Error 2020: Too Slow

[Null]

I was wondering the same thing. Do we really benefit from going for constant growth?

Of course. We're only barely financially stable at the moment, after years, and the way it's set up I can lose it basically any time. Exploring what sort of uses this place can serve is important if I'm to keep running it. I'm only getting older and eventually I'll have to start making choices. I'm not going to allow myself to turn 30 without a plan.

 

[Trigger Me Timbers]

Hey Null, I think this is all really insightful and I for one want to stick my flag in the ground as a proud mobile user

Question, a personal theory I have is that Bing also weighs in a pages age as a big factor, have you found this to be the case?

FYI being so mobile friendly is one of the reasons I post here so much, when I’m at a computer I should be working so it’s nice on my breaks/time off I can open my phone and see what my fav Lolcow is up to.

 

[Coffee Shits]

Is it feasible to render the output of css.php to a static file, or would that fall under doing over XenForo's CSS system? I ask because I checked the source and it's called on every page load and potentially doing so dynamically.

If I had to guess, it's concatenating a bunch of pre-minified CSS files and sending them to output, and this takes kind of a while. The response does seem to be cached on the server - if I repeat a request it's complete in 100-400ms but the first time (based on futzing with the k, s, l, and d params - they appear optional?) it's anywhere from 400-2400ms on my connection. The response has a valid Cache-Control header, but if you're concerned with first load rendering the result to a static file might be a good way to shave off a few milliseconds. Is XenForo spinning up a new instance every time it runs this file?

 

[Looney Troons]

Mobile user primarily here. I wouldn’t mind if you got rid of the avatars, but ngl, I recognize posters first from their avatars. This would only be a minor inconvenience, in my opinion. I’d actually have to pay attention.

 

[Lurkism]

Another solution to the GIF problem, would be getting the first frame of the GIF that would reduce the to a comfy size under 40kb (for guest users).

 

[Stoneheart]

ad victoriam, ex machina, non sibi sed fundus.

 

[Odessa Norwood]

I don't know if this will help or hinder, but I've had this message a few times tonight.

Edited to remove IP address.

 

[James Smith]

I don't know if this will help or hinder, but I've had this message a few times tonight.

It helps you dox your IP.

 

[7proxy]

It's like there's 500ms of overhead on every page load and I can't pinpoint it to save my life. It's nothing to do with PHP, the actual page generation is within 150ms now.

I assume the "150 ms" figure is from XenForo's debug output at the bottom. How did you measure the overhead? Did you eyeball it by doing TTFB - 150 ms?

If the page generation is fast but there's an unexplained delay somewhere, I'd be thinking of some kind of resource contention. Check FPM's log, see if it's running out of available processes, or if it's having issues spawning new ones. Check out OPCache's status to see if it's not running out of memory somehow. That won't be it because it would also increase the time spent within XenForo but it's worth checking, especially anything related to revalidation and locks because they could hold up page generation before XenForo starts the timer.

After running out of low-hanging fruits I'd check the kernel's logs to see if it's not running out of descriptors. That could explain the Cloudflare timeouts... maybe.

 

[Pond Scum]

I don't know if this will help or hinder, but I've had this message a few times tonight.

View attachment 1123035

Come on now, people work hard for those Kiwi IPs!

 

[Odessa Norwood]

It helps you dox your IP.

Bother, put up the wrong screenshot. I'll change it now.

Edit to remove random V.

 

[A shitty ass clover]

Mr. Moon: Better SEO optimizer that a fat tranny using google glasses..

 

[Lurkism]

I don't know if this will help or hinder, but I've had this message a few times tonight.

Edited to remove IP address.

That's normal behavior of the farms.

 

[Operator of the Wired]

You could convert all the gif's into mp4's
View attachment 1122837

Second, but vp9 WebMs instead. The following line has slimmed down my videos by insane degrees, but needs AMD graphics hardware acceleration to run fast.
ffmpeg -i "$1" -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libopus "$1"-slim.webm

 

[HOMO FOR LIFE]

Let me tell you my website traffic breakdown.

99% Google.

1% Bing.

Null: omg I need to dedicate 99% of my time to Bing optimization.

Also null is good and mighty. Pls don't smite.

 

[slartifartblast]

When I use the site on mobile, I tend to use the Stealth CSS option anyway, because meh avatars, but from what I gather it loads them anyway

 

[Lurkism]

Why not switch guest users to a different theme that doesn't have avatars?

 

[Neil]

What's Bing?

The best place to save and hide porn searches if you don't want to use incognito mode.
Because no one will ever think to check there.

 

[melty]

I can believe Bing is punishing forums as I've casually noticed this too. Bing constantly changing their rules can only harm small sites that don't have a team to keep up with and respond to all the changes and use fancy new technology.
I also really liked the comfy alternate universe feel of this post. I personally love how Windows runs on my Nokia phone, and Blockbuster streaming has fewer issues on it than Blackberries.

 

[The Fool]

And honestly, I feel this sort of prioritization is an active effort on Bing to destroy discussion sites...

I mean, if I was going to assume a conspiracy, it would probably just be for selling more Azure instances. But honestly I take this at face value, I think this is just to make their face a little shinier, to make normies go "sites load faster when I look them up on bing!" because normies really are that stupid. MS knows normies are this stupid. It's the same reason Windows is Windows.

Here's an extreme idea, what if you generated some kind of bare-minimum Web 1.0-style cache of the site that showed up for guests? Periodically generate the cache and show the cache immediately to clients instead of on-demand. It would look like shit and may potentially drive away new users who don't realize there's a much better looking site available after you sign up, though.

I don't know, I'm just spitballing here. I'm just thinking like, what lightweight alternatives could you serve to guests. A guest needs exponentially less interactivity than a user does, so maybe you should use different software entirely for them.