Down under it's running faster than ever, almost 25fps.

Jay, I'm with you on this, this last week was really bad. But today after the maintenance downtime, it responses better.

Farss, 25fps----- funny! Still losing those 5fps down under? Must be the heat!

Apit, after reading the recent posting and clicking on the "Back to Vegas - Video" link, I timed it with a stop watch. It took 34.81 seconds to go from the thread page back to the thread list. That's ridiculous! And it's NOT uncommon.

Before the last upgrade it used to run about 1fps.

On reflection the rest of www.sonycreativesoftware.com seems fine. So it could either the manner in which certain functions of the site are broken up onto specific machines or in some extra delay caused by perhaps logging your IP or protecting against attack. The pause is nevertheless very much like what you'd see if fragmentation is required between host and browser but something in between blackholes those fragments creating a delay while windowing (on a modern IP protocol stack) goes on between browser and host.

It only seems to affect the forum pages themselves and the pages are fast in their rendering (for me) but there is a pregnant pause before you get them. Yet the browser has connected at the basic level, just nothing coming down the hose for that awkward amount of time.

What is fast:

1. Other parts of SCS's website
2. Clicking to show the message itself
3. Posting, most of the time.
4. Clicking the browser <Back> icon.


What isn't:

1. Clicking to show a specific ForumID's contents, ie the list of topics.
2. Clicking the <back to <forumID>> site option after having entered a post/thread
3. ForumID=4 seems to be the slowest to respond, consistently. Less used forums 'appear' to be more responsive, most of the time.


Overall:
i) There is a lot of interest in what is going on at Sony (SCS) this week.
ii) The site has been re-engineered - possibly to handle the imminent trials and purchases of VideoPro8.
iii) These changes may have involved a program of system improvements to ensure people can read the website and access the downloadables.
iv) Limelight Networks who appear to provide the backbone for this content delivery network don't seem to have any issues themselves.
v) It may just be that the ASP engine that runs the forum is queuing requests to keep processing and bandwidth resources down to a servicable level.

I am finding it usable, just slower than many big vendor's support forums.

If it gets any worse then I'll start jotting down the MessageIDs for the threads I'm interested and will modify the URL in the address bar to keep up with all the current news here! At the moment it is awkward but usable. It isn't so bad though, I've got other more pressing things to do that avoiding through hiding in here won't help get done. ;)

Although there are occasional brief exceptions, in general this site is by far the slowest of any vendor forum site I visit. Fairly or not, I think it reflects badly on Sony's committment to Vegas.

Jerry

I'm with RB. The "site" has no issues whatsoever.

The forum is something else, though. It's simply too darn slow. It's not the format, it's not the addition of graphics or media files, it's not the browsers, etc., etc., etc. It has to be something under the hood, as mentioned above.

Sure wish they'd fix it, whatever it is!

It's always been slow for me, and especially in the last week or two. I'm guessing they're getting pounded by visitors wanting to see Vegas 8. But for a forum with no images, it should still load instantly.

It does almost always load nearly instantly for me, and always has. I never see this slowness that others are reporting.

One possibility i pondered in the other thread is that i block all requests to 2o7.net. Maybe it's that that is slowing people down rather than this forum.

I wish I knew how to do that.

Klipsch forum used to have the same problem. Then they doubled their server capacity. it was really huge and they won't say how much it is.
JJK

But Kelly, why would all other sites be fast if it a problem with requests to 2o7? Wouldn't they be impacted too?

Jerry

Not everybody uses 2o7.net.

So what's 2o7.net?

Why is 2o7.net included in this equation?

How do we block it?

If you're using windows there is a very simple method. In the C:\Windows directory create a text file named "hosts" (no .txt extension) or edit the one that's already there if there is one there. Add a line that says

127.0.0.2 2o7.net

and save it. Older versions of Windows will probably require a reboot. Newer versions will probably only require closing the browser and restarting it.

If you use Linux/Unix then do the same thing with the /etc/hosts file.

Thanks Kelly.

Before I do that, I just waited 90 seconds to get connected. It's not usually that bad. Typically 20 to 30 seconds. I use Netscape as my preferred browser. I do have Firefox 2.0.0.5. but it's no better if I use that.

I'll report back after changing my hosts file.

Thanks

Edit: O.K. after changing my hosts file I made 5 attempts to connect and achieved the following connection times (in seconds). 5, 5, 4, 3, 3.

Looks like a significant improvement.

Thanks

Kelly, would mind taking a moment and explaining what 2o7.net is and what it does--how it impacts web performance?

I haven't a clue!

Well, that's not true. I have a clue, and a pretty good one, but it's nothing official, just my own guesses after about 3.7 seconds of research. 2o7.net appears to be a service provider that tracks website statistics. It also appears to have the ability to display ads, though SONY doesn't seem to be using that function. However, the reference to 2o7.net is used on these pages in such a way that there must be a value returned or a timeout occur before the rest of the page is displayed. So, if 2o7.net is busy or slow, which it seems to be most of the time, the pages referencing it will also be slow.

By blocking access to the actual 2o7.net server, your browser will experience an almost immediate timeout, skip over the reference, and go about it's merry way. Of course, this also means that SONY will no longer be gathering statistics about you browsing the forums. Not sure if that's such a bad thing to avoid anyway.

Wow! It works! Does this effect all the other forums I visit?

I take that back... sort of. Sometimes it works like a charm and on other occasions it takes even longer than it ever did before. I rebooted properly.