Ever since MP was upgraded, I am having a really hard time with it. It takes forever to load pages. I don't know if it's just me. We have cable modem, but I feel like I'm using dial-up.

This has been addressed in a couple threads. The basic concensus is to give it a few days. There are some technical reasons involving the database building itself that should iron themselves out a couple days. In addition, a lot of people are trying out the new digs. With people poking around in lots of different areas, changing their titles, sticking around longer to see all the new features, etc., the board may just be a little taxed.

So just hang in there for a couple days until things settle down.

Thanks Ghoulish Delight.

just wanted to post a comment, it is now a week later, I am still experiencing alot of server lag, and I am on a T1 line here at work!

That's really interesting because usually when other people are having slowdowns, I'm having it worse and for once, I'm having pretty decent speeds on my end!

Adrienne

That's really interesting because usually when other people are having slowdowns, I'm having it worse and for once, I'm having pretty decent speeds on my end!

Adrienne
it might be that i am spoiled by other forums, but each time I try to open a thread, or open a forum, or whatnot, is taking a good 10-20 seconds, and thats on a T1..... so I dont know whats happening, could be an internet routing issue, but I know i have similar speed issues at my office and home.

I'm still having issues of MP being slow. The older version was much faster. The pages take forever to open.

We have done just about everything we can on this end to optimize MousePad performance. There was a problem right after the upgrade, but that has pretty much been solved.

What we're dealing with now is something that only a new server can fix. And we are looking forward to replacing our current 3-year old server with a new one with a lot more memory. That isn't going to be possible for a while, but it's something we're working on.

Until then, this is about as good as it's going to get. There are some things that you as a user can do to help improve the speed of the pad. All of these can be controlled from the "User CP" link at the top left of the header bar.

Under "Edit Options"

1) Deselect "Show Signatures" and "Show Images (including attached images and images in [IMG] code)" This will prevent smileys, .sig files and inline images from appearing in the posts you read, which will increase speed.
Note - the multi-color, multi-font, multi-size, smiley-filled signature files take up a LOT of resources.

2) For "Thread Display Mode", choose "Linear." The new "Threaded" and "Hybrid" options take longer to load, and are part of the memory issue we're dealing with right now.

3) For "Message Editor Interface" choose "Basic Editor." The WYSIWYG editor takes longer to load. Since this new system has the "Quick Reply" feature, a message editor box now loads on every thread screen.

AVP

Just for some benchmarking.

On a reasonably good connection here at work I did repetitive loading of three pages. The MousePad home page, the Lounge forum page, and a Loung thread that would be of maximum length (which I've set to fifty pages).

Here are the average times I got for each (in seconds). The first number is how long before all MousePad content loaded and the second is how long for the page to finish loading (the ad consistently lagged, but the page is readable at the first number -- also, we don't have full ability to control ad response time).

MP Home Page - 6.8 seconds / 11.2 seconds
Forum Index - 10.5 seconds / 13.4 seconds
Thread page - 10.5 seconds / 13.2 seconds

This test was done between 4:45 and 4:55 pm with approximately 95 concurrent users.

It's still a lot slower than usual for me. It stalls quite a bit, especially when loading a topic and even more so when loading a reply page.

funnily enough, its a little faster for me here at home now, 8:22pm.... and thats on a residential DSL line.

oh well, I just wanted to voice a concern just in case. keep up the good work :)

Well, seems faster for me, and I'm on 56K! :eek: :)

Since this new system has the "Quick Reply" feature, a message editor box now loads on every thread screen.
I would just like to add that the Quick Reply can be closed (collapsed) by clicking on the blue icon (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/images/buttons/collapse_tcat.gif) in the right corner of the Quick Reply section. I don't know if it will actually make the pages load faster, but it might.

ooo thank you Bill! It seems to be loading faster once the quick reply is collapsed.

How about ditching the sig. lines? Can't you just turn them off all together? Wouldn't that speed up everyone overall?

Please don't turn off the sig lines all together. This site would be so boring without those and avatars (not that I am asking for avatars, I'm a poor sucker on dial-up still).

I have tried turning sig lines off and noticed no improvement in the load speeds. I haven't really noticed major lag time in loading the pages since Monday, even with the ads running. I did turn off the Quick Reply feature and the pages load a lot quicker.

I have created a sticky thread with advice for how to make MousePad faster. As we come across more suggestions, we'll add to the list.

Sure, we can disable a LOT of things to make MousePad faster, including:
Private Messaging
Smileys
Signatures
Inline Images
New Fonts
Font Sizes
Custom User Titles
Custom User Locations
If the members really want us to do so, let us know. These items are listed in roughly the order they affect system performance, and roughly the order we would disable them. In other words, disabling PMs would be far more effective than would disabling the New Fonts, Font Sizes, Custom User Titles and Custom User Locations combined, so that would probably be the first to go.

But I thought you guys didn't like the "Straight Dope" feature set....

AVP

I would just like to add that the Quick Reply can be closed (collapsed) by clicking on the blue icon (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/images/buttons/collapse_tcat.gif) in the right corner of the Quick Reply section. I don't know if it will actually make the pages load faster, but it might.

Thanks for the tip. I've done it and hope it helps.

I think that doing the quick reply thing did help. I'm all for increasing the speed though. It's painfully s...l...o...w at times and I'm on a super fast cable modem.

Collapsing the quick reply window does not speed anything up. When you load the page it still loads that section, even if it isn't showing. That is why if you click the down arrow after the page loads it appears instantly without redrawing the whole page.

Sure, we can disable a LOT of things to make MousePad faster, including:
Private Messaging
Smileys
Signatures
Inline Images
New Fonts
Font Sizes
Custom User Titles
Custom User Locations
If the members really want us to do so, let us know. These items are listed in roughly the order they affect system performance, and roughly the order we would disable them. In other words, disabling PMs would be far more effective than would disabling the New Fonts, Font Sizes, Custom User Titles and Custom User Locations combined, so that would probably be the first to go.ouch, that's a painful list. :(

I vote for NONE of it to go. I'll put up with the speed issues until the new server comes in a couple of weeks. ;)

Well, seems faster for me, and I'm on 56K! :eek: :)What he said.

I just wanted to chime in and say it's a lot faster than it was in the weeks before the overhaul and MUCH faster than it was just after the overhaul. And now that it's here, I really like the new MP. Thanks for your hard work!

ouch, that's a painful list. :(

I vote for NONE of it to go. I'll put up with the speed issues until the new server comes in a couple of weeks. ;)
The new server is not a couple of weeks out. It is quite a bit further out right now, for a lot of reasons. I want it, the staff wants it, and it will happen when we can do it. So, be patient.

the board is tolerable in its speeds, were all just being whiney, needy babies ;)

i would rather deal with the speed then see any features cut.