seen this happen on sites hosted by hostgo (like this and TWCC).
Typically when you saw an error occur on both TWCT and TWCC there server they host the MYSQL software is not connecting. At times they are doing backups or other work. It can cause some problems
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I just got a 505 Server error message, i think it was 505.
HTTP Version Not Supported is error code 500... it is a very rare error to have. I have a feeling you meant 500, which is Internal Server Error...