Tribal Confusion., Delay times outside the AF server. Options

[babelone]

For a while I have been noticing occasional yet frequent delays in response time on the a.tribalfusion server, while the AF server is usually running at acceptible speeds.

Normally, from this terminal, a click on the Reload button takes around 15 seconds for the page to update. I'm using the Australian BigPond ADSL ISP service, which is a fairly large company and should be reliable. Delays found across all websites, such as yahoo!, point to a local ISP glitch, while when it's one server out of many, I take it as a hold-up on the remote side.

Often at around midnight in NYC, the AF server slows down for a few minutes, but that is to be expected. Usually, the AsiaFinest server seems very quick. Where there seems to be a letdown though, is with the tribalfusion server. The adbrite one has never stalled mid-post, and the asiafinest server usually only slows down once every 24 hours.

The tribalfusion server seems to want to slack off dozens of times each day though. It's nothing major if you have the patience to wait a little. Usually, if you're replying in a thread or sending a PM, by keeping separate browser windows open, you can foreground the Today's Active Topics page, (where I hang out most), and reload that one, and somehow that second request will often bring the tribalfusion server online, although I don't know why that would happen.

If not, and you're trying to post a reply, at least continuing to try to reload that page lets you know when the road is cleared, and you can then see if your reply got through before retrying, which can cause the dreaded double-post if you're not sure of whether the asiafinest server received the post before or after the tribalfusion server stole the show.

I don't know if this tribalfusion delay is common for all users, or just the BigPond Australian users, or just me, but I wonder if there might be a way to run it through a faster proxy server? Also, I accept all cookies from asiafinest.com but deny all cookies from all of the other servers, so if someone wrote some terrible script on the tribalfusion banners (or whatever part that tribalfusion plays on the AF pages - I assume it's advertising, but maybe wrong) it might be something to do with searching through all my cookies for something that isn't there which slows it down so much. I don't think it's a coding/cookie problem though, because that would be more likely to make it a constant fault, rather than just ten or twenty times each day out of hundreds of reloads and posts.

The expected 15 second response time falls into something over a minute when it happens to tribalfusion, but I've got my stopwatch handy today, and the next time I notice it, I'll time the delay and edit that into this thread post.

Mainly a thread to whinge to the Admin, but I also wonder if anyone else might be using Netscape or Mozilla or any browser on any O/S (I'm on Windows 98 right now and calling from Australia), and noticing the same delayed response times on the tribalfusion server, or for that matter, any of the others. The asiafinest server seems very fast and reliable, and when it goes down for a few minutes most days, it's usually quite predictable. From here, it's only the tribalfusion server that is letting the team down.

Anyone else notice this?

[Ben]

Not me.. seems to be loading pretty quick here. The only thing i might have notice is that certain ads might seem to crash/stall me when i use firefox.

Thanks for letting me know.. if anyone is encountering this problem too, let me know. I will look into it more.

[babelone]

Not me.. seems to be loading pretty quick here. The only thing i might have notice is that certain ads might seem to crash/stall me when i use firefox.

Thanks for letting me know.. if anyone is encountering this problem too, let me know. I will look into it more.

Thank you Ben, If it's only here in Western Australia, then it shouldn't be a major problem to AF. Also, it's fairly recent so they might be upgrading their servers or getting extra traffic etc. I'll try to pay more attention to the frequency and the delay times, and relay the data if it persists.

Let's hope not.

[babelone]

Just got the first one for the day that I noticed.

Time: 07:56 GMT.
Action: Opening a Thai Serious Topics thread from the Active Topics page, in a new window.
Timeout: tribalfusion - 45 seconds
Result: successfully opened eventually.

Firefox is a Mozilla engine too, I believe, like my Netscape 7.2. It's the Gecko Runtime Environment, so it maybe someone who learned their IT skills in an IE only environment. This has happened before, that people write web pages only for IE, even with some Australian federal gov sites. They won't listen to straight forward advice. They can't see outside the MS square.

Apologies for the double post, and I will try to keep editing this post with any further examples, but that has been the first breakdown for the day, and it wasn't as long as some others have been, but it was there.

[Ben]

If you can.. see if you can isolate that ad too.. I have a feeling that it might be certain ads causing the problem.

[babelone]

Adding another post as it's been a few days since the last one. It's coming up to 10:00 GMT. I've been watching and reloading for most of the day from here at GMT+8. The delays have been both infrequent and shorter than previously. Probably around 5 or 6, and lasting closer to 30 seconds each time, rather than a minute or so as previously. Almost no problem at all really.

It's still always the a.tribalfusion server, and on each occasion I've tried to pay attention to the ads at the footer of the Today's Active Topics page. It seems to be google ads everytime it happens, although those same banners reload quite welll most of the time. Intermittent faults are always the most baffling, but these below two happened to be the ones I can remember. That they are only playing up on rare occasions makes me wonder if there might be more of a server traffic problem than a scripting problem, but I don't have much information to go on.






I'll report back if things revert to the extended one minute delays from earlier in the week, but today it seems to have become a very insignificant problem. I hope it stays this way.



---oo0oo---

Just got the first one for the Saturday, March 22nd. It was at 00:12 GMT and once again the tribalfusion server took around 40 seconds to resolve and transfer - I didn't time the delay because by the time I recognise it, it's already been five or more seconds, so I can only really guestimate. I've been logged on for an hour this morning (gmt+8) with no problem at all until just then. Google was the culprit again, bannerwise:




This post has been edited by babelone: Mar 21 2008, 06:19 PM

[tangawizi]

i am getting the same problem with delay and it's this a.tribalfusion server that's causing a delay... did u ever get a solution to this delay problem, babelone?

[babelone]

i am getting the same problem with delay and it's this a.tribalfusion server that's causing a delay... did u ever get a solution to this delay problem, babelone?

It did seem to subside over the Easter long weekend. I assumed that it was because many wealthy people were away on holidays, easing the load on the google servers, perhaps. I took a week off AF last week after making the 3,000 postmark, and only really got back on Friday afternoon, but I can't say I've noticed that same delay from tribalfusion this weekend. I'll keep onto it for this afternoon, assuming that Singapore and Western Australian times are both GMT+8. It did used to seem to happen in the afternoons and early evenings mostly from here, which would be somewhere around 06:00-12:00 GMT or midnight to dawn in NYC.

As Ben mentioned, it might be wise to keep an eye on the advertising banner at the bottom of the page when you notice a delay. I guess it's something to do with tribalfusion, and perhaps a link to google somewhere, but as it's such an intermittent fault, it's the most difficult to really isolate.

Thanks for confirming that I'm not totally crazy, and I'll keep my eyes open this arvo and see what prevails. If we can isolate the thing that the tribalfusion server is doing to slow AF down, we might be able to determine how to request the geeks to rectify the fault. I'm on Netscape 7.2 btw. That's one small thing to consider.

[tangawizi]

tribalfusion is an advertisement company, how can i block ads from them?

I am on MacBook and FF....

[babelone]

tribalfusion is an advertisement company, how can i block ads from them?

I am on MacBook and FF....

I block all cookies from everything except the asiafinest server itself. As for how to block advertising banners and still read the AF pages, I don't know of a way to do so. I suppose that if there was some form of paid subscription to this forum, then that might alleviate the need for those members to view ads.

At the same time, I kind of like some of the pretty pictures at the bottom of the page, with the pretty girls and all. It sort of brightens the day, just a little. Still, not when I have to sit and stare at a blank white screen for sixty seconds, waiting for a.tribalfusion.com...

Still no faults on any of the reloads so far today. That you can clarify this fault almost makes me wish that I could see it now. I'll keep observant for the rest of the day, but how to block parts of the page that make up the AF site, the banners? I think that would require quite a bit of Javascript and PHP coding, and basically mean that you're looking at your own website, with a frame for the parts of AF that you desire. Big job! Around a week's work. I'll tender for it at $800 Singapore dollars.

[tangawizi]

You know, if I wait like 30 seconds, the attempt to load the ad will time out and it will FINALLY load the page. It has gotten to the point where I don't even want to bother trying... Sometimes, if I just refresh the page while it's trying to load I eventually get a different ad service and the page loads immediately.

I think the adblocker that FF has is no longer as effective. I don't have the money to get a custom made solution, dude. Can i get a free download programme that is more effective? Anybody used Pithhelmet before?

[SeanMoran]

The a.tribalfusion.com server seems to have been working well over the last few months, up until around 00:30 GMT today.

This time, it's not intermittent, but slowing down the reloading of every page and every link on the AF site for roughly 3-5 minutes per load. It's a constant fault that has been happening since I logged in today (Thursday in Western Australia) and I have reinstalled a fresh version of win 98 with Netscape 7.2 just to be sure.

Other websites such as yahoo! and the BKK Post are loading fine, and the asiafinest.com server is working properly, but there does appear to be a hitch specifically with the tribalfusion server that has been constant for over 90 minutes at this stage.

No way of knowing if it is affecting other users but it would seem to be present on the ADSL line I'm running through Telstra Bigpond.

I hope it is fixed soon.






...ooo...



The problem I noticed this morning with the tribalfusion server is now gone. All working fine again.


This post has been edited by SeanMoran: Jul 2 2008, 09:35 PM