Posted by Lori Kincaid on March 1, 2007 at 11:48 AM
I've gotten some feedback that some people with high-speed connections are experiencing slow image loading on the gallery pages of my website, which uses the Gallery2 software. The problem doesn't occur with everyone and doesn't appear to be related to high usage periods. It isn't due to image size either, because almost all of my images are 200k or less. On person said they thought it was related to the user browser/firewalls, but wasn't sure. Does anybody have any ideas on what the problem could be or how to correct it?
BTW, the Gallery2 website lists two possible causes for slow loading time:
Apache mod_deflate / gzip not deactivated for binary files?
Is the Server CPU, file I/O or bandwidth limited?
I have no idea about the first one, nor do I know how to check, but I'm trying to figure it out. Does any one know? I don't think it's the second because the problem is sporadic and doesn't appear to be occurring in high use periods only.
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!
Lori
Posted by Mark Wilson on March 1, 2007 at 12:11 PM
Hi Lori - I've jumped from the old thread to reply here. My findings lead me to believe that it was client side because 2 different machines, side by side on the same wired network, loaded the pages at different speeds. My machine with IE6 sp2 and ZoneAlarm Security Suite 6.5 is slow loading the page - there is a delay then the page 'pops' onto the screen. The other machine had IE6 sp2 but only the Windows firewall and McAfee anti-virus (was a work laptop) but had little or no delay.
I guess that if Apache is compressing binaries then the client machine would take longer to load and virus scan an image...but wouldn't this impact all users? You would need to ask the admin people who host your website about mod-deflate/gzip.
My main desktop hard disk failed when I got back from holiday a couple of days ago and I haven't re-installed all software yet to test further (such as Firefox browser and the development area for my website) - I have only installed the essentials - BreezeBrowser and CS2 .
Posted by Lori Kincaid on March 1, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Mark, What you describe on the slow loading machine matches precisely Tom Nevesely's description of how the images loaded on his machine. Forgive my ignorance, but if it's client-side, and it sounds like it is, there's nothing to be done about it, right? I agree, if the problem is with how Apache is configured, it does seem like it would be affecting all users. Maybe I'll post a question in the G2 forums.
I'm also wondering if similar applications, like Coppermine, have the same problem.
I just ran through some of your galleries. The thumbnail pages load quickly and the images load quickly as well. There is a slight delay as the database connection is made and the image page is parsed. There does not appear anything off the wall going on.
DSL, WinXPro-SP2, IE7.0 with the phishing filter 'on', and ZoneAlarm Firewall and anti-virus.
Your site is beautiful and very professional. Your photographs are gorgeous!
-PB
Posted by Lori Kincaid on March 1, 2007 at 6:10 PM
Preston, Thanks for the feedback. Interesting that Mark's machine with ZoneAlarm firewall experienced the delay and yours did not. Maybe it's only certain browser/firewall combos that have the problem.
Lori
Posted by Tom Nevesely on March 2, 2007 at 1:00 AM
I've been having problems with iTunes lately so tonight I tried un-installing my Zone Alarm. When I look at your site now, even without Zone Alarm it still loads slow just as before. I'm not sure what the problem is.
Posted by Dan Baumbach on March 2, 2007 at 10:55 AM
Lori,
My site uses ASP.NET and a database and it's certainly slower than when it was straight HTML. It could be the difference between a Windows server and a Unix one or maybe it's the more programming going into loading an image. Howerer it's noticibly faster than yours and my images are as large or larger.
I run Zone Alarm but as far as I know, it does not scan incomming images for viruses. I'll try your site at work today where we have a hardware firewall instead of a software one.
Gzip is a compression program like WinZip. I've never heard of servers compressing images and the client side having to uncompress them but there's always something I'm learning.
- Dan
Posted by Lori Kincaid on March 2, 2007 at 8:38 PM
Dan,
Thanks for the additional info. Is it slow enough on your machine to just be vaguely irritating or do you think it's a serious problem? I have dial-up so any testing I do is moot. This gets more mysterious to me all the time, but it does seem to be client side since Mark tried it on two machines side-by-side and got different results. I'll be interested to see if you noticed any difference at work.
Lori
Posted by Dan Baumbach on March 2, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Lori,
I had such a crazy day at work today, I never got around to trying it. I won't be back at work till next Wednessday. I'll try to do it then.
It's a little annoying but it won't keep me from looking at the images.
Discussion
8 repliesBTW, the Gallery2 website lists two possible causes for slow loading time:
Apache mod_deflate / gzip not deactivated for binary files?
Is the Server CPU, file I/O or bandwidth limited?
I have no idea about the first one, nor do I know how to check, but I'm trying to figure it out. Does any one know? I don't think it's the second because the problem is sporadic and doesn't appear to be occurring in high use periods only.
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!
Lori
I guess that if Apache is compressing binaries then the client machine would take longer to load and virus scan an image...but wouldn't this impact all users? You would need to ask the admin people who host your website about mod-deflate/gzip.
My main desktop hard disk failed when I got back from holiday a couple of days ago and I haven't re-installed all software yet to test further (such as Firefox browser and the development area for my website) - I have only installed the essentials - BreezeBrowser and CS2 .
I'm also wondering if similar applications, like Coppermine, have the same problem.
Lori
I just ran through some of your galleries. The thumbnail pages load quickly and the images load quickly as well. There is a slight delay as the database connection is made and the image page is parsed. There does not appear anything off the wall going on.
DSL, WinXPro-SP2, IE7.0 with the phishing filter 'on', and ZoneAlarm Firewall and anti-virus.
Your site is beautiful and very professional. Your photographs are gorgeous!
-PB
Lori
My site uses ASP.NET and a database and it's certainly slower than when it was straight HTML. It could be the difference between a Windows server and a Unix one or maybe it's the more programming going into loading an image. Howerer it's noticibly faster than yours and my images are as large or larger.
I run Zone Alarm but as far as I know, it does not scan incomming images for viruses. I'll try your site at work today where we have a hardware firewall instead of a software one.
Gzip is a compression program like WinZip. I've never heard of servers compressing images and the client side having to uncompress them but there's always something I'm learning.
- Dan
Thanks for the additional info. Is it slow enough on your machine to just be vaguely irritating or do you think it's a serious problem? I have dial-up so any testing I do is moot. This gets more mysterious to me all the time, but it does seem to be client side since Mark tried it on two machines side-by-side and got different results. I'll be interested to see if you noticed any difference at work.
Lori
I had such a crazy day at work today, I never got around to trying it. I won't be back at work till next Wednessday. I'll try to do it then.
It's a little annoying but it won't keep me from looking at the images.
- Dan.