Serious Delay Loading Pages

[Ajeh]

StevenD ...

With the 400+ attributes per product this will take some time to load ...

In the next couple of upcoming releases this should help you quite a bit ...

I would be interested in a copy of your database to work on further optimizations as your site definitely pushes the limits and would be of great help in testing the new versions before release ...

If that works for you ... please drop me a PM ... thanks!

[Ajeh]

NOTE: you have a nice fast hosting site ... many cannot manage 80-100 attributes in 15 seconds let alone down to 2 seconds or less ... where a good server should be at ...

[StevenD]

Linda, I sent you a priv message

you know what would be really cool, if there was an option in the option types for html or code

where we can now choose, radio, text, dropdown..

there should eb a code/html custom option

then i could choose that, for the size range

and in the custom code add

<?php
$i = "-60";
while ($i <= 60):
   echo "<option value=$i>$i</option>";
   $i++;
endwhile;
?>

and then my options would show the +60 to -60 dropdown, without even having to add all the damn attribute options one by one in the firstplace, and it would also allow for a single sql to get that code statement rather than hundreds for all the options one at a time.

or even of it allowed a custom array to be typed in and then displayed through the same place

you could choose 'array' instead of text, radio, dropdown

and then just type an array of dropdown choices into the attribute section where it asks for rows, etc

1,2,3,4,5,6

or

Blue. Red. Green, Black

whatever

it would speed up the adding of certain attribute/option types, and cut down on sql calls

Steven

[rotozuk]

Since I see some people linking to my site from this thread, I should point out that I switched hosting over to one of the Zen Certified companies, so it is nice and speedy now. Also offers more features then dreamhost.

I was happy at Dreamhost until this issue came up, now I'm even happier. :)

-Wayne

[groovix]

I too have struggled with long delays while loading cart pages on http://groovix.com/store/ for the past year. I was on dreamhost, but moved over to sashbox 4 months ago.

At first, everything on sashbox seemed fast. Now, for the past 2 months at least, it takes about 10 seconds to load an average page. Everything on the sashbox server seems slow, even editing files in vi. Sometimes things are fast, but then other times load times are abysmal, taking over 15 seconds measured with time wget. It seems that the server is just overloaded at some times of the day, but since they won't let you check server load from the command line, I can't be sure.

I have contacted their support twice about this, with absolutely no response. I see the "hosted by sashbox" message on zen-cart.com, but it looks like zen-cart.com is really hosted on theplanet, which is dedicated servers:
PING zen-cart.com (70.87.51.220) ... from dc.33.5746.static.theplanet.com

I though that a "zen-cart friendly" host would at least respond to my pleas for help, if even to say "give us $100 and we'll look into it what you set up wrong to make it slow". I can't rule out that its something with my configuration that is slowing it down, but I've tried many tips including different caching methods and nothing seems to help.

I really didn't want to go to a $100+/mo dedicated server, but is that what it takes to get decent performance (<5 seconds to load a page?)
What other experiences with "certified" zen-cart hosts have people had?
I don't mind paying a little more for consistent decent performance and support that answers their customers.

[rotozuk]

Well, I'm on sashbox now and am happy so far.

I just took a quick look at your site, and non-product pages appear nice and fast, but when I pulled up a computer item with a bunch of sttributes asigned to it, it was rather slow, but you do have a lot of attributes there. I understand this to be a normal thing to slow Zen a lot.

When I pulled up a software item that had no attributes, you were once again quick loading.

I'm not sure this has anything to do with the server, but more to do with the current version of Zen dealing with the attributes. I'll let someone else who knows more then I pipe up though..

Sashbox has been pretty quick to my email questions so far. Maybe once I get beyond the warranty period they will blow me off. Even if they do, still much better then Dream(less)host.

-Wayne

[groovix]

Today everything is loading pretty fast. What took 15 seconds two days ago just took <5 seconds to load now. Responsiveness in a shell is very good right now too. Because it can be so much faster on a good day, I know >15 second load times are not acceptable for a product just because it has 10 attributes.

Yes, it is definitely database queries that are slowing things down, and general html performance is great. However, since sashbox seems to run the sql server on the same machine as the server (sql connects to localhost) I wonder if their sql performance can be consistently fast. Most things I've read highly recommend the sql server being a different machine from the web host, but obviously a lightly loaded server running both is better than a separate overloaded (dreamhost) sql server.

Obviously these hosting companies with <$20/month plans cannot give performance or customer service like dedicated server companies, but if sashbox wants to call itself "zen certified" it should at least offer some extra fee options to guarantee decent sql performance and acknowledge customer issues within 24 hours.