First page loads after 10 seconds, then site is fast...hosting problem??

I am using ver 1.3.8a and have been experiencing slow parse times of around 10 seconds, but only for the very first page loaded at the domain, whether it is the home page, product page, whatever. Once the first page is loaded, everything else is lightning fast, with parse time below 1/5th of a second. I've been very happy with my hosting company (InMotionHosting) and they have put forth some effort to resolve this, but we've gotten nowhere. They have not been able to reproduce the problem at their end, but I have from several different internet connections in different states. I'd hate to dump these guys unless I am perfectly certain it is related to their services. I have copied the entire site onto a testing server in house and the problem is gone. Is it safe to conclude that this is a problem with the host, and that it probably will be gone if I switch to another?

My site is NewOldSounds dot com.

Thank you in advance,
Tim

Assuming that this is a Linux server or even if a win server it is all about settings - and these, while on open platform, are guarded by those that have expended time into tweaking them

There is little else, sans the number of clients per server. that sets hosts apart

Hi Tim

I just went to your site and the first page I went to (the home page) was fast as was any other pages I visited - in both FF & IE.

My first thought was that you might be running a particular script or it's looking for something that isn't available, etc. But that doesn't seem to be the case for me. When you say you have tested it from several Internet connections - was there anything in common with these tests - such as always using your laptop, for example?

Another thing may be relating to your internal DNS. Are you working from a network with a DNS server? Your machine/network could be spending some time trying to resolve the domain name for some reason. Do you have the same issue when you access your store by IP address?

As it has been hard to reproduce by others that there may be something in your 'test' environment that could be causing the issue.

I'm in Australia. Hopefully someone in the US might try your site and report back on their experience. This type of issue is SOOOO frustrating. Best of luck in tracking the underlying reason down.

Cheers
Kerrin

Thanks for the quick responses! I have had two friends on the other side of the country try the connection. They are both connected to the web at much faster speeds than me, one is on an OC-48 at his employer; they both experienced the slow loading problem. I have tried it from three different computers, two at the office and my laptop at home on a different connection. They all have the slow parse times.

kobra, you would be confident that this is a host related issue? Maybe a router or something that is misbehaving on their end causing some traffic to go through quickly and other traffic not to? This would explain why copying the site verbatim to a test server made the problem go away.

kdays, thanks for visiting the site. My host said they had no problem loading the page as well, so your findings confirms that possibility. My test server is on the local network, and has been accessed by people 2000 miles away with no issues, by the same people that had issues with the site on InMotionHosting.

Another thing I should mention is that the site didn't always do this. It used to work great, and very fast. One day I noticed the issue and thought wow, that's new. I have put in multiple trouble tickets to InMotionHosting, but nothing has resolved it.

They are moving me from a west coast server to an east coast server, which should eliminate the possibility of some kind of strange routing or DNS problem.

Tim

First load
Parse Time: 0.189 - Number of Queries: 93 - Query Time: 0.0362903766632

Parse Time: 0.211 - Number of Queries: 93 - Query Time: 0.0151276853027

Here in Michigan.

Thanks for checking it out, you guys visited it after I got moved to another server, and that seems to be working good. Apparently it is at least working for the majority of people, and there are some isolated exceptions (my computer...my friends computers...the trend is computers that have visited the site before...???) :frusty:

Thanks, I'll just have to keep an active eye on this issue and see if it is an isolated thing, and what's causing it. Maybe reinstalling Windows will fix it :P

Thanks everyone,
Tim

Having the same problem except all pages load slowly
My host site thinks its a problem with program (EP?) I am using 5.4
They "suggest you trying to optimize your code and SQL
queries." Nick

If all your pages load slowly, then your host is the problem, assuming you've properly scaled your images and created a small, medium and large set of them. There is no easily practical way to "optimize your code and SQL queries" as suggested. My dealings with most hosting companies has always been that they will pass the buck on the first round of inquiries.

I'd suggest reading some of the other threads about overall slowness, that problem has been discussed at length on the forum.

Tim

libertyguy:

Having the same problem except all pages load slowly
My host site thinks its a problem with program (EP?) I am using 5.4
They "suggest you trying to optimize your code and SQL
queries." Nick

Is there a limit as to how many products ZC can handle??

I have about 12000 products in 10 categories plus 3 subcats

Login to admin and everything there is fast except for cat/prod
and store. Once in store all page changes take forever

Nick

Is there a limit as to how many products ZC can handle??

I have about 12000 products in 10 categories plus 3 subcats
No limit in the code...server \can be a limiting factor

Have carts with 70,000+ items and no speed issues