Product Pages Painfully Slow

I am using 1.3.9 with Easy Populate, an seo module, a query cache add on, and the apparel boutique template.
I have recently begun uploading products via Easy Populate and have noticed that while the home and category pages load fine, the individual product pages load extremely slow (like they are going to time out for people slow.) Even on a page with no product image and very little going on (like this one: http://craftsupply.craftideasweekly.com/penguin-quilt-magic-kit12x12-p-2581.html) it takes FOREVER to load.

I installed a query caching code hoping it would improve the issue...I suppose it did a little...but the project pages are still slow.

Any advice on how to fix this? Looking around on the forums, it seems this might be a database load issue. I am considering installing the magneti cone Zen Cart.Performanc e.module but don't want to install anything else if it is for nothing. I am also considering installing an image handler to improve overall site load but I am not sure it will help this issue.

Where should I go from here? :frusty:

Thanks!
Molly

your category page has loads more images so a page like this should be slower
http://craftsupply.craftideasweekly.com/sewing-and-quilting-04280-c-16_39.html?page=2&sort=20a
but instead its snappy

That points to something on the product page, the only thing i can see different to normal is your social network script have you tried removing it to see if that makes a difference?

If you are using forefox you can analyse where the blockage/slowdown is using pagespeed or yslow

Some food for thought...

Have a look at these ping times ... Quite slow

Ping 173.201.98.236

[craftsupply.craftideasweekly.com]

Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 30 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 30 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms
Round trip time to 173.201.98.236: 29 ms

Average time over 10 pings: 29.2 ms

The page you supplied (http://craftsupply.craftideasweekly.com/penguin-quilt-magic-kit12x12-p-2581.html) has a missing, but desperately trying to load product image.

However, with a Google PageSpeed score of 80/100 I would have to start thinking hosting issues. Then I pull your DNS and see where you are hosted and have to look no further... You need to get a decent webhost.

~Melanie

I had previously removed the social media code to see if it made a difference and also loaded the entire site in the default Zen template to rule out any template/design issues. I posted a product detail page without an image simply as a test but all of the product detail pages have the same slow load time.

Could an error in the database cause this issue? It seems to weird to me that it ONLY happens on the product detail pages when other pages are serving much heavier content at 5x the speed.

I use GoDaddy 4GH with unlimited bandwidth and 150,000GB disk space and am not even close to reaching that usage. If it were an issue with the host, would I not have slowness across the whole site?

Is it possible one of the tables in the DB is having an issue? (I'm thinking possibly a field only used by product detail pages)

I really appreciate the help!

The size of your plan... allowed disk and bandwidth have nothing to do with the server load. These servers are loaded... and loaded and loaded some more. They provide quantity not quality.

Want to check for yourself?

Go to your admin Configuration >> Logging >> and set Display The Page Parse Time to TRUE

Now compare it to ours for example (It will be in the footer)

http://pro-webs.net/store/

~Melanie

mprough:

The size of your plan... allowed disk and bandwidth have nothing to do with the server load. These servers are loaded... and loaded and loaded some more. They provide quantity not quality.

Want to check for yourself?

Go to your admin Configuration >> Logging >> and set Display The Page Parse Time to TRUE

Now compare it to ours for example (It will be in the footer)

http://pro-webs.net/store/

~Melanie

Hi Melanie,
I believe you - just want to make sure I understand what is causing what. I have read that GoDaddy has a bad rep forloaded servers. But why would it cause slow loading on ONLY the product detail pages? That is what I am trying to understand...

I am open to looking at new hosts but need to make sure that is really causing the extreme slowness on only one section of my site.

Your site is great and super speedy (you guys host it?)

Thanks again,
Molly

You have pages on your site cached... they were all slow for me. Pages with more going on... especially queries.

There are some things you can do to make it a bit faster.... but there is NO excuse for it to run that slow, you haven't much going on.

We are UK based and so there will be some latency involved when accessing a site based on servers in the USA - but the page you supplied the link for took a full minute to load up and that's clearly unacceptable. Also, when I navigated away from that page and then used the browser's Back button to go back to it then it took the same amount of time to load up again.

If you have products without images then try setting "Image Required" to false and see if that makes a difference to load times.

Vger

Definitely room to optimize and improve on my end with images, compressing css, and consolidating server calls, etc. The fact that the product detail pages load at least 10x slower than the other, much heavier pages on the site leads me to believe this specific issue is due to a huge table or the way in which something is compiled in the database for these pages.

What should someone do on the DB end to ensure pages are compiled as quickly as possible?

Thanks,
Molly

P.S. I have read the forums post about best hosts for Zen Cart and will be comparing new potential hosts at a future date. :)

Thanks, Vger - setting Images to not required did speed it up some but still pretty slow. Anything else you suggest I try?

thanks so much,
Molly

Your site has a total of 9118 products, which is not a humongous amount of products, but I only find 69 products under "Sewing and Quilting" and just 1 product under "Kids Crafts" - the remainder are not assigned to any category.

Vger

This might give some clues too...I used Easy Populate to upload 9,000 + products. the last few batches I uploaded into Easy Populate gave me a 500 error even though the products did populate to the site. Was that just a hacker safety or did I do something to anger the database that would cause product detail page slowness?

thanks again,
Molly

Vger:

Your site has a total of 9118 products, which is not a humongous amount of products, but I only find 69 products under "Sewing and Quilting" and just 1 product under "Kids Crafts" - the remainder are not assigned to any category.

Vger

Weird - I will take a look at that...would that cause this issue? (Obviously, I need to fix it either way!)

Thanks so much,
Molly

My advice is to sit down with a cup of coffee, pen and paper and thinking cap firmly on head - then work out what Main Categories you want for your products, and then work out the Sub-Categories for each Main Category - and then move the products into their relevant Sub-Category.

The "thinking it out" phase will take some time, because this will determine how you present your products - and you don't want to have to redo it.

The moving of the products will take even longer, but it will be worth it in the end - because when people click on the link for that Sub-Category only that sub-category will be queried (and not all "loose" products).

Vger

Vger:

My advice is to sit down with a cup of coffee, pen and paper and thinking cap firmly on head - then work out what Main Categories you want for your products, and then work out the Sub-Categories for each Main Category - and then move the products into their relevant Sub-Category.

The "thinking it out" phase will take some time, because this will determine how you present your products - and you don't want to have to redo it.

The moving of the products will take even longer, but it will be worth it in the end - because when people click on the link for that Sub-Category only that sub-category will be queried (and not all "loose" products).

Vger
Good advice, Vger. Thank you.
I have a spreadsheet that uses existing taxonomy to organize the site but wanted to do just one category to make sure the functionality worked before I populated 45,000 products.

There was an error of some kind when I uploaded the initial products in Easy Populate that cause some products to upload outside of any category...they could not even be seen in the admin...but were live on the site. I ran a query to delete all of the products and clear the tables of anything funky, turned off the template, and still...the product detail pages are running crazy slow with nothing on them. I then uploaded a small selection of products to continue to test.

I compared the source of the pages that are loading quickly and these slow loading product detail pages and found some javascript being called into the head of the product detail pages - where can I edit this code to remove it and see if it helps? :

<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/modules/pages/product_info/jscript_textarea_counter.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"><!--
function popupWindow(url) {
  window.open(url,'popupWindow','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,copyhistory=no,width=100,height=100,screenX=150,screenY=150,top=150,left=150')
}
function popupWindowPrice(url) {
  window.open(url,'popupWindow','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,copyhistory=no,width=600,height=400,screenX=150,screenY=150,top=150,left=150')
}
//--></script>
</head>

thanks!
Molly

OK - well, I found that code, removed it, didn't make a difference.
Maybe it is my host? But why would that cause super-slowness only on product pages? Sorry to be spazzing out...just really wanting to figure this out and am not so strong on the development side. :)

thanks to all,
Molly

It's the queries which have to be executed when you move to a product page, and the fact that your current host is known for having exceedingly slow servers, by virtue of the fact that they are vastly overcrowded - that's the problem.

Vger

mprough:

... I would have to start thinking hosting issues. Then I pull your DNS and see where you are hosted and have to look no further... You need to get a decent webhost.

~Melanie
Agreed.

Just found the page that executes all the DB queries to render the product pages...wow! Now I see why this requires a better hosting environment. Makes sense now why these pages are having the most trouble.

Would upgrading to Virtual Private Server or a Dedicated Server with my current host (GoDaddy) be an option? I am nervous to switch hosts...my learning curve, uptime, support...so much that could go wrong! (plus I have purchased hosting for the next year already with GoDaddy which they may be able to transfer some kind of credit to a new plan.) What do you think?

Thanks so much,
Molly

craftideasweekly:

Would upgrading to Virtual Private Server or a Dedicated Server with my current host (GoDaddy) be an option? I am nervous to switch hosts...
Switching to another unnecessarily expensive plan with your current host involves the same steps technically as would a move to another host. You still have to switch servers in either case.
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=100
Better to be putting the effort into being with a more reliable host than to waste it on the existing one.