Extremely long page refresh time for “Recent Forum Topics” main listing

[JCH]

I am seeing page refresh times anywhere from 10 to 16 seconds.  Particularly frustrating is that after selecting a post to view, using the back button to return to the main listing triggers a slow page refresh.  Simply refreshing the listing page (while viewing it) is often completed in 2-3 seconds.  Navigating to it from another page seems to consistently trigger the long refresh times.

[Bob Kerner]

Yes, me too

[Matthew / BPL]

I’ve noticed that hitting the back button to get to the Recent Topics page results in a refresh. It doesn’t take as long as JCH mentions but it’s a weird, unexpected behavior. I haven’t timed it but I’m seeing a delay of about five seconds right now. I was just about to screengrab the behavior to share with the dev team.

[Tom K]

They just installed this system and, if past history is any indication, they’ll probably concentrate on fixing functional bugs before moving on to tune the system.  Be patient and stay tuned.  My 2 cents.

[Ryan Jordan]

Yes, Tom is right. It’s going to take some time to tune caching and page load times, and we’ll be working on the functional issues first. In the meantime, as our CDN (Cloudflare) “learns” the new site, you’ll see improvements in page load times automatically without our intervention over the next few weeks.

[JCH]

Just want to clarify…I do not see this behavior on any other forum…just Recent Forum Topics.  Willing to bet it’s a “db query issue” rather than a ”learning the site” issue.

But then, I vaguely remember being wrong once or twice in the past.

[Ryan Jordan]

Any more issues with this JCH? We haven’t received any other reports of this so wanted to followup.

[William Chilton]

Eleven seconds for the page to load just now for me, Firefox on Windows 10. It’s about the same with Chrome on Android 9.

[JCH]

No change for me since our last PM.  Page load times for RFT are currently about 10-12 seconds when first navigating to the page, either from outside the site (via bookmark) or from another forum listing (using the right-hand “Community Menu”).  Page refresh using the back button is now about 1-3 seconds.

Mostly, using the browser’s page refresh takes 1-3 seconds, but every once in awhile it also takes 10-12.

So, I am seeing different performance under different navigation scenarios and at different times…a software tester’s nightmare.

Edit:  I may have stumbled upon a clue.  When using the back button to return to the RFT listing after replying to a thread the page refresh is fast, but does not show the new state.  Forcing a page refresh (browser refresh button) is slow, i.e. when requesting a new round-trip to the server to get the updated listing reflecting the new post.

[BlackHatGuy]

Page refresh times are also very slow for me when accessing recent forum topics, in line with what JCH and William are seeing, FWIW. Safari on Mac, most recent versions. Has been that way since the beginning of the new site.

Edit to add: If I haven’t been to recent forum topics during a session for a bit (or when choosing it when first visiting the site), it’s a long load time. I just went through all the different Community menu choices as a test, and if I visit recent forum topics soon after having visited it, it’s the same load time as everything else. Hope that makes sense.

[Geoff Caplan]

Very slow for me too – I’m on a fast connection with a fast workstation.

According to Google there are multiple issues – a couple of them slowing down the page for seconds at a time:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbackpackinglight.com%2Fforums%2Ftopic%2Fextremely-long-page-refresh-time-for-recent-forum-topics-main-listing%2F

[Ryan Jordan]

Google Pagespeed isn’t actually revealing much, because it doesn’t assess actual user experience (UX) – and the real time UX depends heavily on server, CDN, and browser caching for many of those assets that you see “slowing down” the Pagespeed score.

We’ll run a backend database performance analysis on this page, so we can actually see what’s bogging down the queries.

[Matthew / BPL]

Ryan, Would it be helpful to see a screen recording of what users are seeing? I assume you are seeing it on your end too so probably not…

[JCH]

According to Google there are multiple issues – a couple of them slowing down the page for seconds at a time: …

Wow…An estimated time savings of just over 10 seconds if all suggested optimizations are implemented.  The almost exact difference between the fastest (1-2 sec) and slowest (10-12 sec) page refresh times I am seeing.

Google Pagespeed isn’t actually revealing much, because it doesn’t assess actual user experience (UX) – and the real time UX depends heavily on server, CDN, and browser caching for many of those assets that you see “slowing down” the Pagespeed score.

Except that what is being reported by rubmybelly, William and myself is that back-to-the-server round trip page refreshes are exactly what are slow.  Page refreshes that seem able to use (local) cached content are quick.

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