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Moderators: martimiz, Sean, Ed, biapar, Willr, Ingo, swaiba

2.4.4+ - Slow CMS - CSS perpetually loading


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7 Posts   3468 Views

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Double-A-Ron

Community Member, 607 Posts

11 April 2011 at 3:02pm

Edited: 11/04/2011 3:12pm

I reported serious speed issues in the CMS side of things about a month ago in another post. This report (here on the forum for now) related to the following:

1. 2.4.4 and 2.4.5
2. Windows (WAMP) AND LAMP envioronments
3. Standard Installation

I have today done some investigating into this on a different computer and network to the trouble I found above. This new computer is a Windows machine running WAMP standard install with the following vhost:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName ats.localhost
DocumentRoot "C:/wamp/www/ats"
</VirtualHost>

ats.localhost is also added to my hosts file and is working fine.

As per my other PC when I first noticed this problem, the CMS is impossibly slow. Load times are as follows. Remember this is WAMP running on a local machine. This is not running over an internet connection. These tests are also duplicated on two separate machines. One Windows XP, the other Windows 7. A third remote linux server was tested with even worse results due to it running over the internet of course.

1. Initial Load - 14.3 - 18.6 seconds
2. Moving from "Home" to "About" in the site tree (wait time for the main content window to load) - 7.3-14.7 seconds

What Firebug is telling me for each of these events is the following:

1. The versioned css for ui.css is perpetually loading, as are 3 copies of content.css, and 2 copies of editor.css. All of these copies are referencing the same version and the number of copies shown above is consistant every time it is tested.

2. When you move between pages in the tree, GetItem is shown loading in Firefox for the bulk of the time listed above. Once loaded, flash.gif loads (instantly), then typography.css does the same as the 6 css files above. That is, it perpetually shows as still loading.

When I say "perpetually loading", I mean these files never complete loading at all. Firebug shows them with the loading icon and these firebug entries cannot be copied or selected. The page itself appears to have loaded by this time, and the loading indicator on the firefox status bar is in it's completed state. There are no visible layout or style problems.

I'm not saying that these CSS files that don't appear to be loading are to blame for these speed issues. But it would be a bit of a coincident if it wasn't related to the same problem.

Can anyone duplicate the same problems above? Does anyone have any ideas? This has been an onging issue for a month on three different networks, two different windows environments, and one Linux environment.

We have halted all SS development and declined 2 client upgrade requests because of this issue. It is worth noting that version 2.3.x has no problem at all in the very same environments. In fact we will most likely roll with 2.3.3 or possibly Wordpress if we can't find a resolution to this.

Cheers
Aaron

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Double-A-Ron

Community Member, 607 Posts

14 April 2011 at 10:30pm

Same results tested on a fourth machine and environment (Windows XP + WAMP)

Noone has seen this issue at all? I find it hard to believe that I coincidentally have 4 different environments showing the same issue on a standard install of Silverstripe.

And now I have a manager wondering at the lack of community response to an open source project I have pushed so hard.

Will? Sig? You called me not long ago to discuss Dawn. I can tell you now that I am holding my employer's patience but he has me preparing a report for a replacement CMS of choice.

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Double-A-Ron

Community Member, 607 Posts

15 April 2011 at 10:37am

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t|m

Community Member, 19 Posts

15 April 2011 at 12:55pm

Hi Aaron,

understand your frustration.

I've never had / heard of this issue before. It seems real weird that you are experiencing it on these different environments.

Sounds like a configuration problem somehow.
Is the memory limit for php set reasonably high?

Do these css files load ok when you open them in a new tab?

Avatar
martimiz

Forum Moderator, 1391 Posts

16 April 2011 at 1:54am

Edited: 16/04/2011 2:36am

Hi, I absolutely understand your frustration, and I do want to help...

So I did my best to duplicate - I installed a fresh 245 on Linux Debian Squeeze, and, to make sure, on my old XP WAMP... In both cases I could not reproduce what I saw in your screencast. Everything just works fine...

The only thing I can think of, when I see all these slowloading files, is a problem with memory/the number of connections on the webserver? But on all these different workstations/servers...

Did you download a fresh copy from git? Saw your other post as well - seems there are some weird things going on... :-(

[EDIT] Still thinking this must be some setting/config thing. What I would do (before giving up alltogether, which would be such a waste):

- go (a substantial distance) away from office and manager
- take a fresh Windows/WAMP/ or LAMP install on some disconnected machine without firewall/antivirus.
- use the most default WAMP/LAMP settings, just use localhost on win
- maybe only enable mod_rewrite
- probably use php 5.3
- take the default silverstripe 245 (no trunk, nothing custom)
- try ff3.6?

See what gives... (but you probably did this)

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Ingo

Forum Moderator, 801 Posts

17 April 2011 at 10:47pm

Edited: 17/04/2011 10:49pm

Hey Aaron, thats indeed a bit slow. To track down the issue, can you please provide a bit more info?
- Can you please attach your php.ini? Which version of PHP? Are you running any bytecode caches like xcache?
- Are you running a standard 2.4.5 installation without any custom code?
- Does this problem ocurr with earlier versions of 2.4.x as well, or are you just comparing to 2.3.x?
- I assume these load times are with a primed manifest cache?
- Which version of Firefox?
- Do you see similarly bad performance when loading the homepage on blackcandy?

Could you export a HAR file of your network load profile please?
http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/10/19/http-archive-specification-firebug-and-httpwatch/
This will show us the sequence of loads over time, and what is blocking.

I don't think the 404s you're getting from CSS files should slow down the system,
the important point in time are the window.ready and document.onload events.

One thing to note: Firebug itself can significantly slow down web applications, particularly if you enable the network tracing.

BTW: The first stages of the 3.0 UI load in 2.2s here on my local (last year's MacBook Pro),
so don't give up hope on SS backend performance just yet :)

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Double-A-Ron

Community Member, 607 Posts

18 April 2011 at 9:04pm

Hi Ingo,

Thanks for the post. I am in my last week at this current employer so am under the pump. I will reply with all that ASAP.

My new employer is a non SS company with some serious questions about it when I interviewed, so I definitely want to get to the bottom of this one if only for my own knowledge.

I will quickly answer the following tho:

* PHP version varies. 5.2.14 on Linux. 5.2.9 on one XP/Wamp install. 5.3.0 on Windows 7/Wamp install. I'll post the PHP.ini from the 5.2.9 WAMP environment.
* No bytecode caches
* Stock standard 2.4.5. That video was a fresh install done specifically for the video.
* Duplicated on 2.4.4. I have not tried earlier 2.4.x versions
* Manifest Cache is empty as it is a fresh install. I have done many flushes but have stopped short of manually emptying the cache as some of these live sites live on a shared server where we can't get to the /tmp dir.
* In that video, I was using 3.5.9. However the Windows 7 environment is running 3.6.16 with the exact same issues.
* Home page and all other frontend pages are just fine. No load delays. This is purely a CMS issue.
* Yes I am aware of firebug slowing things down. Issue is duplicated with Chrome and IE however.

I'll post the ini and HAR files as soon as I have more time to dig.

As per my vid, I think this is an ENV issue. If it were a SS issue, there would be more reports of it happening. I think the solution will be some setup I am used to in 2.3.x development that does not sit well with 2.4.x for whatever reason. I am also under no illusion that I have performed scientific tests here.

I'm not giving up hope mate. I've been here for 3 years now and I would lose a valuable tool in sapphire and backend if I went to another CMS. My employer is not too happy is all.

If 3.0 loads the designs I saw in github in 2.2, I will definitely be here for that milestone.