My ZenCart is Slow, but it's not MySQL! What is it?!? (Hosting on my own server)

[pcwerks]

I had a server with osCommerce set up and running on it. Someone just told me about Zen Cart, so I decided to try it. The install went fine, and setting up the admin went fine. What's not fine is that the catalog itself is slow. Not horribly slow like some people here have mentioned (10+ second page loads), but each page load is taking between 1.5 and 3 seconds and I can't figure out why. Here are some sample parse times

Parse Time: 1.481 - Number of Queries: 43 - Query Time: 0.04258829524231
Parse Time: 1.611 - Number of Queries: 63 - Query Time: 0.06126887361145
Parse Time: 2.401 - Number of Queries: 141 - Query Time: 0.14540380244446
Parse Time: 2.113 - Number of Queries: 167 - Query Time: 0.12346168908691
Parse Time: 2.065 - Number of Queries: 194 - Query Time: 0.13132462286377
Parse Time: 1.714 - Number of Queries: 200 - Query Time: 0.13495773448181
Parse Time: 1.932 - Number of Queries: 83 - Query Time: 0.066764063919067

As you can see, the MySQL query times are very low, like they should be. But why are my Parse Time's so high? I have turned almost every option off. There are only 3 info boxes on the page, and the banners are gone. There are only 2 items in the catalog and there are no orders placed so far. I have disabled all of the New Products, Upcoming Products, Featured Products, etc. What's confusing me is that all of my other domains are running just fine, including 3 installs of osCommerce. I'm getting Parse Times from the osCommerce installs close to 0.2 and 0.3 seconds. I realize that osCommerce is similar to Zen Cart, but Zen Cart has lots of more installed options by default, as well as a lot more tables in the database, but Zen Cart is not doing 10 times as much as osCommerce is, so why is it taking 10 times as long to parse a page load?

You can see both of my stores here, they are almost identical
osCommerce Version - http://www.mypcwerks.com/store/
Zen Cart Version - http://www.mypcwerks.com/store2/

Can anyone tell me what could possible be wrong? If you need more details about the server or any of the software or setup, please let me know. I have been searching and trying things for 8 hours straight now and I am all out of ideas!!!!!

[yellow1912]

Your picture file sizes are not good. Install image handler 2 to fix that.

PS: OOps, pardon me, was looking at osc site.

[Ajeh]

Turn on GZip in the Configuration ... GZip ...

And make sure that you have all of the indexes on your database that a new install would have ...

[pcwerks]

Turn on GZip in the Configuration ... GZip ...

And make sure that you have all of the indexes on your database that a new install would have ...

I have tried it with and without GZip turned on. Either way, the times are all almost identical.

This is a new install, I just installed it yesterday and it's been doing the exact same thing since the moment I installed it, even with no products added. How do I know if something is not right with the indexes?

[Ajeh]

If this is a clean install that you later added products to then you should be okay on your data ...

I am assuming that you have installed the latest Zen Cart v1.3.8a ...
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81696

[pcwerks]

If this is a clean install that you later added products to then you should be okay on your data ...

I am assuming that you have installed the latest Zen Cart v1.3.8a ...
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81696

Yes, in the admin section it shows
Zen Cart 1.3.8a
Database Patch Level: 1.3.8
v1.3.8 [2008-01-02 11:40:38] (Fresh Installation)


Does any of this help?

PHP Version 5.2.5
Database: MySQL 5.0.45-community-nt
Database Host: localhost (127.0.0.1)
HTTP Server: Apache/2.2.4 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.4 OpenSSL/0.9.8d PHP/5.2.5
PHP Memory Limit: 128M
POST Max Size: 8M
Database Data Size: 306 kB
Database Index Size: 397 kB

[Ajeh]

Here are some stats from a busy site running Zen Cart:

This site has:
340+ Categories ...
5,900 Products ...
73,000 Attributes ...
NOTE: there are also about 100 people on the site at any given time ...

Home Page:
Hit 1: Parse Time: 0.795 - Number of Queries: 411 - Query Time: 0.503991784042
Hit 2: Parse Time: 0.385 - Number of Queries: 400 - Query Time: 0.222354076126

All Products:
Hit 1: Parse Time: 1.049 - Number of Queries: 1809 - Query Time: 0.523603009018
Hit 2: Parse Time: 0.919 - Number of Queries: 1809 - Query Time: 0.499955935379

Product No Attributes: Parse Time: 0.252 - Number of Queries: 164 - Query Time: 0.0803091335907

Product with 92 Attributes: Parse Time: 0.461 - Number of Queries: 881 - Query Time: 0.221011120956


So for your situation I tend to think there is something more here than meets the eye to optimize the server for MySQL ...

osC doesn't have much to it and I would expect it to run faster ... however, your Zen Cart site doesn't have anything in it that is standing out to explain these slow times that you are experiencing ...

[pcwerks]

This site has:
340+ Categories ... 5,900 Products ... 73,000 Attributes ...
Product No Attributes: Parse Time: 0.252 - Number of Queries: 164 - Query Time: 0.0803091335907
So I tend to think there is something more here than meets the eye to optimize the server for MySQL ...
NOTE: there are also about 100 people on the site ...

Ajeh, first of all, thank you very much for taking the time to help me. You have no idea how much I appreciate it!!!!

Now I agree, there is something definitely wrong, but I don't think that it's the MySQL server. Look at all of my Query Times. My pages have way less number of queries than your pages, but the query times are proportionally way less than yours as well. What's not proportional is the Parse Times. Take these two examples from both of us

Mine : Parse Time: 2.113 - Number of Queries: 167 - Query Time: 0.12346168908691
Yours : Parse Time: 0.252 - Number of Queries: 164 - Query Time: 0.0803091335907

These number of queries is almost identical. My Query Time is about 1.5 times what Your Query Time is, but my Parse Time is about 8.4 times what your Parse Time is. And it only gets worse the more the numbers increase. Look at these numbers if you total up your 6 examples and my 7 examples. Line 1 is your total times. Line 2 is My total times. Line 3 is if you multiply my numbers by 6.144 to get my Num Queries to match yours.

     Parse Time    Num Queries      Query Time      Avg Query Time
1 :    3.861         5474        2.0512250591117    0.000374721421
2 :   13.317         891         0.7057690816505    0.000792108958
3 :   81.815         5474        4.3360044365374    0.000792108958

My Average Query Time is a little over 2 times what your Average Query Time is, but my Total Parse time for 5474 queries was 21 Times what your Total Parse time was for the same number of queries. I understand that some queries are more complicated than others, but do you agree that the SQL Queries don't seem to be the bottleneck?

What I need to know is what ELSE affects the Parse Time besides all of the database queries. What can I tune or adjust to shrink the Parse Time? Keep in mind that I've already turned on GZip and it made no difference at all, probably because the pages are so small. So does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

[DrByte]

What are the CPU/RAM specs of the portion of the server allocated to you?
What are the server's current Load Averages running at?

[pcwerks]

What are the CPU/RAM specs of the portion of the server allocated to you?
What are the server's current Load Averages running at?

Software - Windows XP SP2, Apache 2.2.4, PHP 5.2.5, MySQL 5.0.45
Hardware - Intel Celeron D 3.2Ghz, 2GB DDR RAM, 160GB IDE HD

This is my own server, I have full control of it. Besides the Apache, PHP & MySQL, it is also running a small mail server, mail filter and a virus scanner. I will get some loads data now.