Slow Loading times on site and in Admin

Hello,
I am running the latest version of zencart on dream host.
I used to run the same site on a different host and it was much much quicker.

My static pages (plain html/css) seem to load quickly, but when it comes to the zencart portion of my site it gets progressively slower the deeper you get into any given category. I must say I am a novice, so pardon me if I do not understand something.

I do have shell access to my database, but I do not have access to my slow query log. I have contacted the DH tech support and they claim they "optimized " and fixed a few issues.

I have been inserting a lot of attributes and that takes minutes to complete before I can insert more, making most of my time waiting for the page to load..... The adding of any products or attributes goes terribly slow, so slow that I wasted most of today on just 2 products......
Here is my site How can I find out what may be causing the slow load times? I would appreciate any insight into this matter.

The server's database performance is substandard. That's where your bottleneck is.

Parse Time: 3.663 - Number of Queries: 113 - Query Time: 3.1347403687439
ref: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=105

Thanks, I used to be with the infamous Ipower who had hourly query limits but the database ran very super fast, unfortunately we would hit those limits and be down for an hour before they reset..... Ok well I just wanted to make sure it was the database the host seems to think everything runs great.... Lets see if a vps works better....

There is only one reason for the database being slow: it's poorly configured.
ie: too many accounts running against a database engine that's not adequately equipped for the activity being sent to it. Could be too many accounts, insufficient RAM allocated, slow disk drives, settings not optimized in the server's config.

If you're thinking a VPS will solve the problem, you're probably looking in the wrong direction especially if the "server administrator" who will be managing it is the same one who's managing the one that's running slowly now. Don't fall for an upsell "just because it sounds good".

Thanks for the info Dr Byte!!!
My host moved me to another MySql server, but it seems just as slow if not slower than before. On a side note, they did not try to up-sell me, I just figured it would make a difference but from what you are saying probably not. I can say on the weekend the site runs fast, but during the week it just lags.....
Are there any questions I should be asking the database admin about the settings and or the configuration of the MySql server?

I will continue with the tech support and see if I can get it running faster before I change to yet another host....

The symptoms you describe (intermittent fast/slow) sound like a server that can't handle the load ... a classic situation that results from overselling, ie: putting more sites/customers on the server than what the server is equipped/configured for.

The article I mentioned earlier has links in it to the following articles which offer some tuning tips you can do in your site to minimize database needs. But do remember that you can't overcome whatever they've misconfigured -- they need to fix that themselves.
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=21

This is more technical, but if they don't already know this stuff then if they should proceed with caution, as the MySQL tuning ideas presented in the following article are simply a very high-level summary of some suggestions gleaned without any context:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=287

DrByte,
Is there something wrong with the tutorial/faq pages I am just timing out when I try to follow your links.... Again thank you for the information!!!

Hmmmm ... not sure why that is, it's working fine for me.

DrByte:

Hmmmm ... not sure why that is, it's working fine for me.

Dear DrByte, could you please really help me with a very long-time problem that I have been struggling for over years? My Zen cart site is working fine, but only for the very long checkout loading time before the successful page shown, that always leads to duplicated orders received. I have searched over for any solution, tried my best and hired some php developers to check and fix this issue, but still in vain.

What I can do is to minimize the loading time by repairing the database from Cpanel several times a day. I have kept doing so over a year's time. I am tired of doing so.

Since I am so desperate with this problem, I can't do nothing but seeking your help. Could you please accept my request to take some time to see my problem with fees by sending me an email to [email protected] so that I can reply you with all the login information?

Regards,

Taren