I realize the past couple of weeks have heavily dealt with blog entries here about technical issues that concern my web hosting move from LunarPages to Network Solutions.
Forgive me for another entry in that vein, but I need to share an update with you about the slow database interaction between this blog and Network Solution's implementation of MySQL (pronounced "My S-Q-L" and not "My Sequel" -- "Sequel" is the name of an IBM database -- so we shouldn't confuse the two even though hardcore engineers love to slang it up with the "Sequel" mispronunciation; just because it's convenient doesn't mean it's correct.
Forgive me for another entry in that vein, but I need to share an update with you about the slow database interaction between this blog and Network Solution's implementation of MySQL (pronounced "My S-Q-L" and not "My Sequel" -- "Sequel" is the name of an IBM database -- so we shouldn't confuse the two even though hardcore engineers love to slang it up with the "Sequel" mispronunciation; just because it's convenient doesn't mean it's correct.
It is important to preserve the record of what has been happening here
and that is why I have written so much about Network Solutions over the
past two weeks. I gave them a star-making blog Category entry all their
own and you can find it in my sidebar. Now you have a one-click way to
easily read all my Network Solutions articles.
I was told my Network Solutions Site Confirm Seal post yesterday was widely read by folks at Network Solutions. Today is my two week hosting anniversary with Network Solutions and yesterday I received an email from Vinny Lee, Network Solutions Director of Product Development, who, in a friendly and wide-ranging email, specifically said this about our continued database problems:
After receiving Mr. Lee's kind confessional yesterday, I decided to install the cache software but it made this blog even slower by a factor of two with my current web hosting setup, so I uninstalled the cache and decided to live with the pain of forever page loads for the next two months.
I don't know why it will take two months for Network Solutions to solve their MySQL database problem, but at least they are now aware of the issue on a high level, and I no longer have to dread getting a daily morning email from Network Solutions engineering telling me my database issue is resolved when it is not and never was.
Please bear with me here as things slowly get fixed over the next couple of months. I have faith in Vinny and his determined promise to get MySQL working up to the standards we all expect. If this blog gets slow and unresponsive for you -- yesterday I had to wait 71.238 seconds for a page to load -- come back in five minutes and things should be a little better. In the meantime, we'll start ramping up again familiar blog topics about the horehounds of humanity and the crises of living a moral life as we try to take our minds off how much slower our semiotic world is spinning.
I was told my Network Solutions Site Confirm Seal post yesterday was widely read by folks at Network Solutions. Today is my two week hosting anniversary with Network Solutions and yesterday I received an email from Vinny Lee, Network Solutions Director of Product Development, who, in a friendly and wide-ranging email, specifically said this about our continued database problems:
I thought we should let you know as well that we are aware of the current MySQL performance and do not feel it is meeting our level of expectation as well. As a result, we have already begun work to increase MySQL capacity over the next 2 months. In the meantime, as a user of WordPress, I've heard of good results from a program called WP-Cache 2. I am not sure it will help with the admin side but if you think your site is not responding as quickly as it could, you might want to give it a try.A friend previously suggested WP-Cache 2 on October 10, 2005 in a comment here, but I didn't install it then because I wanted Network Solutions to see just how awful the load times were for this blog without any artificial caching solutions on my end.
After receiving Mr. Lee's kind confessional yesterday, I decided to install the cache software but it made this blog even slower by a factor of two with my current web hosting setup, so I uninstalled the cache and decided to live with the pain of forever page loads for the next two months.
I don't know why it will take two months for Network Solutions to solve their MySQL database problem, but at least they are now aware of the issue on a high level, and I no longer have to dread getting a daily morning email from Network Solutions engineering telling me my database issue is resolved when it is not and never was.
Please bear with me here as things slowly get fixed over the next couple of months. I have faith in Vinny and his determined promise to get MySQL working up to the standards we all expect. If this blog gets slow and unresponsive for you -- yesterday I had to wait 71.238 seconds for a page to load -- come back in five minutes and things should be a little better. In the meantime, we'll start ramping up again familiar blog topics about the horehounds of humanity and the crises of living a moral life as we try to take our minds off how much slower our semiotic world is spinning.
I can see a series now
Coming next fall to ABC...
The next great drama...
One man... against the Internet.
You won't believe his incredible saga.
Don't miss "My So-Called Web Site"
Any night at any time we need to plug something in.
Hee :D
Hello, my Carla!
Heh! You made me laugh again today, thanks!
This has certainly been a strange saga. Network Solutions are 99% perfect! MySQL needs to be fixed. They also need to give more Web Hosting Administration Panel information to power users but this one thing -- database interaction -- can bring you to your knees all day long as you see your connectivity to your friends and associates timing out. It sears your soul and brands you with the Network Solutions brand in a bitter place.
I love your dramatic series idea and, in addition to Vinny Lee, I'm sure we can find lots of other Network Solutions characters to co-star with me. :mrgreen::!:
I'm most surprised that wp-cache slowed the site. In theory, it will create a static copy of each page on the site on its first access (that might be slow) but then on following accesses it should be a lot faster. Hence, the first testing run whilst amassing static data in the cache may be a little slower.
How long was it running before it slowed everything up?
-Fruey
Hello fruey!
I had it running for an hour before I could no longer take the timing out. Uninstalling it led to no more timeouts. As far as I can tell from the cache README, when someone posts a new comment the cache is automatically refreshed, right? So on days with a lot of comments those pages would not be sped up anyway due to the continued cache refreshes. Is that your understanding of how the cache works?
yes, your blog has been slow. more during the day than at night. i sure hope they improve it for you. if they don't will you move to another host?
Hello Clem!
Thanks for confirming the slow database events. I know the slow speed is annoying and I am sorry. One thing you can’t really judge very well when switching web host services is how their database reacts. WordPress is infamous for being speedy and NOT resource intensive so this blog should be flying on Network Solutions server hardware.
It seems this blog is the slowest during the day between 11am-6pm Eastern -- peak time when the West Coast is also up and moving around and blog reading on the web. :)
Yes, I will have to find a new web host if this doesn't get fixed. I have several projects in queue that will require database calls and if Network Solutions can’t fix the problem then I need to find a host that is hosting with MySQL database swiftness already in working shape. I have stripped so many extra features out of this blog to try to get the load times down. I'm a little down about that, too.
I am getting email from readers of this blog who say Site5.com and DreamHost.com are good host choices for the kind of stuff I need to get done. If anyone has information on those hosts, or any other web hosts for that matter, email me or post a comment here.
Hi David
Sorry I took a while to come back, but I'm quite busy right now as readers of my blog will no doubt know!
If indeed the cache refreshes after each comment - which would make sense - then it could be quite slow but the fact it was very slow indeed is interesting. I haven't looked into it, maybe there are possible tweaks but I don't know.
As far as hosts are concerned, I only really know the French hosting market but I think it's often a tough call. My recent move has caused what appears to be slowdown from my perspective, but I am not sure. Best bet - budget permitting - is to rent a dedicated server. Then you can really get things to fly. I did a project setting up a dedicated server for a friend and super optimised his MySQL and PHP setup, and he runs a very popular forum on PHPBB which is notorious for a lot of DB calls. It seems to run very nicely, but it took some time to find the "sweet spot" with the MySQL DB. Some of that tuning I mentioned in a previous post, and particularly important were the following
- InnoDB tables (v. important) memory tuning for MySQL
- TurckMM cache for PHP
- Removing all unneeded apache modules
Hopefully this info might help you in your search for good webhosts or improvement from NetSol at least. I'm sorry to say that the site is painfully slow right now as I'm surfing.
-Fruey
Hi freuy!
Congrats on the new baby! I'm sure you must be exhausted and thrilled. I have missed you here.
Thanks for the comments on the database. Network Solutions appear to have a plan to set in place to make things speedier. I concur the speed is incredibly painfully awfully terribly slowly and soggy. I apologize. I had no idea MySQL speed optimization could vary so widely between web hosts.
I am working with Vinny Lee at NetSol to solve this and he is proactive and involved and I want to give them a chance to fix it because 99% of my setup of NetSol is incredible but, for many people that missing 1% is 100% of their interaction with me here in the blog so it all seems intolerable.
I realize a dedicated server may be in my near future at treble the cost of what I'm paying now, but if it must be, then so be it!
Hi there,
Stumbled across your Blog while rsearching slowness issues with my implementation of PHPBB (www.phpbb.com) on a NetSol hosted site. Cutomer support had commented that it was a know issue to me when I called in which was a good sign. Honesty about the issue that reaches the front line support folks is always good. That aside, it does not seem any better. Did you have an update to this saga?
Thanks!
Hi Guest --
I have moved hosting of this blog and all my other sites from NetSol to Media Temple and everything is running faster, smoother, better and the last I heard was NetSol was supposed to have Part I of their MySQL database slowness solution in place by November 12 with another, final, fix skedded for December 10. If you don't feel a difference now, I fear you may not feel much of a difference later.