First slow, then totally inaccessible pro level site

[Lex]

www.fotogafer.com (http://www.fotogafer.com)

I seem to go through this again and again, I got to say, it's frustrating beyond reproach!

Yet, every time, I seem to be able to get to the forum fine. Maybe they need to put our images and site on the forum server!

Edit, currently it's taking 1 minute for the main page to display, totally unacceptable!

I guess there is the possibility it's my go daddy link with the smugmug connection, I don't know, but I wish we could figure it out.

[gcrider]

It's taking forever just to get into the control panel. I have been noticing a lot of slow downs in my area (geographically) from several different locations for a number of months now. It is discouraging, especially when sending clients to a private proof gallery for reviews.

[TalkieT]

OK, something is getting screwy here... My site is www.nzsnaps.com

I just tried it and froma fast connection here in New Zealand, it took 48 seconds from hitting enter before the page started to render (FF2.0.0.4 on XPSP2) and then only 2 more seconds to complete loading.

Second attempt 5 minutes later took 69 seconds to start and 2 seconds to complete loading.

Third time, 83 seconds to start rendering, 2 seconds to complete.

Fourth time, 49 seconds, and 2 seconds to complete.

I can't find any sites apart from smugmug based sites that have this massive delay.

If you're in the US, or on a really fast connection, PLEASE take a moment to load

http://www.nzsnaps.com

and post here how long it took to start rendering and how long to complete rendering. Please post where you are from and what connection you're on.

Cheers - Neil Gardner



www.fotogafer.com (http://www.fotogafer.com)

I seem to go through this again and again, I got to say, it's frustrating beyond reproach!

Yet, every time, I seem to be able to get to the forum fine. Maybe they need to put our images and site on the forum server!

Edit, currently it's taking 1 minute for the main page to display, totally unacceptable!

I guess there is the possibility it's my go daddy link with the smugmug connection, I don't know, but I wish we could figure it out.

[denisegoldberg]

If you're in the US, or on a really fast connection, PLEASE take a moment to load

http://www.nzsnaps.com

Cheers - Neil Gardner
Neil -
For whatever it's worth, I don't think it's an international access issue. Accessing your site and mine are both taking longer than normal right now. I have to assume it's a smugmug-wide problem. And yes, I am in the US.

--- Denise

A little later... now I can't access the site at all.

[slimuncled]

I am having the same problem.

It is VERY frustrating. I hope that there are no people trying to access my site.

Also, in the last 24 hours I have tried to upload many photo's and have had to retry the upload because it failed.

This isn't the first time I have noticed a large speed problem.:dunno

[ShebaJo]

Same here, either slow, or no go.

dgrin is fast though.

[rkw624]

Can't get in at all. It's now 7:56pm EST.

[jim_h]

It's still accessible, but unuseably slow right now.

[stefeb]

I just joined the slow club. Can't do anything. Server freeze?

Let us know what's happening.

[KMCC]

57 seconds here for the home page to load.

This is becoming far too commonplace.

Trace route attached:

1 gw2.sv3.smugmug.net (10.27.27.11) 0.132 ms 0.139 ms 0.172 ms
2 r2.sv1.smugmug.net (63.81.134.2) 6.924 ms 12.060 ms 1.779 ms
3 r1-ge02.dc3.smugmug.net (10.1.1.6) 82.045 ms 84.276 ms 89.910 ms
4 eqix-hagg-pri.asbn.twtelecom.net (206.223.137.6) 82.337 ms 82.685 ms 82.427 ms
5 * core-01-so-4-1-0-0.asbn.twtelecom.net (66.192.255.232) 82.679 ms core-02-so-4-1-0-0.asbn.twtelecom.net (66.192.255.226) 82.588 ms
MPLS Label=213003 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=0
6 66.192.240.18 (66.192.240.18) 83.040 ms peer-01-ge-1-0-0-1.asbn.twtelecom.net (64.129.249.18) 87.944 ms 83.987 ms
7 bor01.va-ashburn0.ne.earthlink.net (206.223.115.32) 82.775 ms 83.012 ms 82.895 ms
8 bor01-p3-1.ga-atlanta0.ne.earthlink.net (209.165.110.77) 83.574 ms 83.509 ms 83.775 ms
9 cor01-vl-10.ga-atlanta0.ne.earthlink.net (207.69.223.158) 83.584 ms 83.628 ms 83.655 ms
10 dir03-vl-96.ga-atlanta0.ne.earthlink.net (209.165.96.4) 86.571 ms 85.482 ms 86.445 ms
11 199.174.118.3 (199.174.118.3) 86.162 ms abd03-g4-0-0.ga-atlanta0.ne.earthlink.net (199.174.117.227) 83.798 ms 199.174.118.3 (199.174.118.3) 83.683 ms
12 * * *
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21 * * *
22 * * *
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[PhotoUnit]

Me Too..... I have also had repeated problems with sloooooooow access..... What gives:dunno

[jbr13]

Mine is running slow as Heelll still! Any news on what is going on or when it will be fixed


J



Me Too..... I have also had repeated problems with sloooooooow access..... What gives:dunno

[DJKennedy]

Mine is running slow as Heelll still! Any news on what is going on or when it will be fixed


J

Mine is so slow that you'd think it was actually down all together. Odd that no one from SM has come in to say something by now.

[DJKennedy]

Mine is so slow that you'd think it was actually down all together. Odd that no one from SM has come in to say something by now.

As I type this, I've waited 3 mins 30 seconds for the site to load. THats 3 mins 15 seconds too long

EDIT: over 4 mins and all I have is a gallery page with no thumbs, or larger image (to the right). Just the little SM circle/arrow dealy indicating that its loading still. Oops, 5 mins.

[devbobo]

Hey Guys,

wireless is looking into the problem.

Cheers,

David

[Lex]

Mine is so slow that you'd think it was actually down all together. Odd that no one from SM has come in to say something by now.

While I love the community orientation of the forum, and sites for photos, I can definitely say if this is not corrected, I will not renew at any level, let alone pro. I can support my own photos, albeit even if I have to come up with software to handle them

I hate to beat a horse while it's down, but the masses are building here, while we are not ready to linch someone yet, we are collectively definitely feeling shortchanged for our investment in the Smugmug community.

A week or two ago, same thing. Frequently, I hit intermittent spurts. but I cannot even begin to try and run a business like this, it will not work. Good thing I haven't started selling photos yet in reality. I feel for people that actually are productive, well when things work.

Thanks for letting me know folks I am not alone. Misery doesn't really love company here though... :scratch

[PhotoUnit]

[quote=Lex]While I love the community orientation of the forum, and sites for photos, I can definitely say if this is not corrected, I will not renew at any level, let alone pro. I can support my own photos, albeit even if I have to come up with software to handle them


Me too..... Seems to be slow a lot....... Business must be good.... So good it's taxing their resouces.......Bill

[TalkieT]

(snip)I hate to beat a horse while it's down, but the masses are building here, while we are not ready to linch someone yet, we are collectively definitely feeling shortchanged for our investment in the Smugmug community.
(snip) :scratch

Even though I'm frustrated by the obvious problems at the moment, I think we all need to keep in perspective that Smugmug are unfailingly communicative and helpful. Name another reasonably big site/service where the founders and many of the hands on tech staff actually answer individual posts by users!

I've had a number of small problems with Smugmug, some my fault, some transient issues with SM, and some are gaps in their product offerings, but at no stage have I ever felt brushed off or not listened to.

I'm sure we'll have a typically detailed answer as to what happened shortly, and an answer as to whether we can expect a quick resolution.

Cheers - Neil Gardner

[duren]

Thanks for that perspective, Neil.

- bob

Even though I'm frustrated by the obvious problems at the moment, I think we all need to keep in perspective that Smugmug are unfailingly communicative and helpful. Name another reasonably big site/service where the founders and many of the hands on tech staff actually answer individual posts by users!

I've had a number of small problems with Smugmug, some my fault, some transient issues with SM, and some are gaps in their product offerings, but at no stage have I ever felt brushed off or not listened to.

I'm sure we'll have a typically detailed answer as to what happened shortly, and an answer as to whether we can expect a quick resolution.

Cheers - Neil Gardner

[johng]

I just got this message from a client:

" I am trying to order some of the pictures that you took in May for our team. For some reason, the webpage is always very slow, which I am sure is due in part to the images, but I can't get it to advance to the 3rd and 4th pages, where the pictures that I am looking for are. Do you have any tips? I have tried all day."

Of course I have no tips. It's the third complaint I've received in the last year regarding issues getting at my website. Smugmug has always had great customer service and I've stayed with them for that reason. But these recurring issues of availability (and yes there have been several over the last year) are a cause for concern. I have a very speculative business - Sports Photography. If/when my clients can't get to my site it is possible they simply don't come back.

The least SM could do is have a message display to users who try to access the sites explaining it's a problem on Smugmug that is being fixed.

And, as I've said in the past - some notification to Pro level business partners that there is a problem.

[photogmomma]

Hey Guys,

wireless is looking into the problem.

Cheers,

David

Any word on what's going on and an ETA?

Thanks!

[jdouglass@jfti.com]

?????????????????????

[HoyBoy]

I hate to jump on the band wagon, but I also want you to understand how frustrating this is.

The site is not usable right now. It takes minutes to load an image or a page. I've been reading on other forums of people have just signed up or are about to sign up who are going elsewhere because they are so frustrated.

I hope that whatever the problem is will be resolved quickly.

I hate to admit it, but I'm due for renewal in a month or 2 and was actually considering upgrading to pro. Right now I'm re-thinking that decision. I wish this weren't the case.

[Ric Grupe]

And, as I've said in the past - some notification to Pro level business partners that there is a problem.

Non-pro users are frustrated too.:wxwax

[Lex]

Sorry Neil, I shared that perspective WEEKS ago when the site experienced many issues, now, it's just grown old and intollerable that every time I want to upload, or every time I do something as simple as wanting to access one of my photos to reference in a forum writeup, it's inaccessable, like this one:

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=122562

I added one photo, then couldn't access the site to add additional ones, so my impact of my attempt at a photo journal on Elkmont is trash.

I don't have time to sit around and play a waiting game on site sofware and accessibility. I work full time, run a business, and try to do photography, when I am here, I'm on a timeline and need to get done what I am attempting to do. I don't have the luxury of coming back an hour later or two hours etc...

[stefeb]

Shot a motorcycle race today. Timing is of the essence. I had to use a competitor's (to SmugMug) website, and sign on for a trial basis just so I could have a place to post my pictures for client approval.

SmugMug - At least let us know what is going on. Your silence is worse then the unresponsive website.

[bigwebguy]

Shot a motorcycle race today. Timing is of the essence. I had to use a competitor's (to SmugMug) website, and sign on for a trial basis just so I could have a place to post my pictures for client approval.

SmugMug - At least let us know what is going on. Your silence is worse then the unresponsive website.Hey Guys,

We are aware that some folks are getting unresponsive sites. The engineers have been notified and we hope to have the site back up to normal speed shortly.

Thanks for your patience.

[stefeb]

Hey Guys,

We are aware that some folks are getting unresponsive sites. The engineers have been notified and we hope to have the site back up to normal speed shortly.

Thanks for your patience.

Thank you for letting us know something, it is appreciated.

[cjyphoto]

Same thing going on for me. Was going to send a link to a potential client and I couldn't even access the image myself! I left PBase because the site seemed to continually get slower and slower and many times unusable. The same thing seems to be happening here. I've spent a lot of time setting things up the way I like on SmugMug. I also maintain a Zenfolio site with most of the same images and those who know about the choice choose to browse my Zenfolio site. If and when they add pro features similar to Smug I hope they are ready for the tidal wave of disgruntled SmugMug users that may be coming their way to try out Zenfolio.

[richmoffitt]

I'm already noticing a pretty big speed increase. What changed?

Ping time didn't change dramatically, but site load time did. Thanks... whatever you did.

[DJKennedy]

Seems back to normal...

[sellis]

At least now I know it's not just me. I've been struggling for a couple hours (off and on) to order a complete set of 350 prints from my nephews wedding with no luck. Firefox times out while trying to connect to the shopping cart :dunno

[Lex]

Uh Big Web Guy, really, some of us didn't have patience, we had patience 2 weeks ago when the same exact thing happened. It's like well if you can FIX it, why can't you FIX it so it doesn't happen? Is there a routine reboot that needs to be done to fix these issues, is there a server that needs improved access, is there a server that is overloaded that will require alternate engineering up to and including moving clients. We really want answers and confirmation that we have a PERMENANT fix, and not just a band aid put on an ugly cut that isn't going to heal.

Please give us some assurance other than "we're working on it". Yes, site use got better an hour or two after I first reported the problem. But some of us ask of you, should we have had to have posted a rant to get a usable site? I think you know the answer that many of us feel appropriate here. We can understand occasional blips on the radar screen, however, when the SAME thing happens again and again, this is not an occasional blip, this is a torpedo bound to sink several people's business models, some of which even before they get off the ground.

Now I have said my piece, if this happens again in 2 weeks, I will downgrade my usage and request a refund on excess funds, and at the end of one year, I would be gone. I cannot speak for others.

thank you.

[Andy]

Uh Big Web Guy, really, some of us didn't have patience, we had patience 2 weeks ago when the same exact thing happened. It's like well if you can FIX it, why can't you FIX it so it doesn't happen? Is there a routine reboot that needs to be done to fix these issues, is there a server that needs improved access, is there a server that is overloaded that will require alternate engineering up to and including moving clients. We really want answers and confirmation that we have a PERMENANT fix, and not just a band aid put on an ugly cut that isn't going to heal.

Please give us some assurance other than "we're working on it". Yes, site use got better an hour or two after I first reported the problem. But some of us ask of you, should we have had to have posted a rant to get a usable site? I think you know the answer that many of us feel appropriate here. We can understand occasional blips on the radar screen, however, when the SAME thing happens again and again, this is not an occasional blip, this is a torpedo bound to sink several people's business models, some of which even before they get off the ground.

Now I have said my piece, if this happens again in 2 weeks, I will downgrade my usage and request a refund on excess funds, and at the end of one year, I would be gone. I cannot speak for others.

thank you.
We don't like it anymore than you guys, I can promise you that.

I'm sorry that the site was slow for a bit last night. Our engineers (led by our CEO and Chief Geek Onethumb) first addressed the problem. Then, they work to make it so that these things won't repeat - or minimize the chance of repeating. When it happens again, they then re-tool, re-configure, re-work it. The site is constantly improving in this regard. I know it sucks when it happens though, and for last night's slowness, I again apologize.

[richmoffitt]

We don't like it anymore than you guys, I can promise you that.

I'm sorry that the site was slow for a bit last night. Our engineers (led by our CEO and Chief Geek Onethumb) first addressed the problem.

Thanks a bunch for fixing the issues. As a fellow networking geek, I'd be curious to know what the problems were in the first place. Is there someplace else that I can get technical updates or resolution notices?

A service provider has to carefully choose whatever information to disclose, so I'm not picky. It's just nice to know where to look.

Best,
Rich

[floepie]

Only post to complain, huh? Well, I try not to do that, but 10+ second load times for galleries, control panel, etc. is not satisfactory for a paid photo hosting site. When I first joined, the waits were somewhat tolerable, but lately they've become almost unbearable. When will you beef up your server capacities?

[Andy]

Only post to complain, huh? Well, I try not to do that, but 10+ second load times for galleries, control panel, etc. is not satisfactory for a paid photo hosting site. When I first joined, the waits were somewhat tolerable, but lately they've become almost unbearable. When will you beef up your server capacities?
Hi -- I'm terribly sorry you are experiencing slowness issues. We had a problem last night, but not today as far as I know...

If you email our Support Heroes, http://www.smugmug.com/help/emailreal
we'll walk you through some speed diagnostics, to help determine where the problem might be?

Thanks, and sorry for the hassle.

[cdhames]

I haven't been able to upload all day. I'm going to call my "first" wedding client and apologize to them for your server issues, and ask them to wait another day. They've waited three weeks. I'm sure they can wait another day or two, but they are expectant and excited to see the finished work.

By then, your problems will hopefully have cleared up. I'm due to renew my pro smugmug subscription come August, and will likely be forced to do so because of the timing of this wedding. But if not for this particular problem with timing, I would not do so. Smugmug has a lot of superb, helpful and caring people that work for them. But point blank, this photo service sucks right now. It's just not reliable, and has never been since I signed up a year ago.

[TalkieT]

Hi -- I'm terribly sorry you are experiencing slowness issues. We had a problem last night, but not today as far as I know...


I posted times yesterday of between 50ish and 80ish seconds to BEGIN rendering, and then about 2 seconds to finish rendering. They were awful times.

Now, it's back to usual for me, but this is still TWELVE (12) seconds to begin rendering, then 2 seconds to complete rendering.

I'm in New Zealand, but I work at the largest Telco in this country and I'm pretty sure I have a reasonable Internet connection here at work.

Should I be waiting 12 seconds after hitting return in the address bar before I begin to see any page elements being drawn? (WinXP SP2, FF 2.0.0.4, Dual Core IBM Laptop with a gig of RAM)

http://www.nzsnaps.com

Again, curious to know how quick my site loads for people in the US and other parts of the world... I've tested from 3 different ISPs myself in NZ, and had 4-5 other people test locally, and they all get similar delays before the page begins to render.

If it's something I've done, then I'd love to know what I have screwed up... Accessing my page through http://talkiet.smugmug.com gives pretty similar results though.

Regards
Neil Gardner

[Seamus]

http://www.nzsnaps.com


Regards
Neil Gardner
I'm in Ireland, on a laptop using wireless, your site is fully loaded in 4 seconds. :dunno

[ivar]

I'm in Ireland, on a laptop using wireless, your site is fully loaded in 4 seconds. :dunnofor me, it loaded in 1.9 even. That's the difficult thing, not everyone is experiencing this problem. If everyone was, it would most likely be a lot easier to find a permanent solution.

[Ric Grupe]

I'm in Ireland, on a laptop using wireless, your site is fully loaded in 4 seconds. :dunno

That because no one in there right mind messes with the Irish...I know...I married one! :D

For me SM is all over the place fast sometimes...mostly not.:dunno

[rkw624]

I posted times yesterday of between 50ish and 80ish seconds to BEGIN rendering, and then about 2 seconds to finish rendering. They were awful times.

Now, it's back to usual for me, but this is still TWELVE (12) seconds to begin rendering, then 2 seconds to complete rendering.

I'm in New Zealand, but I work at the largest Telco in this country and I'm pretty sure I have a reasonable Internet connection here at work.

Should I be waiting 12 seconds after hitting return in the address bar before I begin to see any page elements being drawn? (WinXP SP2, FF 2.0.0.4, Dual Core IBM Laptop with a gig of RAM)

http://www.nzsnaps.com

Again, curious to know how quick my site loads for people in the US and other parts of the world... I've tested from 3 different ISPs myself in NZ, and had 4-5 other people test locally, and they all get similar delays before the page begins to render.

If it's something I've done, then I'd love to know what I have screwed up... Accessing my page through http://talkiet.smugmug.com gives pretty similar results though.

Regards
Neil Gardner

Your site loaded for me me almost immediately. (Less than 3 sec.) No problems at all.

[TalkieT]

Your site loaded for me me almost immediately. (Less than 3 sec.) No problems at all.

Thanks RKW (and others) for confirming that in some places the site loading speed is fine... I am going to try and find a proxy server in the US so I can experience this myself.

Obviously there is something strange going on - there's no way that being the other side of the world should introduce a ten second plus delay to a page starting to render.

It's really frustrating, since most of my target customers are local and they'll ALL be getting this ten second delay... Some people will even give up before that and assume the site is dead...

I really don't know what to do about this... If the problem can't be fixed, can Smugmug add an instant static page saying "Loading..." or something... It would at least let people know that something is happening

Cheers - N

[TalkieT]

I created a 14 day trial account (Pro user) at:

http://talkiet2.smugmug.com

And it took 32 seconds to start rendering and then only a second or so to complete... So it's nothing to do with customisation...

(Yes, I made sure I was logged out, and I even used IE which I don't normally use for anything but our intranet. 30 second plus times replicated in FF 2.0.0.4 as well)

I'm happy to perform troubleshooting on my end, and I'm comfortable with packet sniffers etc, is there anything I could do which would give a reasonable chance of helping?

Regards
Neil Gardner

[Dbl]

Tonight I am experiencing many of the same issues as mentioned above...again. Slow site loading, processing photos for a number of hours. Yes I can go in and rotate the photos and rotate them back, but frankly don't have the time to do something that should work.

I renew my pro account in September and have been a smugmug user since 2005. At this point I will be exploring other options. I believe johng mentioned in an earlier post about getting one shot at customers. I run a sports photography business as he does and I too need to get it right, site fast, pictures accessible, easy checkout without cart issues or I may not see them again. During the past year I have had way to many of these issues.

For me its about business, the folks here are helpful and friendly, but my customers frankly don't care. Nor do I if customers can't access my site or have a pain free browsing and ordering experience.

"We are working on resolving this issue" seems to be a standard pat answer these days. Well...I hope you are resolving the problems, but what about preventing these same issues in the future because I see the same problems showing up once again. I will continue to use Smugmug for personal storage but for business reasons I'm beginning to wonder if this is the best option for my photo company.

[Seamus]

That because no one in there right mind messes with the Irish...I know...I married one! :D


:rofl :rofl

[TalkieT]

And since about 0600 UTC Tuesday, (about 4 hours)... My site has been down to 3 odd seconds before rendering, and then a couple of seconds to render.

I don't know if it's a change made on the Smugend, or a random change, but I made no changes at my end and all of a sudden it's quick as hell :-)

Smuggies, can you chip in and let us know if this is a result of something you did, or just a random improvement for no known reason?

Cheers - Neil Gardner

[caroline]

And since about 0600 UTC Tuesday, (about 4 hours)... My site has been down to 3 odd seconds before rendering, and then a couple of seconds to render.

I don't know if it's a change made on the Smugend, or a random change, but I made no changes at my end and all of a sudden it's quick as hell :-)

Smuggies, can you chip in and let us know if this is a result of something you did, or just a random improvement for no known reason?

Cheers - Neil Gardner
Whizzy here in the UK right now, has been excruciatingly (check spelling please Allen:D) slow of late but I have no special need for speed, other than getting fed up waiting, like some people so theres no point in adding to SMugs woes.
When its good I like to say so:clap:clap:clap

Caroline

[Andy]

"We are working on resolving this issue" seems to be a standard pat answer these days.

Would you rather we talk about the weather? I wish it were different, but we don't have more to tell you - when we do, we'll surely tell you - we'd have no reason to hold it back :D

[cdonovan]

a half hour to upload 5 pictures...........:huh :scratch I'm paying for what exactly here?

I'm frustrated....this is beyond ridiculas...It just seems that a lot of focus lately has been placed on making the site pretty and fun and not at all user friendly??

I'm a big smugmug fan believe me...but I am starting to forget wh:cry

[Andy]

a half hour to upload 5 pictures...........:huh :scratch I'm paying for what exactly here?

I'm frustrated....this is beyond ridiculas...It just seems that a lot of focus lately has been placed on making the site pretty and fun and not at all user friendly??

I'm a big smugmug fan believe me...but I am starting to forget wh:cry
Need details on your connection - so much of this depends on local factors.

I just uploaded 1/2gig in about 40minutes, I'm in NY.

Can you give us a traceroute?

[Allen]

Whizzy here in the UK right now, has been excruciatingly (check spelling please Allen:D) slow of late
...
Caroline
You can try one of these.
aching, afflictive, agonizing, arduous, awful, biting, burning,
caustic, difficult, dire, disagreeable, distasteful, distressing,
dreadful, enough already*, excruciating, extreme, extremely bad,
grievous, hard, harrowing, hurtful, hurting, inflamed, irritated,
insufferable, insupportable, last straw*, laborious, piercing, raw,
saddening, sensitive, severe, sharp, smarting, sore, stinging,
tedious, tender, terrible, throbbing, tormenting, troublesome,
trying, that's it, too much, unbearable, undesirable, unendurable,
uncomfortable, unpleasant, vexatious
:hide:rofl

[caroline]

You can try one of these.
aching, afflictive, agonizing, arduous, awful, biting, burning,
caustic, difficult, dire, disagreeable, distasteful, distressing,
dreadful, enough already*, excruciating, extreme, extremely bad,
grievous, hard, harrowing, hurtful, hurting, inflamed, irritated,
insufferable, insupportable, last straw*, laborious, piercing, raw,
saddening, sensitive, severe, sharp, smarting, sore, stinging,
tedious, tender, terrible, throbbing, tormenting, troublesome,
trying, that's it, too much, unbearable, undesirable, unendurable,
uncomfortable, unpleasant, vexatious
:hide:rofl

Or we could talk about the weather:rofl:rofl:rofl

Caroline (on the Mendips in pouring rain again)

[KMCC]

Would you rather we talk about the weather? I wish it were different, but we don't have more to tell you - when we do, we'll surely tell you - we'd have no reason to hold it back :D

Can you tell us what happened between Sunday and Monday?

Based on the improvement in site performance that I experienced during that time period, something must have changed. (And more importantly, will it remain status quo?)

[cdonovan]

Need details on your connection - so much of this depends on local factors.

I just uploaded 1/2gig in about 40minutes, I'm in NY.

Can you give us a traceroute?

I sent traceroutes and no one replied....:dunno :scratch

[Andy]

I sent traceroutes and no one replied....:dunno :scratch
? Did you send to the help desk? When?

please resend to our help desk, thank you.
or just post it here.

[cdonovan]

? Did you send to the help desk? When?

please resend to our help desk, thank you.
or just post it here.
.
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator>tracert www.smugmug.com (http://www.smugmug.com)
Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 43 ms 95 ms 63 ms mctnnbsa24w-loop0.aliant.net [142.166.182.12]
3 82 ms 95 ms 90 ms stjhnbsu23w-ge-15-3.aliant.net [142.166.211.34]
4 35 ms 90 ms 67 ms rtp629047rts [64.230.203.29]
5 22 ms 8 ms 8 ms core2-saintjohnnb_POS5-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.167
.73]
6 43 ms 66 ms 93 ms core2-saintjohnnb_POS0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.167
.89]
7 76 ms 90 ms 67 ms core3-montrealak_POS15-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.240
.21]
8 28 ms 67 ms 111 ms core3-toronto12_pos5-0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.147
.33]
9 99 ms 90 ms 67 ms core2-toronto12_POS0-2.net.bell.ca [64.230.242.2
02]
10 59 ms 90 ms 90 ms dis1-toronto12_POS3-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.242.6]
11 86 ms 95 ms 90 ms 64.230.230.122
12 68 ms 105 ms 105 ms rc2sh-pos15-0.mt.shawcable.net [66.163.66.14]
13 114 ms 67 ms 95 ms rc1ch-pos6-0-0.il.shawcable.net [66.163.77.98]
14 106 ms 180 ms 156 ms rc2sj-pos3-0-0.cl.shawcable.net [66.163.76.69]
15 182 ms 190 ms 197 ms pri.r1-ge0-2-eq-sj.smugmug.com [206.223.117.70]
16 186 ms 179 ms 170 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
Trace complete.
C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator>

[TalkieT]

Need details on your connection - so much of this depends on local factors.

I just uploaded 1/2gig in about 40minutes, I'm in NY.

Can you give us a traceroute?

Hi Andy - My site was fast last night (for me - my timezone - NZ) but is back to a good 10 seconds plus delay before rendering starts now. (9:30am NZ time).

This feels a lot like a load issue on your end. I know that in NZ, peak Internet usage times certainly aren't 9:30am.

Please can you comment if any changes were made last night that would have improved my speed, or if it's just a transient improvement?

Cheers - N

[Steve Cavigliano]

a half hour to upload 5 pictures...........:huh :scratch I'm paying for what exactly here?

I'm frustrated....this is beyond ridiculas...It just seems that a lot of focus lately has been placed on making the site pretty and fun and not at all user friendly??

I'm a big smugmug fan believe me...but I am starting to forget wh:cry

Hello,
It is odd that no one replied to you email to the Help Desk. :scratch We just saw another message from you a few minutes ago. You should receive an email reply shortly. One of our experts looked at your traceroute and saw nothing abnormal. He did have a couple of questions. Are you on dial-up? Also, what sizes were the 5 files you were uploading?

If they were 5mb each and you are on dial-up, 30 minutes to upload is not that abnormal or worrisome.

If you are not on dial-up, the speeds we see are not very fast. So please let us know the answers to the above questions. You can send them to the Help Desk if you prefer.

Steve

[cdonovan]

Hello,
It is odd that no one replied to you email to the Help Desk. :scratch We just saw another message from you a few minutes ago. You should receive an email reply shortly. One of our experts looked at your traceroute and saw nothing abnormal. He did have a couple of questions. Are you on dial-up? Also, what sizes were the 5 files you were uploading?

If they were 5mb each and you are on dial-up, 30 minutes to upload is not that abnormal or worrisome.

If you are not on dial-up, the speeds we see are not very fast. So please let us know the answers to the above questions. You can send them to the Help Desk if you prefer.

Steve

Scary...I am on highspeed...just tried uploading 2 photos for shits nad giggles and it was predicting to take 21 minutes for a total of 20,000kb

The last time I had a problem I emailed and didn't have any replies. I did recieve an email this time telling me it was my isp provider...they told me there was nothing that they could do...actually the "service" person had no idea what a trace route was!:rolleyes so I spoke with her supervisor!

He told me there was no way to re-route the connection other than for me to disconnect and reconnect to a different ip address...which i did, and it seems to have helped!?!?

I'm going to try uploading again...and will let you know how it goes

[johng]

Yes, things are back to running a bit slow for me as well. Trying to set prices on a picture - taking about a minute for the custom pro pricing page to load, then click on single image and another minute or so for that page to load.

I uploaded photos earlier tonight (about 7pm EDT) and the upload worked decently enough.

[richmoffitt]

Hmm... I don't think traceroute output is really going to illustrate the problems well enough. Here are a few factors I can think of:


latency (traceroute shows this)
bandwidth (upload / download speed test)
number of HTTP connections
server processing delay
DNS lookups
browser rendering delayI'm at work so I can't really do a packet analysis right now, but it would be good to see information about some of these other factors. Anyone got some data?

(FWIW, access to SmugMug looks pretty darn quick right now. Is there excessive load on the servers in the evenings?)

[cdonovan]

my techie told me when I was on the phone with them I was also trying to upload 2 pics to smugmug, she said I was working at optimum speeds, downloading and uploading should have been absolutly no problem at all...

so just for fun I tried uploading the same pictures to photobucket....took less than 3 min to upload the 2 pictures....???:dunno

[cdonovan]

:pissed Used this smilie as I can't seem to find that shows one pulling out his hair...which is about how I feel right now.

In the next week i have to upload close to 1000 photos, and if it's going to take this long to do it...well I would be much better off to travel around my maritime provinces and visits the farms and the houses of the people that I photographed and show them the $%# pictures in person.

I'm frustrated. No one is owning that there IS a problem.

No one seems concerned about the multitude of different posts looking for help and trying to figure out what the problem is. No one is explaining or letting me know if anything is being done to fix the problem???

I am a patient and understanding person, I am realistic and know that not everything is going to work 100% all of the time.
But I DO expect to rely on this service to work more often than it doesn't. I do expect to have some kind of answer or time frame or acknowledgment when there is an obvious problem as to what is being done if anything to fix what isn't right. If it's not being acknowledged or if it's not going to be fixed I'd like to know that so that I'm not left waiting hoping and praying that this is going to get better and it doesn't happen.

I've done the diagnostics and it's quite obvious to me that the problem does lie with smugmug, it's the only site that I experience and lagging, it's better and worse at different times of the day, but I need it to work when I need it to work....I don't have time or ability to wait for it's down time to do my work.

For $&^%$ and giggles I am once again trying to upload pictures, and for 53,907kb 5 pictures the estimated time switches from 18-14 minutes.....

I am running at the optimum upload and download speeds and am on highspeed.
What is happening?

[Andy]

:pissed Used this smilie as I can't seem to find that shows one pulling out his hair...which is about how I feel right now.

In the next week i have to upload close to 1000 photos, and if it's going to take this long to do it...well I would be much better off to travel around my maritime provinces and visits the farms and the houses of the people that I photographed and show them the $%# pictures in person.

I'm frustrated. No one is owning that there IS a problem.

No one seems concerned about the multitude of different posts looking for help and trying to figure out what the problem is. No one is explaining or letting me know if anything is being done to fix the problem???

I am a patient and understanding person, I am realistic and know that not everything is going to work 100% all of the time.
But I DO expect to rely on this service to work more often than it doesn't. I do expect to have some kind of answer or time frame or acknowledgment when there is an obvious problem as to what is being done if anything to fix what isn't right. If it's not being acknowledged or if it's not going to be fixed I'd like to know that so that I'm not left waiting hoping and praying that this is going to get better and it doesn't happen.

I've done the diagnostics and it's quite obvious to me that the problem does lie with smugmug, it's the only site that I experience and lagging, it's better and worse at different times of the day, but I need it to work when I need it to work....I don't have time or ability to wait for it's down time to do my work.

For $&^%$ and giggles I am once again trying to upload pictures, and for 53,907kb 5 pictures the estimated time switches from 18-14 minutes.....

I am running at the optimum upload and download speeds and am on highspeed.
What is happening?
Hi Christine - I'm so sorry that this slowness is plaguing you. It's not systemic, otherwise we'd have a riot on our hands. But that doesn't mean we're not trying to help you.

I see some delay to get off your first network, your ISP. That's pretty slow, and could be part of the problem. It's also something that we can't control, I'm sorry to say. Have one more go at your ISP with your latest traceroute and see what they say?

I wish I could wave a wand, or push a button that would make things faster for you. We'll keep digging, Christine.

[cdonovan]

Hi Christine - I'm so sorry that this slowness is plaguing you. It's not systemic, otherwise we'd have a riot on our hands. But that doesn't mean we're not trying to help you.

I see some delay to get off your first network, your ISP. That's pretty slow, and could be part of the problem. It's also something that we can't control, I'm sorry to say. Have one more go at your ISP with your latest traceroute and see what they say?

I wish I could wave a wand, or push a button that would make things faster for you. We'll keep digging, Christine.

Why is it only smugmug that is causing me problems?
As I mentioned in a post above I uploaded the same pictures to photobucket for fun and they went lightning fast...compared to this.

I disconnected and changed my ip address last night, it didn't do a darn thing to help speed.
My ISP told me that once the connection to smugmug leaves their servers there isn't anything that they can do...so is basically telling me that traceroutes are worthless to them and impossible to change.:huh

In the post above I was uploading the 5 pictures, they took at least 14+ min to upload.

It doesn't make sense to me that for a few days after the last slowness that everything worked nice easy and quick and then bang slowed right down again...just as bad and if not even worse....I don't get it

[cdonovan]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156887972.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156889052.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156889832.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[alexisgm]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156887972.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156889052.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.speedtest.net/result/156889832.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Hi cdonovan,

I was wondering how fast your high speed internet connection is supposed to be. Looking at the speeds that you've posted, it looks like your upload speed is around 500 Kbits/s, which means that you'll be able to upload files 50-60 Kbytes/s.

So with this in mind, it should take around 3.3 minutes to upload a 10MB file at 50 Kbytes/second. The estimate that smugmug was giving you to upload the 5 files is therefore quite accurate: 53MB should take 17.6 minutes @ 50K/s, or 14.7 minutes @ 60K/s.

If your connection is supposed to have higher upload speeds, maybe the problem isn't with smugmug (since the speedtest.net results are all pretty consitent).

I'm currently experiencing major problems with my isp since my upload speed is now 0 K/s (that's right!). They don't know what's wrong and a technician is supposed to come by on Monday...

Anyway, I hope that this helps a little!

[ArtK]

I just tried it and Initial page load was 10 sec and 2 sec to complete.

[Andy]

I just tried it and Initial page load was 10 sec and 2 sec to complete.Your page? Could be, you are loading the homepage slideshow images. Depending on browser and connection, it could be like that. For me, FF2 Mac, it loaded in about 3seconds.

[ArtK]

Andy,

I used the url in the post that I responded and was trying to let him know what my load time was for his site. My site loads completely in between 3 to 8 seconds. I have always had good response times on my site. Occasional slowdowns in the slide show but other than that it's been great, more than acceptable.

Thanks for checking on me though:)

Art

Your page? Could be, you are loading the homepage slideshow images. Depending on browser and connection, it could be like that. For me, FF2 Mac, it loaded in about 3seconds.

[HappySmugger]

Andy,

I used the url in the post that I responded and was trying to let him know what my load time was for his site. My site loads completely in between 3 to 8 seconds. I have always had good response times on my site. Occasional slowdowns in the slide show but other than that it's been great, more than acceptable.

Thanks for checking on me though:)

Art

Just wanted to let everyone know that I tried Firefox for the first time yesterday and my site is loading a LOT faster! It was taking 5+ seconds for medium pictures in smugmug traditional format to load. Frankly, as a viewer, it makes me impatient so I was viewing only in journal. With Firefox is takes about 1, sometimes 2, seconds. More than fast enough to use all viewing layouts. I'm in Japan.

[cdonovan]

Could a burnt out dvd player that needs to be replaced be causing this slow up???? Guess that I am grabbing at straws now:dunno

[Andy]

Could a burnt out dvd player that needs to be replaced be causing this slow up???? Guess that I am grabbing at straws now:dunno
Not likely at all, IMO, sorry.

Have you tried this:

Completely unplug your router and cable modem or DSL modem from the power outlet. Wait a minute. Plug it in, and then reopen your browser and try uploading.

[cdonovan]

I wondered because since the dvd became unusable I made it undiscoverable and since then uploads have been faster:scratch

I uploaded 15 pictures last night only took a half hour rather than the usual hour or more that it had taken...has anything else changed since the weekend ?