Sloooow everything

[eschwenke]

My store is at http://www.sapphireaquatics.com/store. My host is dreamhost. I've tried several of the steps suggested in searches for this issue, but still my site takes anywhere for 8 to 30 seconds to load. Gzip compression is disabled. I've removed "upcoming products" from the index. I only have two products in the entire store. Even the admin pages drag. I'm pretty close to starting all over with a new product, but I've heard great things about zen-cart and want to give it a fair shot. Suggestions?

[Ajeh]

Your server is in a bad state and obviously needs a reboot ...

It appears to either be overloaded ... which means this will happen again and again or someone is overloading the server running some process ...

I'd suggest contacting your host about getting on a better server ... otherwise look into one of our Certified Hosting sites for fast performance done right ...

[bobrushworth]

I've got a problem in that the site runs fine a lot of the time and then slows right down to a crawl for a few minutes before speeding right up again. Also, it will be fine while I'm looking at it but someone else will be looking at it and its gone to a snail's pace for them.

I have tried reducing image sizes and removing redundant images from the server and it seemed to make a slight difference but what puzzles me is the erratic nature of the problem.

The site is on a 1&1 shared host. I've put loads of sites on their servers and never had any probs before. It doesn't look like a server problem because it runs at different speeds for different users simultaneously.

Anyone had this trouble?

Cheers,

Bob

[misty]

SPEED

Here are some suggestions, assuming you're running the latest-released version of Zen Cart:

1. Turn off Category Counts:
a. Admin->Config->My Store->Show Category Counts=false
b. Admin->Config->My Store->Show Category Counts-Admin = false
(this is for admin-area only when editing catalog)

2. Enable GZip compression
Admin->Config->GZip Compression->Enable GZip Compression = 1

3. Disable the Manufacturers sidebox
Admin->Tools->Layout Boxes Controller
- find the sideboxes/manufacturers.php entry, and turn it "OFF"

4. Ensure your images are optimized for your site...
specifically, use small images for thumbnails, slightly larger for product pages
("_MED" images), and large detailed images for "click to enlarge" ("_LRG") images.
HTH

[bobrushworth]

Thanks.

I tried all that, thought it was all solved and then the site drove into the mud again.

The funny thing about it is that it runs super fast one minute and then grinds to a halt the next, whilst someone else can be looking at it at the same time and experiencing the opposite.

I'll get there in the end I'm sure.

Cheers.

[NyKc]

I also host on dreamhost, and the same thing it is slow sometimes and fast at other times. There are benefits and flaws with dreamhost. Zen-Cart is a little slower on dreamhost than OSCommerce was, but the support and features of Zen-Cart are second to none on all the other apps ive came across.