new site: speed issues

[Abby]

We are having some fluctuating speed issues on the site currently. We're working on fixing it, but it's not looking promising: at least three days work, to change thngs significantly on the back end. In addition to that, we're got a memory leak issue that we canot pinpoint, also affecting speed of browsing (not downloads, generally). Each of the servers are crashing every few hours or so, which is not ideal.

We're considering reverting back to the old site for a few days while we get this worked out, which would be a support nightmare (i forgot my password cos you changed your shitty site AGAIN, your ripping me off!!), but at least it'd be fast.

I don't know what to do.

a

[Roops]

I suggest continue with new site – just continually broadcast speed issue problems. You say going back to the old site will generate more support issues, which translates as more unhappy customers if you switch back. I have noticed slower speeds but this only marginal for the moment.

[Quartz]

You could put a notice on the main site, requesting customers to refrain from doing more than picking up their daily updates as much as possible (so no extensive browsing of galleries, no viewing of large amounts of jpegs on the site itself, no building up of huge queues of zips and mpegs to download in one go). In other words: get your daily dose, and come back tomorrow. I'm sure that will make a difference.

[Bob]

Yeah, I've certainlty noticed it. But what's a few days in a 3 month or longer membership? I'd say don't go back, keep going forward and just keep us informed.

[Abby]

good idea, quartz, can't hurt.

Roops, we're getting a lot of emails now regarding the speed issue, and it's 1am on the west coast of the US, so it's gonna ber worse tomorrow night - this is what I am worred about.

a

[Bob]

Abby,

I don't know whether this helps, but you're a damned good photographer with a damned good site, and in a couple of weeks the problem will be behind you and forgotten.

Bob

[Abby]

But what's a few days in a 3 month or longer membership?
hahaha, if only you could see the emails we get... we get people wanting to be reimbursed for time if the site is down (for them) for, like 10 minutes.

I shit you not.

Of course, most problems with teh changover - al;most all the agressive emails we got - were from people who had forgotton their password and / or were typing it in wrong. Grrr.

a

[Quartz]

Can't you ask GM to do a 'reminder run' to your subscribers? Loads of mailinglists have monthly password reminders, so a single email run, reminding subscribers of their usernames and passwords, with a short explanation of why it is being sent (and whatever else you want to let them know about current problems and how they can help alleviate them) could be beneficial. Sure, there will be the odd kook who considers it spam, but it will be considered good service and a polite gesture by most. It will probably prevent a lot of complaints.

Welcome to the world of pre-emptive action ;)

[Luxman]

In my eyes the idea of Quartz is a good base: Tell people that the site is bit slower than usually BEFORE they complain. Hey there's a major change on the infrastructure, and everybody who has changed to a new computer one day should understand that it can't be done without impact on the front end.

Did I complain about the speed issue? NO, and I know why I didn't bother you.

I've made the experience that the download section seems not be affected, only the database part of the site. Downloads are still at normal speed (100 - 150 KB/s for me), only this morning, 2 hours ago, the download took 3 - 5 minutes to start, after that speed was ok.

I agree with Roops, going back is a pretty bad idea. I think you'll get much more trouble doing that.


Each of the servers are crashing every few hours or so, which is not ideal.
I agree that it's not ideal. :) It should be possible to find out why the machines do crash. Could be a memory problem (what’s about you memory leak?), disk space problem (swap etc.), cache or stack problem,...

When saying crash, do you mean the entire machine crashes, or only a part of the services, or one service running?

Do the servers have independent storage or do they share a storage?

I really wish I could help more.

Lxm

[Abby]

I've made the experience that the download section seems not be affected, only the database part of the site. Downloads are still at normal speed (100 - 150 KB/s for me), only this morning, 2 hours ago, the download took 3 - 5 minutes to start, after that speed was ok.

yah, downloads should not be affected, as they are generally only one apache process (or maybe four if you're using a DLM). It's lots of people hitting pages of 100 thumbnails, when those thumbnails are being delivered by a PHP script that is not perfect (and may have some fundamental flaws) that is causing part of these problems. Willow needs time to debug them, and he's working on it.


I agree that it's not ideal. :) It should be possible to find out why the machines do crash. Could be a memory problem (what’s about you memory leak?), disk space problem (swap etc.), cache or stack problem,...

I'm not a tech, but the way I understand it, it's a memory leak (memory being allocated, but not cleared when the process is done), and when the memory gets full, the machine hangs (like a BSOD in windows-speak). The hosting company are monitoring all the machines every minute or so - when they do not get a response from a ping, they reboot the machine, and it comes back online. Meanwhile, the other two machines that are still up take the rest of the load, and are worked that much harder, making them even slower.


Do the servers have independent storage or do they share a storage?

Independant storage.


I really wish I could help more.

You already are. Someone other than staff placating angry people on the boards is a great help, and we really appreciate it (you, and the others here).

a

[Quartz]

Despite their names, variables can be fixed. Hammer those thumbnails down to 25 per page (hardcoded), or even 10. Or disable thumbnails altogether: "get the zip, dude"!

Maybe it's just the BOFH in me ..

[Bob]

Can't you ask GM to do a 'reminder run' to your subscribers? Loads of mailinglists have monthly password reminders, so a single email run, reminding subscribers of their usernames and passwords, with a short explanation of why it is being sent (and whatever else you want to let them know about current problems and how they can help alleviate them) could be beneficial.
If you do this then I suggest you be specific about the differing logins / passwords for the sitre and the boards. I had forgotten that and it took an email to you to remind me. Which you answered more promptly than any other site I've ever been involved with!

[Roland]

Hey all,

I did notice the site being a lot slower than usual. It made me try out the download option and now Pam is being beautiful on my local machine :-)

Good luck in getting all the issues resolved! I think your site is the best in its genre and I know you're doing your best to make it even better. (btw: I hope you will install a search utility again later on)

Greetings from a cloudy Belgium,

Roland

[Bob]

Maybe it's just the BOFH in me ..
No, exactly the right time for it, just till the problem's fixed.

[Abby]

Despite their names, variables can be fixed. Hammer those thumbnails down to 25 per page (hardcoded), or even 10. Or disable thumbnails altogether: "get the zip, dude"!

Maybe it's just the BOFH in me ..

heheh, well, that's what I proposed to the geeks, but that's (hardcoding to 25 per page) not going to make much diff (tho it will a little), due to the other issues. I don't fully understand why, but I trust them to know.

a

[Abby]

(btw: I hope you will install a search utility again later on)

Yah, it's near the top of our list. It's driving me mental, not having it. However, we need to fix bugs and load issues before we move on to features. Just for fun, here's the feature list in order. Please don't hold us to it! :)


paginate video gallery & sort one day (server load issues)
catagories data(inc vid) one day (frequent request)

search for models by name (4 hours) (frequent request)
QnD model listing on sitemap (4 hours) (frequent request)
fix "affilaite" access level (?) (verrry useful)
site map model listing (4 hours) (frequent request)
web site stats (sitemap) (one hour) (verrry useful)
journal edit (4 hours) (verrry useful)
HTML edit of raves (8 hours) (verrry useful)
custom zips (3 days) (no complaints yet...)

add menu timeout
video frame captures (research at least)
display x of y images and videos
scheduler
cookies for remembering settings for search prefs, thumbs per page, HTML or blank image page loads etc
add file size to thumbs pages (four hours)
dealing with multi model shoots
menu admin
intersperse backstage comments thru thumbs

[Quartz]

One thing I've been thinking about ever since the new site went live: what's the size of that main.php? Considering the huge amount of actions main.php gets called for (main site, galleries, thumbnails), it is either a very small program handling redirects (handing off requests to other routines performing database calls and serving up the correct CSS/HTML to display it), or a huge program trying to juggle eight balls with one hand. If it gets called several times a second, I can imagine race conditions and memory leaks.

[Bob]

Its midnight here and I'm off to bed, but before I do, a little story. Once upon a time I came across a site that used the pic below to advertise. I immediately paid my money and signed up. The rest of the set was yummy, and there were some other lovely ones, too. Within 24 hours the site had closed down and I was redirected to somewhere not at all to my taste (everyone was shaved and oiled, for a start). Naturally I shot off emails enquiring why, seeking what I had paid for, asking for recompense. After what seemed like a very long wait I got a reply which provided a complex excuse but no satisfaction. Further e-mails were ignored.

No doubt others have had similar experiences and feel suspicious. Please don't be; in my few months of membership here I've had enough interaction with the AW team to know they will be working flat out to get this sorted, and that before we are much older normal service will be resumed. At which stage we will all have the fun of looking though any of the new sets we may miss in the meantime.

[Quartz]

Ah, now I remember. There was something simmering in the back of my mind ... I see that some pages display signs of a content caching system (which is always a good idea). Have you ever considered installing a reverse proxy (maybe you're using one, but I don't think so)? So a server (or more than one) in front of the main site, simply caching the most recent and/or most popular data (recently requested zips, mpegs, thumbnails, maybe HTML/CSS as well) and serving them directly without going to the main site or the back-end (except for some HEAD calls to see if timestamps have changed, in which case an updated page is available, which should be served instead of the cached one)? Cookie and username/password interaction should be transparently proxied, but persistent data (zips, mpegs, jpegs and thumbs never change) should be served without bothering the main site and the back-end as much as possible. Maybe you're already doing something like that, but it doesn't hurt to suggest it, I guess.

[Roland]

However, we need to fix bugs and load issues before we move on to features. Just for fun, here's the feature list in order. Please don't hold us to it! :)

I see you have plenty to do and that there's even more on your wish list than mine. :-) <- I want a real smily here but that doesn't work ;-) One more thing on the to do list ;-) :-o

Don't go crazy over there! Love from Belgium,

Roland

[Quartz]

Roland, skip the nose and it will work.

[Abby]

Ah, now I remember. There was something simmering in the back of my mind ... I see that some pages display signs of a content caching system (which is always a good idea). Have you ever considered installing a reverse proxy (maybe you're using one, but I don't think so)?

we're looking into expanding the caching system we're using now (a quick and dirty hack) in a similar way that you suggest, but the more pressing issue is the instability stuff.

a

[OlderGuy]

In case this might help the diagnosing-
Wednesday I was having trouble getting FF1.0PR to latch. (I don't know the proper term). I would have to click several times before a link worked; other times I got latched but after a few seconds the latch was lost.
g

[HermanMunster]

For what I'm looking for, this is the best site I've ever encountered. I'm sure these glitches will get worked out in time. If you lose a few members along the way, I'm sure you'll gain more back, because you're headed in the right direction. I have a few suggestions of things I'd like to see, but I'll save them for a less busy time.

Herman, who has just signed on for the whole year.

[Yealith]

Herman, who has just signed on for the whole year.
A wisely decision Herman. Welcome, it´s a great place :)

[Diablo]

Heh... my street's phone line is on a NI-RIM (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=147062) which maxes out at 28.8kbps (incompatible with ADSL, bastards at Telstra won't upgrade it), so I'll be happy as long as the download speed doesn't drop below that!

Just letting you know, Abby, that another customer is still standing by you :)

[Luxman]

we're looking into expanding the caching system we're using now (a quick and dirty hack) in a similar way that you suggest, but the more pressing issue is the instability stuff.
Both could go hand in hand, if you have a proxy cache running, the main servers would be less charged, and the whole system could be more reliable. Even if one of the main machines says good bye, the proxy would be in front to take over the delivery of the already cached stuff.

I think the idea is not bad at all.

Lxm

[crispyhedgehog]

I find it no trouble just to come back in a few days however i couldn't resist a quick look at pam's set ;) I had the number of photo's set to 25 but it still showed me 100. Anyhow at least you don't have to see those people who sent you grumpy emails.

[wildrice]

You guys talk like people don't have a right to complain. This site is very expensive! Your attitude calling your customers whiners and complainers is not really a good business approach. I understand you are protecting your interests with the higher security of the new site, but most of your customers are seeing a decrease in quality of service while they are still paying the same amount of money. I know you are working hard, but just don't EXPECT me to sit here and smile.

[Quartz]

The right to complain is not an obligation to complain. In fact, when problems causing complaints are already being addressed, additional complaining takes time away from reaching the solution. Complaining has never solved a problem. Complaining serves to become aware of, and identify a problem, not to aggravate or lengthen it.

And this site is hardly expensive, compared to 99% of the market (those who do not update every day and run out of material after 14 days of membership and a bit of downloading). Moreover, AW staff have demonstrated time and time again that they're willing to go the extra mile to accomodate thier customers. I can make another 99% statement right there.

No one expects you to sit there and smile, but since the problem is already being addressed and AW have communicated the existence of problems on the front page of the site, additional complaints only take time away from solving the problems.

[rickboyau]

All I can add is that whenever possible manage peoples expectations. Most, and I say most because there will always be people who do not understand what you are going through, will understand if they know what's going on.

Don't get disheartened, for every person that complains there are more people out there happy with the new changes and understand what you are going through.

[Nanoq]

Abby and guys,

you just take the time it takes, we don't run anywhere


n

[Saxham]

Abby

My first post to the boards is to say - Don't let the whingers get you down!!! We all know the difficulties and problems with huge rewrites like this and you've just got to keep going and solve the problems one by one until it's sorted.

I implement new financial systems into companies and there's no such thing as a "problem free installation". Going back to the old system is an option I don't often have, which saves me worrying over whether to or not. My advice - the only way is FORWARD.

You have a unique site. Stick with it - we're with you all the way!

[WannaWatch]

How about giving an extra membership day for every day the site is not working properly? That way no one can complain and the cost to Abby won't be that great. Far less than upset users or the cost of people who cancel their membership.

[awqwerty]

Hi Abby,

I can write with a great deal of personal experience of frustration, rage, bewilderment and joy over building and maintaining large (very large) website content management systems.

Those who believe that todays technology just fits together, plugs in, and there you have your website are just plain wrong. It takes a lot of hard work and ingenuity to get stuff working, and then things will ALWAYS go wrong.

Hardware burns out, servers crash, things that were working two minutes ago stop working, for no discernable reason........ I could go on but I think you've probably experienced most things.

What I can say about this website is that the team behind it have obviously worked very hard, have put together some great functionality (or are at least re-implementing it on a new improved site), and seem to actually care about the end result.

:)

[imsnowman]

Overall, the changes are good. I thought the site was fine before though. Streaming video will be nice for us bandwidth-challenged folks. The new auto-signin is nice.
As for the current problems I agree with Quartz?? that honesty is the best policy. Tell people you're having problems, keep them advised how they are going and fix 'em.

One request please. Can you move the "custom zip" prioity up a little? I've never wanted to download an entire sequence so practically speaking I haven't been able to download since you changed the site.
Thanks,

[pjay]

Streaming video will be nice for us bandwidth-challenged folks.
I was under the impression that the new 'streaming' feature was just the existing vid files, but streamable (by which I mean they can be opened directly in the browser and watched as they download rather than d/l'ed to disk first and then watched).Doesn't this require the same amount of bandwidth?

On a more general point, what is intriguing is the different ways people seem to use the site. Me, I just d/l the new sets and/or vids each day. I rarely look at the thumbs first. (I tend only to go into the thumbs page when I want to find the url for a specific image to post into the forum!).

My reasons for this: - it spoils 'the ending' if I've seen the thumbs first. I enjoy watching the pics through as a slide show and part of the pleasure is expectation and surprise (i.e. will this be an explicit set? what will the model look like naked? is she bushy or bare? etc). I guess some people may want to check out the thumbs first to see if they want to keep the set. For myself, if I did d/l a set I doubted I might like to look at again some time, I could always delete it (and this hasn't happened yet!).

Presumably, those on dial-up need to be more choosy for practical reasons, but is there anyone on broadband who uses thumbs to select either sets or individual pictures? If so, I'd be interested to hear why. (To be clear, no criticism of anyone's d/l methods implied - I'm just curious as to how others use the site... ok no-one needs to be too graphic ;) ).

[pjay]

This site is very expensive!
I remain genuinely bemused by anyone who posts that this site is very expensive. Again for reasons of curiosity - and also the possibility of finding some additional porn that is both good and cheap :) - could you suggest a site that is cheaper with a comparable quantity of material and regularity of update. I'm disregarding issues of 'quality' and 'style' as those are subjective issues (though obviously they will be important to any customers).

[Vid Dude]

Pjay, can you please start a new thread about your queries, so as not to de-railroad this somewhat important thread?

[OlderGuy]

is there anyone on broadband who uses thumbs to select either sets or individual pictures? If so, I'd be interested to hear why.).

Because of my idiosynchratic aversion to large boobs and dense bushes, I like to check out the set content before downloading, and may select parts of a set. :)
g

[h310ise]

I'm a webmaster, server administrator and web programmer, not that I think you don't have enough of all of the above, but all those skills also makes me a really good tester (like, oh, I don't know, I have a server w/ very good bandwidth that I can put php scripts on to test website response times (SF, CA, USA) and other similarly usefull things, plus I speak both Geek and Human). If there's anything I can do to help (gratis if it's just a few hours) let me know. Use the email I registered with to contact me, but replace "devnull" with "dana".

D

[pjay]

Pjay, can you please start a new thread about your queries, so as not to de-railroad this somewhat important thread?
Whoops, sorry Vid Dude.

Please can anyone who wants to follow up my two queries post here (http://www.abbywinters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2925) for 'how do you use the site' and here (http://www.abbywinters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2926) for 'expensiveness'.

Thanks.

[wildrice]

Just so you guys know, I never compared the price of this site to the price of any other site. Maybe to somebody money is no object, but I am on a budget, paying for a mortgage and alls sorts of bills. I'm not the only one. And paying for a website, no matter how expensive it is, makes a difference. Hey, I want the site to be successful! It's great. I just wanted to get the point across that the golden rule in any business is, the customer is always right.

[Quartz]

I talked to hundreds of my ISP's customers over the years (when I was a helpdesk techie speaking to people whose "Internet didn't work, and I didn't change a thing". Most of them were dead wrong or downright lying, and arrogant about it, and I told them so. Some of them walked away angry, to return later because they simply got the best and most honest service from us. When they were right, I admitted that, and set about fixing things. I prefer honesty over sycophancy anytime (I'm not in sales or marketing, thank $god).

Sure, money is money (equations have a tendency of working out that way), but money does not buy "always right", it buys "best effort". Some clients are simply dickheads. I'm not calling you that, of course (we're all frustrated here, but nobody more so than the people breaking a cold sweat running this site), but to me there are no 'golden rules' in business, except staying true to yourself and trying as hard as you can. There is a certain and global trend when it comes to customers, though. They're righteous more often than right. Or, as techies in my country sometimes say: "The Customer is King. Vive La République!" This usually results in a fistfight with sales/marketing (the people whose lies we straighten out and whose promises we break - I mean, whose bonuses we have to secure).

AW staff are fixing things. Give them some time. Those of us who are in a position to compare sites agree that the bang/buck-ratio is pretty high here, and no site anywhere will open up bulletin boards to address these issues frankly and participate in them. Just this one.

[Vid Dude]

For those of you wondering why we are not able to repair things to a perfect standard immediately upon an impatient customer's expectation of it, here's some food for thought:


There are only four staff members who are dealing with this issue, two of which are techies in separate countries, and two of which are not techy hardly at all and have a site to maintain and run, including photography, video, and general website upkeep, not to mention replying to the email enquiries from everyone like "why are the custom zip functions gone" or "why does my password not work" or "why don't you put the site back to the way it used to be so I can see the pictures and if you don't do that I want my money back immediately".
It is the weekend, so the staff availability is not exactly what you'd call at a peak at the moment.
The problems we are suffering are unexpected, and difficult to pin down, so it is a challenging situation for us all
We have just spent three weeks getting the site ready and then dealing with the immediate problems, working long hours to do so. We are currently, to use the vernacular, completely mentally shagged out.


My point is, please be considerate, please be patient, and please, for fuck's sake, read the News page where all your questions are either already answered or at least it is explained why some issues have not yet been dealt with. That is what a news page is for!

Thank you.

[Quartz]

Just to save a few extra clicks on the main site ;)

[dustysky]

I've been a member for less than a year, and just recently started checking out the forum. However long it takes to sort out the problems, I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

[drew001]

Why not make a static thumbnail page for each new model and serve that instead of the processor intensive php pages until the problem is fixed?

Otherwise, I'm with the BOFH. Requiring zip is fine too. (But I am on broadband.)

Hang in there Abby!

[Questa1]

I just wanted to get the point across that the golden rule in any business is, the customer is always right.

"The customer is always a moron who should be killed" is my motto! (I'm the manager of a supermarket - customers are VERMIN!!!)

[Abby]

Why not make a static thumbnail page for each new model and serve that instead of the processor intensive php pages until the problem is fixed?


Yah, that was one of my ideas as well, to the geeks. but it's a no go, cos apparently, the PHP script is part of the custom auth process. Only pages that are freely accessible to guests can be cached.

a

[Bob]

I prefer honesty over sycophancy anytime (I'm not in sales or marketing, thank $god).
....

This usually results in a fistfight with sales/marketing (the people whose lies we straighten out and whose promises we break - I mean, whose bonuses we have to secure).
Hey, hey, what's all this? Your cynicism becomes you not. They key to good sales and marketing is honesty - under-promise and over-deliver. Yes, I'm one ...


AW staff are fixing things. Give them some time. Those of us who are in a position to compare sites agree that the bang/buck-ratio is pretty high here, and no site anywhere will open up bulletin boards to address these issues frankly and participate in them. Just this one.
Now ther I agree 100%.

[Quartz]

Hey, hey, what's all this? Your cynicism becomes you not. They key to good sales and marketing is honesty - under-promise and over-deliver. Yes, I'm one... Most ISP sales/marketing I've come across is over-promise (on quality, delivery and time) and aggravate the hell out of the techies to deliver yesterday what they promised the day before yesterday without consulting first. They also like to redirect calls from pissed-off customers straight to the techs ("Take care of this, it's your problem, I'm off to earn your salary!"). They never redirect their bonuses.

A cynic is what an optimist calls a realist. :p

By the way: I've managed to retain more customers on my own than sales/marketing scared away .. they think after-sales is a having a drink and a round of backslapping.

Back on topic: wow, the boards are fast!

[marcuseg]

Well from my point of view, I am going to have a weekend off from Abbywinters and come back on Monday. I won't have missed out on anything, it will all be there when I get back and think fo the amount of previosly downloaded material I can have a look at. 4 girls/6 girls (To my mind Abby's crowning glories) here we come.

Have a great weekend one and all and good luck in solving the problems.

[Bob]

Most ISP sales/marketing ...
Ah! Didn't realise you were talking about ISPs. Yes, I accept everything you say about them and their marketing people. Please just don't believe its real marketing!


Back on topic: wow, the boards are fast!
Aren't they!

[LucasP]

I'm a relatively new member of this site but so far I've been most impressed with what I've seen. I especially like the open, honest and approachable nature of the site's staff. Seems like a generally rather friendly and welcoming place to belong to.

I can sympathise with the problems you're having, having had experience as the content manager of a few commercial websites myself. There's few things more frustrating in that area than having memory leak issues which drastically affect the user experience of the site. We had a so-called memory leak issue which dragged on for weeks with our website becoming progressively slower with various IT people trying to fix it until the problem was finally cracked.

Hopefully your problem will be solved in a much shorter time. I appreciate that you're keeping us informed of the issue and I have every confidence that you'll resolve it to the satisfaction of your loyal subscribers.

Lucas

[ScroobyDu]

We're considering reverting back to the old site for a few days while we get this worked out, which would be a support nightmare (i forgot my password cos you changed your shitty site AGAIN, your ripping me off!!), but at least it'd be fast.

I don't know what to do.

a

I have yet to notice any slow down but I'm also browsing in off peak hour (for US). Keep rolling ahead and don't look back unless you expect to stay there! Has anyone hear noticed enough, without you mentioning it, to even make a difference.

[servercharmer]

...we're got a memory leak issue that we canot pinpoint, also affecting speed of browsing (not downloads, generally). Each of the servers are crashing every few hours or so, which is not ideal.

Technical question...
Are you by any chance using a Promise RAID controller?
Been there - done that... Drivers in the box of our SATA RAID controller were faulty we needed to download from Promise.

To find memory leaks on Windows Servers, use POOLMON in a command prompt.
POOLMON.EXE /P /D will specifically watch device drivers in NON-Paged memory, you may resort the list by pressing the first letter of the column. Example; press "D" and you will see the DIFF (allocated memory - freed memory) column sorted greatest to least. The list updates about every 5 seconds, highlighting those values that changed each time.

Once you find the device which is leaking, search for the TAG. Because they are only 4 letters it is quite cryptic, but the names are all in the device drivers.
Go to the Windows (or WINNT) System32 Drivers directory. Use FINDSTR to search.
FINDSTR.EXE /M /L [the tag letters shown in poolmon] *.sys
This above line will search for the given tag in all the device drivers loaded on the system. IF the tag is not found, or showing in several devices, try adding a lowercase "h" to the beginning of the tag name. This will narrow the search. (don't ask)

Poolmon is helpful in finding application memory leaks too. POOLMON.EXE /? gives all the options.

[willow]

To find memory leaks on Windows Servers, use POOLMON in a command prompt...

Thanks for the tip, but we use linux-based servers.

[Quartz]

Ah, still working on the final migration? ;)

[Quartz]

This thread appears to have dried up pretty fast. Is it just a slow weekend, or did that nice red notice on the site ward off another flood of complaints? Or are your mail/PM boxes bursting at the seams?

[aeb001]

For the video gallery page under their names in the left column why not place a small pic so we dont have to guess what each one fo the ladies looks like.

[Abby]

This thread appears to have dried up pretty fast. Is it just a slow weekend, or did that nice red notice on the site ward off another flood of complaints? Or are your mail/PM boxes bursting at the seams?

Not too many PM's, nor too many complaints.

The speed problem seems to have fixed itself, for no apparent reason. Kinda good, kinda bad.

Thanks to all ofr their support.

a

[Abby]

For the video gallery page under their names in the left column why not place a small pic so we dont have to guess what each one fo the ladies looks like.

We have considered doing this, but it'd make a page that already shows a heck of a lot of data have even more data on it.

A better way - if you're looking for video of models you like - is to browse the main model gallery, and look to see if she has videos (listed as, "4 videos" for example).

We'll be adding better searching features soon, so int he models gallery, you can choose to only display models who have video, for example.

a

[Abby]

I just wanted to get the point across that the golden rule in any business is, the customer is always right.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Tho, if you got some of the emails I got, you'd change your mind in a matter of minutes I reckon.

In a less literal sense, that phrase means, "give good customer service". But we already do that.

a

[Abby]

I'm a webmaster, server administrator and web programmer, not that I think you don't have enough of all of the above, but all those skills also makes me a really good tester (like, oh, I don't know, I have a server w/ very good bandwidth that I can put php scripts on to test website response times (SF, CA, USA) and other similarly usefull things, plus I speak both Geek and Human). If there's anything I can do to help (gratis if it's just a few hours) let me know. Use the email I registered with to contact me, but replace "devnull" with "dana".
D

Thanks for the offer, it's appreciated.

If you could keep an eye ont he boards and the news page, we do sometimes call for beta testers. And of course, if you see stuff that is broken, please do let us know.

a

[Bob]

No posts to this thread for over 24 hours, and the red writing gone from the news page. Does this mean the problem is resolved?

[Abby]

seems to be for me - how's about you?

got no complaints about it, wich is a good sign.

a

[Bob]

seems to be for me - how's about you?

No problems here, and I actually prefer the 25 thumbs as being more visible.

[Luxman]

got no complaints about it, wich is a good sign.
Well, we say always: No news are good news

Lxm

[Dafydd]

Okay, um, I was away for the weekend, so somebody please fill me in: why, exactly, are we restricted to a maximum of 25 images per page?

[Luxman]

Okay, um, I was away for the weekend, so somebody please fill me in: why, exactly, are we restricted to a maximum of 25 images per page?
Cos of the speed problem that came up after the change on the site, AW decided to limit the number of thumbs to 25 to avoid that too much server ressources are wasted used for the display of them.

Lxm

[Bob]

test 1

[Bob]

This is a report, not a complaint.

From where I am sitting there are issues again. Symptoms that I see:

- usually able to get onto the home page and the tour pages
- sometimes slow to get on to the members' home page and sometimes impossible - either as a member or a visitor
- sometimes able to view and download and post OK, sometimes not; eg this is the second time I've typed this, the first time things simply froze when I came to post it.

Hope this means something to those of you who understand these things.

[Vid Dude]

Yes, we're aware of some of these issues. They seem to be temporary for now, but are well into being addressed. Thanks for the details, Bob.

[foreng]

Why does it take so long to download some photo shoots? This is the only web site where I may have to try for over ten minutes to download a *.zip file for a photo shoot. This is not the case for all models but rather some. I am curious because before the new site design took effect I never had any trouble down loading photo shoots. Also where are are the little icons that were used as a legend of sorts to describe a phot shoot. Those little icons were great and would be welcome if possible. You have an excellent site here Abby, keep up the good work. My vote is for small breasted girls, shaved and single, girl/girl, girl guy shoots. Thanks Abby.

[Abby]

foreng, welcome to the boards.

In the past few weeks, we have been having some speed problems, but by all reports - except this one! - they are resolved now. This means there is probably a connetion problem between you and us... before I go too far down that road, please advise four or five sets that seem fast, and a similar number that seem slow?

Also, what kind of connection to the internet do you have?

a

[boa772]

Ever since I joined the sites 3 weeks ago, I've eperienced long download times for new pages. Never less than 15 sec. I haven't liked that, but since the content is so excelent I've accepted it.

Today is a compleate other issue. The time for each load has been betveen 30-90 sec., but mostly arround 1 min. This is not good at all.

I have a 2Mb ADSL, so that should not be any problem. I also have checked out other sites to see if there's something wrong at my side. The only site I have problems with, is AW.

Hope you can help me out here.

boa

[Yealith]

I do not seem to have too much problem's at all. Sure there is the occasional slow or very slow connection but most of the time things are running very well. Just went all over the page, every link would open within a second or two, really. I connect with the smallest ADSL available.

Hey Boa, maybe an elk's sitting on the wire somewhere :D or Santa Claus :D

Welcome to the boards anyway

[Quartz]

Ever since I joined the sites 3 weeks ago, I've eperienced long download times for new pages. Never less than 15 sec. I haven't liked that, but since the content is so excelent I've accepted it.

Today is a compleate other issue. The time for each load has been betveen 30-90 sec., but mostly arround 1 min. This is not good at all.

I have a 2Mb ADSL, so that should not be any problem. I also have checked out other sites to see if there's something wrong at my side. The only site I have problems with, is AW.

Hope you can help me out here.

boa
If you're on Windows, open up a DOS box (Start - Run - command [enter]) and perform a
tracert www.abbywinters.com

Make sure you're not uploading or downloading anything. Copy-paste-and-post the results here. You can drop the first 2-3 lines to protect your IP address. A good connection should have values between 20-200 ms per hop, and not much more than 20-25 hops in total. I usually get 21 hops and < 200 ms.

21 171 ms 170 ms 172 ms abbywinters.com [66.240.207.164]

[foreng]

Hi Abby,

Thanks for the reply. I will try navigating through your site here to see which shhots are slower to download than others. The one I was having trouble with yesterday were the shoots of Melissa. Instead of searching for more slow to download shoots I just gave up and went to bed. As for those that work well, as for my experience about 95%-99% of your site downloads excellent. As for my internet connection, I have high speed sympatico (high speed telephone) connection. Sometimes during peak hours download speeds will be slower and this is expected and accepted, c'est la vie. However in the middle of the night usually things happen real fast. I will try again as it may have just been something on my end. Keep up the good work Abby, you have some excellent models. I especially like reading in the Bio's or message boards of models who have spent some time in Canada (which is where I live). Way to go.

[boa772]

Thanks for your help. The situation has changed drastically during the day. Now I have results like yours, and thats not bad at all. I pasted the results anyway in case you wanted to see them. If I experience anything like this again, I will make sure I take a new copy and hope will help me out again.

boa



3 11 ms 11 ms 12 ms ti100710d050-ge6-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.165.1
]
4 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms ti100711c050-ge2-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.198.2
1]
5 12 ms 13 ms 12 ms ti100001c050-pos4-1.ti.telenor.net [146.172.254.
241]
6 13 ms 11 ms 11 ms ti100001b051-ge0-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.248.9
4]
7 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms nb01b12-ge0-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.229.65]
8 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms nb21b12-pos4-3.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.22]
9 35 ms 34 ms 34 ms 195.50.116.217
10 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms so-1-3-0.gar1.London1.Level3.net [212.113.3.25]

11 35 ms 36 ms 34 ms ge-0-3-0-0.bbr1.London1.Level3.net [4.68.128.121
]
12 36 ms 35 ms 65 ms ae-1-0.bbr1.London2.Level3.net [212.187.128.46]

13 107 ms 108 ms 106 ms as-0-0.bbr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.68.128.102
]
14 108 ms 107 ms 108 ms so-7-0-0.edge2.Washington1.Level3.net [64.159.3.
66]
15 107 ms 107 ms 108 ms williams-level3-oc48.Washington1.Level3.net [4.6
8.127.26]
16 107 ms 107 ms 107 ms hrndva1wcx2-pos0-0.wcg.net [64.200.89.1]
17 119 ms 118 ms 119 ms drvlga1wcx2-pos3-0-oc192.wcg.net [64.200.210.237
]
18 137 ms 139 ms 139 ms hstntx1wcx2-pos11-0.wcg.net [64.200.240.77]
19 176 ms 176 ms 177 ms anhmca1wcx2-pos12-0.wcg.net [64.200.240.66]
20 176 ms 176 ms 176 ms anhmca1wcx3-pos9-0.wcg.net [64.200.141.62]
21 178 ms 178 ms 179 ms sndgca1wce2-pos3-0.wcg.net [64.200.141.18]
22 179 ms 177 ms 179 ms sndgca1wce1-calfregional-gige.wcg.net [65.77.90.
42]
23 179 ms 179 ms 179 ms abbywinters.com [66.240.207.164]

Søking fullført.

[Quartz]

The values are not bad. You get to the site's hosting network (WCG) using two Tier-1 (international backbone) ISPs, Telenor and Level3. Telenor (a.k.a. Nextra) brings you to London, where Level3 takes over (probably a transit agreement; Level3 handles a lot of European traffic to and from the US by selling transatlantic transit bandwidth to European ISPs, interconnecting in places like London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt). Level3 is one of the biggest transit providers in the world (they have several 10 Gbps pipes (http://www.artfiles.biz/noframe/level3_world.html) (640 Gbps max ....) on redundant sea-bed circuits). So, if this is your regular route to the site, you should be fine in terms of speed. I was expecting your route to involve Tele Danmark (which has its own transatlantic backbone and routes most 'nordic' traffic into Europe and the US), but this isn't at all bad.

[Bob]

If you're on Windows, open up a DOS box (Start - Run - command [enter]) and perform a
tracert www.abbywinters.com (http://www.abbywinters.com/)


Now there's a useful wee tip!

[boa772]

The values are not bad. You get to the site's hosting network (WCG) using two Tier-1 (international backbone) ISPs, Telenor and Level3. Telenor (a.k.a. Nextra) brings you to London, where Level3 takes over (probably a transit agreement; Level3 handles a lot of European traffic to and from the US by selling transatlantic transit bandwidth to European ISPs, interconnecting in places like London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt). Level3 is one of the biggest transit providers in the world (they have several 10 Gbps pipes (http://www.artfiles.biz/noframe/level3_world.html) (640 Gbps max ....) on redundant sea-bed circuits). So, if this is your regular route to the site, you should be fine in terms of speed. I was expecting your route to involve Tele Danmark (which has its own transatlantic backbone and routes most 'nordic' traffic into Europe and the US), but this isn't at all bad.

This isn't bad at all if it keeps up at this level, but I have experienced very long response time earlier. Hopefully I've just been unlucky.

I think Telenor extencive backbones to the major contries in Europe. You know, Telenor (Nextra) and TeleDanmark are the main ISP in their own contries and even tries to get customers from each others market. So why transfer traffic to your hardest competior.....

[Quartz]

You know, Telenor (Nextra) and TeleDanmark are the main ISP in their own contries and even tries to get customers from each others market. So why transfer traffic to your hardest competior..... True, but until pretty recently, TDK was way larger (and way more international and transatlantic) than Telenor - it even managed to be the #1 Usenet newsfeed aggregator worldwide (defeating all major US networks) for years in a row. I guess Telenor has beefed up (and internationalized) its network in recent years or even months, probably due to the massive DSL explosion everywhere. Anyway, more bandwidth is always good news. Next time you see delays, a traceroute should give you some clue, especially if you see time-outs along the way (evidenced by a hop showing * * * instead of times). I must say I still get the occasional non-responsiveness from the site (esp. when navigating the boards, with page loads timing out). Perhaps this could be solved by moving the boards to a sub-domain (vbulletin.abbywinters.com or the like), handled entirely by a different server instead of letting the main site (load balancer?) redirect those requests.