Pages loading very slowly

I am running an older version of Zen cart v1.3.9h with many modules (including: Simple SEO URL v3.5.8, Dynamic Price Updater 2.01, Flexible Attributes v1.0). Yes I know it needs updated but cannot do this right now.

My problem is recently my PRODUCT pages have been loading very slowly. You can see one of them here: http://www.framesforlife.com/black-picture-frames-c-11/blk01-p-32 . the database seems decently quick (at least when I am entering products). The other pages load just fine, its only when I click any product page are the pageloads so slow. The page load times are anywhere from 6 seconds to 12 seconds depening upon device an time of the day. Now these pages used to load quickly (for many years). So I don't know why all of a sudden they are going slowly.

The product pages have lots of attributes and my images are optimized. I have optimized the database from inside Zen cart (store manager). This site has been up for years, and only recently my pages have been loading so slowly. We are running lots of radio commercials over the next week, so need this fixed soon! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Probably your mat colors. 40 at 18K each mounts up to three-quarters of a meg.

Could be that your host has upgraded PHP and MySql.

See odd errors on the error console. "Server does not support RFC5746" This should be fixed by your host. Means there's a problem with SSL. Shouldn't effect load speed, but....

OK I will optimize the mat colors better. My host did just upgrade my PHP, and I had several issues on serveral websites (no that were slow though). I was going to address this with my host I think it could be an .htaccess setting that they had me put into my files.

As far as this:

See odd errors on the error console. "Server does not support RFC5746" This should be fixed by your host. Means there's a problem with SSL. Shouldn't effect load speed, but....

Where can I find this error console, so that I can notify my host?

The .htaccess is probably forcing your PHP to an older version. Just another reason to add to the hundreds that your upgrade should have been last week.:yes:

The error console is part of the Web Developer 1.2.5 add-on to Firefox. I use it, firebug, and Total Validator when checking sites.

Thank you for your help. I have been slow to upgrade because this site has lots of modules and lots of coding changes. Don't even know if many of the modules are in existance now. I will talk to the client to see about testing for upgrading to a newer version.

Update: The problem persists and the host assures me its not the php upgrade and .htaccess. The entire site pages all load quickly except for each product page which takes 12 second to load.

I have optimized all the attribute images on the product page from 18k to 1K each. I called the host and we tested, optimized, and repaired the database, looked over the .htacess file, and they cannot see why the product page only is loading slowly. They assure me it's not the .htaccess file pointing to an older version of the database. I don't get it these product pages only load slowly. 12 seconds per page is crazy (and I am on high speed land-line).

In the past, these pages too 2 - 3 seconds to load. Sometime in the past few months to weeks (unsure of exact time) the page-loads went to 12 seconds. There have been no updates to the store other than entry of 250 new products (or so).

The server logs do not show any errors, but I did not check the zen cart logs as of yet. It seems as if something is causing these product pages to hang.

Any other ideas I can use to try and diagnose this issue? Lots of paid visitors but 12 second page load times are killing our promotions.

Looking at the product attributes (mat color),

Is the "discounted" checkbox showing a red X or fuschia color?

Assuming that the mat attribute does not affect price AND the attribute is colored, try deselecting the attribute so that it shows a RedX.

You didn't say the current version of php after the upgrade. ZC1.3.9h doesn't always play nice with php5.4 and higher without tweaks.

I created a new product without attributes and it loads quickly: http://www.framesforlife.com/wood-grain-picture-frames-c-1?sort=20a&page=2

For all my other products I used the duplicate method to copy the attributes (which are very important for our store). So it seems as if the pageload times are due to either the attributes themselves, or one of the attributes plug-ins or file pages. I just don't understand because these pages did load quickly for several years (even with the amount of current attributes).

So the attributes must be slowing the pages down. Once again these attributes showing, loaded just fine for many years. Any suggestions?

If you go to phpMyAdmin and Optimize the tables for:
products_attributes
products_attributes_download
products_options
products_options_types
products_options_values
products_options_values_to_products_options

Does this help in anyway?

Ajeh,

I went to phpMyAdmin and optimized the entire database twice. But just to make sure I just followed your instructions and optimized those tables. The page still takes 12 seconds.

RixStix,

My host told me (dont know how accurate it is) that I am still using v5.2 so the 5.4 upgrade should not affect me. In my .htaccess file I have this to point to the 4.2version:

"AddHandler application/x-httpd-php52 .php
<IfModule mod_suphp.c>
suPHP_ConfigPath /opt/php52/lib
</IfModule>"

This statement is located right above my Simple SEO URL v3.5.8 definitions in my .htaccess.

So I am not sure if I am using and pointed to a v5.2 or using a 5.4 with this in the .htaccess converting to a 5.2 (because I don't know how it works).

Are you able to go to phpMyAdmin and export the structure of your database then Zip that and add it as an attachment ... the goal here is to perhaps find missing indexes ...

I have 3 Option Names each with 1700 attributes on it and have the query times of:
Parse Time: 2.357 - Number of Queries: 3824 - Query Time: 1.3687172103424

I have not tested this with the 5100 attributes on other servers, but I have with 1700 Attributes on Products and I do not get 12 seconds ...

If you look in your Zen Cart Admin at the Tools ... Server Info ... what do you see from just below the menu and up to and including the php version?

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that you've got "Dynamic Product Updater" installed. When I look at the Firebug "Net" tab on Firefox, it seems that a lot of time is spent posting to dpu_ajax.php.

lat9: Yes I do and always have had dynamic price updater. Many of my attributes are dependant upon that module.

Ajeh: First here is my server info:

Second: I have added my database (exported the structure of my database then Zipped it and added it as an attachment)

sports guy:

lat9: Yes I do and always have had dynamic price updater. Many of my attributes are dependant upon that module.
Is there a way to (momentarily) disable the DPU to see if that's the bottleneck?

So much for that theory ... you have the indexes expected so that is not it ... :blink:

With JavaScript enabled I am seeing "NetworkError: 403 Forbidden - http://www.framesforlife.com/images". So something in your JavaScript is attempting to access this location (and the site is configured to deny access). This will slow down apparent load time for the site (why is it trying to load something which should not be loaded?).

But the "meat" of what I am seeing is the product page "seems" to hang when attempting to generate the "product" content (div id="productGeneral"). Can you enable page parse times so we can see how many SQL queries are involved and an overview of how long they are taking? Feel free to modify your template to output these as a comment (so web browsers do not actively display the parse times to potential customers - or mess up any CSS layouts).

lhungil:

With JavaScript enabled I am seeing "NetworkError: 403 Forbidden - http://www.framesforlife.com/images". So something in your JavaScript is attempting to access this location (and the site is configured to deny access). This will slow down apparent load time for the site (why is it trying to load something which should not be loaded?).

But the "meat" of what I am seeing is the product page "seems" to hang when attempting to generate the "product" content (div id="productGeneral"). Can you enable page parse times so we can see how many SQL queries are involved and an overview of how long they are taking? Feel free to modify your template to output these as a comment (so web browsers do not actively display the parse times to potential customers - or mess up any CSS layouts).

I don't know how to troubleshoot the javascript getting hung up on the images folder. But I do have additional product images and image manager installed. So perhaps this is leading to this javascript snag. Some of my product pages (like the one above) have an additional image and others do not.

I enabled: Page Parse Times.

lat9:

Is there a way to (momentarily) disable the DPU to see if that's the bottleneck?

I removed the 3 files for Dynamic Price Updater and was getting the same slow load times as my other tests (8 - 9 seconds at this time). Did several tests on multiple products and the same result with or without dynamic price updater. So the dynamic price updater seems to be working fine. In fact, it seems to load quickly once the page loads and I change an attribute like length or width.

I did notice that my images/ajax-loader.gif file was missing. Per lhungils' mention of this: ""NetworkError: 403 Forbidden - http://www.framesforlife.com/images" I though perhaps this image missing might be the hangup problem. But once I uploaded the image for DPU the same slow page load times persist.

Wow, 10,000+ queries! Feels a bit high... Do you have the Query Cache plugin for 1.3.9 installed? Any "cache" prepopulated by Simple SEO URLs (or do you have Ultimate URLs installed)? Any chance of logging the queries to a file (for one product page load - disable after)?

Umm anyone else getting these issues on that page

Invalid App Id: Must be a number or numeric string representing the application id. connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js:56

FB.getLoginStatus() called before calling FB.init(). connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js:56

Uncaught NotFoundError: Failed to execute 'removeChild' on 'Node': The node to be removed is not a child of this node. blk01-p-32:154

Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CACHE_MISS http://www.framesforlife.com/black-picture-frames-c-11/blk01-p-32

Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CACHE_MISS https://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?app_id=&channel=http%3A%2F%2Fstat…ut=button_count&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&send=true&show_faces=false&width=150
wouldn't they have an effect?