Long parse time during checkout

[ideal123]

The site http://www.ideal123.com is working perfectly fine except the shopping cart pages.
Normal parse times are always <1
Parse Time: 0.574 - Number of Queries: 185 - Query Time: 0.13383170387268
But whenever I enter the shopping cart (either by adding product or clicking the shopping cart link), the page takes forever to load. Sometimes timeout, sometimes have a parse time >60.
Guys.. really need some help here. Thanks

[ideal123]

problem doesnt occur when shopping cart is empty..

[Merlinpa1969]

How does the admin work,

[ideal123]

admin works fine..
i think theres a problem w/ the usps shipping module or usps' server
there were no problem when usps module is disabled....
prob gotta check it some other time

[Merlinpa1969]

Yes USPS is down but that shouldnt affect adding to cart

[ideal123]

guess that the query hangs when failed to contact usps?
otherwise it makes no sense if checkout is working perfectly fine w/o USPS module

[ideal123]

ps: after add to cart, it redirects to the checkout page.. -> process usps

[Merlinpa1969]

why did you change the code to redirect right to checkout_shipping,
dosnt this make it hard for users to put more than 1 thing in the basket?

[ideal123]

hmm.. you are right.
but i didnt make any changes to the php's tho

[Merlinpa1969]

is there a redirect using htaccess,
customer shouldnt go to check out till they hit the checkout button either in the shopping cart or any other link that you have pointing there,