Why are these forums horrifically slow?

[mylez]

They are consisntently probably the slowest page I load on the web right now and it actually makes me avoid coming on them. It takes on average 5 seconds to change page, and thats even going back to a page I was just on which is usually cached.

Any reason for this? xD

[Jordi]

Hi there,

Hmm.. It loads fast for me.

Have you tried using a different browser?

[mylez]

Yeah, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. All the same. Same as well on all internet connections I've been on, including a gigabit connection at my uni.

Don't know whether this is just an issue I have or whether a lot of people have it. But it seems to be unecessarily slow.

[Jordi]

Can you describe what happens when you open a page?

 - Do you get a white screen for 5 seconds

 - Is the window unresponsive

 - ..?

It might also help to disable Javascript. It's a bit tricky in Firefox so I'd recommend doing it in Safari.

Note that this is just for testing, I wouldn't recommend disabling JavaScript as default.

Open Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar.

Then a Develop section will appear in the top menu. At the bottom you will see "Disable Javascript". Check it and reload the page. 

Does it run faster? 

[dinomight]

I've always found the forums to be a bit slow myself...not unbearably so, but definitely slower than most sites I visit.

[mylez]

Still just as slow when disabling Javascript.

Basically what happens is when I click a link:
- The loading bar starts to move across (if you have one depending on your browser).
- It moves slowly or stop/starts for about 4-6 seconds (the current page is still visible at this point).
- The new page then suddenly loads very quickly.

The forums I think are powered by Lithium? and their website (www.lithium.com) is also not the fastest for me but it is much quicker than these forums presumably as theres much less content to pull.

Using Chromes developer tools the time to first byte is on average about 5 seconds which is awful. I thought the servers may be located somewhere far away from me such as the US (I am in the UK) so the round trip time could be the issue but after doing a DNS lookup they are located in the Netherlands which is very close. I get a consistent average of 30ms round trip time when pinging the servers.

I've attached a picture of a breakdown of loading a page. The Waiting (TTFB) seems to tell me that for some reason the servers is being lazy when responding to my requests. If I can ping it (round trip - not just to the server) in 30ms, then taking 5 seconds to respond to my request and send me something back is crazy.

[LordRollin]

I similarly have incredibly slow load times with the website. Not unbearable, but certainly a little obnoxious, especially when I'm trying to navigate multiple pages in quick succession. Lithium's pages are also on the slower end of the spectrum for me, but not as bad as these ones.

Not an awful thing. Just. Inconvenient. t 

[Rorey]

Hello everyone. Spotify here. We're investigating these reports and will post back as soon as we have an update. We'll may follow up with some questions for everyone to help with our reports. 

[mylez]

Haha great! Didn't expect anything to be done.

[Weidick]

Hey all

I am a bit new at Spotify, but i think it is in the better end.

I guess that there is a lot of simultaneously users on the site and that must cost something.

There is a lot of functions on Spotify and i can see, that the users can embed a lot of code, that Spotify has no control over.

Considering that, i think Spotify can be proud of their speed and functionality

In average my pages load in 3 seconds. I have an average internet connection. Guess it is 10 mb, but it serves the whole house, including SONOS.

Best regards

Poul Erik

[chrisb2244]

For me, these forums load very slowly (>30 seconds per page) in Windows with IE, Chrome, or on Linux with precompiled binary Chrome.

Loading time is much more reasonable using the Chromium version I compiled from source (~5-10 seconds).

The internet speed available to me is unlikely to be the cause - university connection.

Chrome reports the time as "Response" and "DOM". My understanding is that "DOM" refers to loading content, so for threads with lots of images attached, I suppose a slow load there is to be expected. Non-the-less, seems like a problem when this stretches to nearly a minute on a fast connection.

Anyone have an idea as to why this might be? Like I said, on Chromium/Linux the loading time is more like expected.

[Rorey]

Hey @chrisb2244. We're looking into this but the root cause is probably different from the incident that originally sparked this thread. Unfortunately, I'm not able to replicate a 30 second load time. 

Would you mind helping me out by providing me the ping and traceroute details for the community? Also, it would be great to get another site for reference. 

[mylez]

Still just as slow to me. It's not the actual load time of the content, it's almost like theres a massive delay before any content starts to load. So you hit a link and then nothing happens for a good few seconds, then the page loads suddenly.

[mylez]

@Rorey, speed has always been slow for me, so when you say you think there was an original incident that caused me to post this, I'm inclined to disagree as they have always been this way. Here is some ping info:

Spotify.com loads fine and pretty quickly:

Myles-MacBook-Pro:~ myles$ ping www.spotify.com
PING lon.weblb.gslb.spotify.com (194.132.196.163): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 194.132.196.163: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=25.508 ms
64 bytes from 194.132.196.163: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=25.995 ms
64 bytes from 194.132.196.163: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=26.165 ms
64 bytes from 194.132.196.163: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=25.870 ms
^C
--- lon.weblb.gslb.spotify.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 25.508/25.885/26.165/0.241 ms

Can't ping community.spotify.com. nslookup on it resolves to spotify.lithium.com. Can't ping that either. nslookup on spotify.lithium.com gives me 46.19.168.70. Can't ping that either.

Here is a traceroute for community.spotify.com:

Myles-MacBook-Pro:~ myles$ traceroute community.spotify.com
traceroute to spotify.lithium.com (46.19.168.70), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  1.677 ms  1.384 ms  1.203 ms
 2  host-92-0-192-1.as43234.net (92.0.192.1)  14.672 ms  14.449 ms  14.295 ms
 3  host-78-151-225-141.static.as13285.net (78.151.225.141)  16.831 ms  16.981 ms  17.184 ms
 4  host-78-151-226-228.as13285.net (78.151.226.228)  19.432 ms
    host-78-151-226-54.as13285.net (78.151.226.54)  17.112 ms  16.944 ms
 5  host-78-144-9-49.as13285.net (78.144.9.49)  24.552 ms
    host-78-144-9-67.as13285.net (78.144.9.67)  24.759 ms
    host-78-144-9-55.as13285.net (78.144.9.55)  24.630 ms
 6  xe-1-1-0.r2.bb-fo.lon3.vrsn.net (195.66.225.46)  24.873 ms  43.954 ms
    host-78-144-9-229.as13285.net (78.144.9.229)  25.143 ms
 7  xe-4-3-0.r2.bb-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.7.62.60)  31.775 ms  43.997 ms
    xe-1-1-0.r2.bb-fo.lon3.vrsn.net (195.66.225.46)  25.306 ms
 8  xe-1-3-0.r2.bb-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.94.174)  32.380 ms
    ae2.668.r2.vidn-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.95.157)  32.160 ms  32.600 ms
 9  ae2.668.r2.vidn-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.95.157)  30.208 ms
    xe-1-2-0.r1.bb-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.94.201)  31.652 ms
    ae2.668.r2.vidn-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.95.157)  33.054 ms
10  ae3.667.r2.vidn-fo.ams1.vrsn.net (199.16.95.155)  32.451 ms
    199.16.80.66 (199.16.80.66)  35.387 ms  34.969 ms
11  203.144.52.182 (203.144.52.182)  29.721 ms  28.601 ms *
12  * * *
13  * * *
14  * * *

...
... ('* * *' for all remaining hops)
...

64 * * *

Can ping lithium.com, however, nslookup on it gives 108.166.14.2, completely different IP block so I'm assuming they are completely separate servers most likely located elsewhere. Infact, reverse lookup shows them in San Antonio, Texas rather than Amsterdam. Probably pointless me posting ping/traceroute info for them but regardless, average round-trip-time to them when pinging them is about 110ms which is pretty average from UK to US.

For reference, here are some results from pinging Google and BBC:

Myles-MacBook-Pro:~ myles$ ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (62.24.212.108): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 62.24.212.108: icmp_seq=0 ttl=61 time=24.059 ms
64 bytes from 62.24.212.108: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=15.324 ms
64 bytes from 62.24.212.108: icmp_seq=2 ttl=61 time=15.180 ms
64 bytes from 62.24.212.108: icmp_seq=3 ttl=61 time=15.320 ms
^C
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 15.180/17.471/24.059/3.804 ms


Myles-MacBook-Pro:~ myles$ ping www.bbc.co.uk
PING www.bbc.net.uk (212.58.246.91): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.246.91: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=23.559 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.246.91: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=23.606 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.246.91: icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=23.981 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.246.91: icmp_seq=3 ttl=55 time=24.194 ms
^C
--- www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 23.559/23.835/24.194/0.264 ms

If you want anything else, lemme know.

[chrisb2244]

A quick caveat: Today, loading well in Chrome on Linux (around 5-10 seconds per page, which although not lightning fast is completely useable). Have pinged the same places as @mylez for comparison.

ping www.spotify.com 
PING lon.weblb.gslb.spotify.com (194.132.198.228) 56(84) bytes of data. 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=1 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=2 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=3 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=4 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=5 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=6 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=7 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=8 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=9 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=10 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=11 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=12 ttl=43 time=300 ms 
64 bytes from lon3-weblb-a1.lon3.spotify.com (194.132.198.228): icmp_seq=13 ttl=43 time=299 ms 
^C 
--- lon.weblb.gslb.spotify.com ping statistics --- 
14 packets transmitted, 13 received, 7% packet loss, time 13318ms 
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 299.834/300.008/300.550/0.596 ms

For community.spotify.com:

ping community.spotify.com
PING spotify.lithium.com (46.19.168.70) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- spotify.lithium.com ping statistics ---
36 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 34999ms

The traceroute (tracepath is the binary on my computer):

Note local ports times are 1.968ms, 4.615ms, 0.559ms, 1.375ms, 1.961ms

 1?: [LOCALHOST]                                         pmtu 1500
<some local ports> 
 5:  hakata-dc-RM-XE-0-3-2-102.s4.sinet.ad.jp             44.059ms 
 6:  osaka-dc-rm-ae2-vlan10.s4.sinet.ad.jp                30.118ms 
 7:  osaka-dc-gm1-ae0-vlan10.s4.sinet.ad.jp               39.961ms 
 8:  lax-dc-gm1-xe1-3-1-vlan10.s4.sinet.ad.jp            152.545ms 
 9:  xe-2-1-0.GW2.LAX1.ALTER.NET                         152.341ms asymm 10 
10:  0.ae2.XL3.LAX15.ALTER.NET                           152.595ms asymm 12 
11:  TenGigE0-6-0-12.GW5.LAX15.ALTER.NET                 163.362ms asymm 13 
12:  verisign-gw.customer.alter.net                      156.039ms asymm 14 
13:  xe-2-2-0.r2.bb-fo.sfo1.vrsn.net                     172.981ms asymm 16 
14:  xe-0-2-0.r1.bb-fo.sfo1.vrsn.net                     165.660ms asymm 15 
15:  vl666.r1.vidn-fo.sfo1.vrsn.net                      165.822ms asymm 16 
16:  vl666.r1.vidn-fo.sfo1.vrsn.net                      165.597ms pmtu 1476
16:  199.7.78.66                                         169.678ms asymm 18 
17:  199.16.90.58                                        303.186ms asymm 19 
18:  199.16.90.58                                        303.154ms asymm 19 
19:  no reply
20:  no reply
21:  no reply
...
30:  no reply
     Too many hops: pmtu 1476
     Resume: pmtu 1476 

www.google.com:

ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (216.58.221.196) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=29.9 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f196.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=31.7 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=30.2 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f196.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=29.5 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=5 ttl=54 time=29.5 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f196.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=6 ttl=54 time=29.5 ms
64 bytes from kix03s02-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.221.196): icmp_seq=7 ttl=54 time=30.1 ms
^C
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 7 received, 0% packet loss, time 6008ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 29.501/30.101/31.779/0.766 ms

www.bbc.co.uk:

 ping www.bbc.co.uk
PING www.bbc.net.uk (212.58.246.95) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=1 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=2 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=3 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=4 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=5 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=6 ttl=44 time=293 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=7 ttl=44 time=292 ms
^C
--- www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 7 received, 0% packet loss, time 6006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 292.972/293.195/293.543/0.728 ms

[Rorey]

Thanks a lot @mylez @chrisb2244. We are getting this looked into and we'll get back to you once we have an update. If this gets any worse, or if you see any other reports of it around the community, we'd love to know about it straight away. Thanks for lending a hand!

[mylez]

Any update on this?

[Rorey]

@mylez Just circling back to see if you're still experiencing this. If so, could you provide the following?

• Links of pages that load slowly.
• Internet speed of current connection.
• Time (approx.) it takes the pages to load.

Thanks for the help!

[mylez]

Seems to be much quicker now. It's still not the fastest site in the world but every page load I'm trying at the moment takes between 1-2 seconds which is easily bearable.

If it gets slow again I'll start moaning at you again 🙂