Discussion regarding new forum

Not necessarily, I just want a simple answer as to why we are experiencing the problems we are rather than a technical dictionary response. And personally I don't believe our individual download speeds are the source of the problem.

 

There are two things here:

Latency. This is how long it takes to say "Hello" and get a "Hello yourself" back. Every time a "message packet" is sent from you to the GC server (or any other computer for that matter) the latency impacts how long it takes for EACH message to travel; to display a single page there is not one single "Give me the page" request and a "here it is" response, there are lots of message packets - perhaps even hundreds - and the latency then mounts up.

The ISP you use will influence how quickly messages can get from A to B. For example, the ISP may own a "private" line to the USA and choose to route traffic over that, faster, route ... or it may aggregate the traffic with others over a shared route ... the number of "hops" the message packets pass through various routers etc en route increases the latency. That is what Ping is giving an indication of.

Bandwidth. That's how "fat" the pipe is from you to the ISP, and how much data can physically arrive at your PC in a given time. The further you are from the exchange the more difficult it may be for BT to get you plenty of bandwidth. Your ISP may also have limited bandwidth to connect to the Super Highway, and when the ISP is busy - lots of users all wanting the internet at the same time - then there is contention for that bandwidth. Thus there are good performing ISPs and poor performers, and Price comes into that as well (I have a Business broadband here, because I work from home, so I have less Contention and greater Bandwidth than a user with a cheaper Home broadband).

Keep in mind that, say, Google has massive servers all around the world ... their services are, pretty much, always fast. I suspect that the fact that the GC server is in Italy has a bearing on folk in the UK because some ISPs will have good connections (low latency, high bandwidth) to Italy, and others may have poorer ones. That's true wherever the server is located of course, even if elsewhere in the UK

I ran a Ping test from locations all over the world to GC server. Some locations in Italy have very low latency (<10ms) but loads of countries had times around 200ms - that's an additional second for every 5 message packets transmitted ... so if a page takes, say, 100 such message packets that would add 20 seconds to the display time, just because of latency. Australia had Ping times of over 350ms ... I think that 50-80ms Ping time is as good as anyone is likely to get to most average sites, so only if it slows down considerably (when GC appears sluggish) is it relevant, and also if it is erratic (if the individual tests show fluctuation of times)

I tried Google.com for comparison China and Egypt had times of 150ms, but pretty much all the rest had times below 30ms and the majority were below 10ms

 

But surely that's like going to your doctor and your Doctor saying "You need an ECG" test to which there are three possible responses:

1. I'd like to understand a bit better what an ECG test is and what it is looking for
2. Fine lets get on and have the test what do I need to do
or
3. I'm not interested in an ECG test, just fix the problem.

You can't get a solution without the diagnosis. Some will be interested in what the test involves, the rest can skate over that. On an internet website for any problem that is not easily reproducible it will be individuals who will have to undertake various tests (i.e. there is no service here for an engineer to visit your home and make the tests for you ) and report back their findings to allow the diagnosis to be made; for those interested in it then some knowledge of why information is required/relevant may help folk to say "Ah, in that case THIS may be relevant".

I suspect that the fact that the server is in Italy will have a significant bearing on some people having slow responses some of the time, because their ISPs will use heavily congested routes at peak times, whereas some other ISPs will have dedicated and more efficient routes.

On the tests I did Ping times from Portugal to GC were similar to UK ones, dunno about peak times. My best guess is that if the server were in the UK that might assist UK users more of the time, but would probably be no better from Portugal some of the time, might even be worse.

Separately is the "power" of the server itself, how well optimised the site is (viz. recent changes RR has made with that aim in mind), and how popular GC is - i.e. the number of concurrent users online. That all comes down to cost.

 

Hats off to webmaster for his generous support ... I hope he can find a solution within budget

 

Thank you Armandii for the update. Also thank you to our Webmaster and Richard for putting up with our moans and groans in the process of trying to keep GC on the straight and narrow.

 

The What's Looking Good in June thread (which I think you started) was merged with a "What's looking good in June 2013" thread which already existed ... maybe that's why you are having trouble?

Here's a link to the merged thread:
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/whats-looking-good-in-june-2013.52072/

 

Hmmm :( I still suspect its because the threads were merged.

Just on the off-chance that it makes any difference here's a link to your first post, in the position it is now merged into the composite thread:

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/whats-looking-good-in-june-2013.52072/page-2#post-686574

I expect it will give you the same logged-out result though :(

 

Thanks Kristen but every time I click on the link I cannot log in to view it even though I am already logged in

Woo, I had this the other day on my Netbook ( new toy) and when I returned it to my local dealer he said it was because I had loaded , in his opinion, unnecessary add ons. ie. CC cleaner and another one www. malware. Have you put any new bits on recently,
Jenny

 

Blinking weird ... all links go to the same thread, some of them log you out, some log Jenny out ... sorry, I have no explanation (except that getting logged out will be related to cookies in some way I expect)