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Activating Simple Press plugin/Forum slows down my wordpress site
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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 10, 2013 - 4:23 pm

Hello:

My site used to load within 5 seconds.  But when the simple press plugin is activated (to enable Forum), my page loading site is now at 17-20 seconds.  That's way too long.  I think there's a plugin clashing issue, perhaps?  Can you help?  I really like to keep the forum enabled so my readers can continue their discussion, but it's a dilemma now since I'll have to sacrifice my site loading time to keep it open.  Site: filmgamesetc.com

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
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Nov 10, 2013 - 5:10 pm

5 seconds?  so poor to begin with?   of course, since SP is installed on top of WordPress, it will add some processing time on top of normal WP page loads... but it tends to be very small...  usually it comes down to your hosting... is this shared hosting?

have you disabled the w3tc caching for the forum page in all modes of w3tc that you are using?  you cannot cache the forum page since all sp content appears on the single wp page (and this is dynamic in nature) - which use internal caching for performance...

if w3tc is not configured properly (talking wp site here not sp), it can severely slow down your site too...

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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 10, 2013 - 5:16 pm

How do I know if w3tc is configured properly?

How do I disable the w3tc caching for the forum page in all modes of w3tc that I'm using?

 

Thanks.

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
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Nov 10, 2013 - 5:57 pm

First, please keep in mind that anything I say here is my experience and my opinion... Ask 100 people about wp caching plugins and you will get many, many different opinions... and my opinion is irrespective of simple press and from my experience on using with other sites...

If you are not using some sort of opcode caching (ie memechached, apc, etc) with w3tc, its probably not helping your site but may be hurting... yes, a caching plugin can hurt your site performance... I have no idea if this is the case for you site, but 5 seconds normal response time is pretty poor to begin with... I have tried w3tc, super cache and other plugins on many of my sites, and generally speaking have seen little to no improvement.... your mileage may vary of course... so when I say configured properly, just meant have you run some performance testing to even see if its helping or hurting your site - I would not assume automatically that its helping...

as to how to disable it for the wp page the forum appears on, on each of the different cache types of w3tc (ie page, db, etc), there is an exclusion or ignore list that you can set... you need to add your wp page the forum appears on to that exclusion list... the caching plugin incorrectly assumes that the wp page the forum appears on is static in content.. it is NOT... all the appearance of many forum pages is simply url rewrite black magic and all the display is on that single wp page... so you cannot cache it reliably...

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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 10, 2013 - 6:12 pm

Okay, I deactivated my w3tc plugin but site's loading time is still 17-20 secs.

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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 10, 2013 - 7:35 pm

I dedided to delete w3 total cache plugin and installed the "DB Cache Reloaded Fix" plugin.  The latter works wonder, decreasing my 5 min site loading time (without simple press plugin enabled) to less than 4 minutes.  However, it seems to crash instantly with simple press.  Looks like simple plug plugin is just refusing to cooperate with WP cache plugins, period.

What to do?  Please explain it in laymen's term since I'm not a computer expert. THANKS.

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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 10, 2013 - 9:06 pm

I temporarily deactivated the simple press plugin so my site will load faster.  When you're ready to help me resolve this issue, I can activate it again for you. Thanks.

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
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Nov 10, 2013 - 11:09 pm

how did you delete w3tc?  remove advanced-cache.php in wp-content?  and turn off caching in wp-config.php?

what is the error?? what happens?  what is in the error log?

we have a large number of users that use w3tc, super cache and db cache reloaded...  you just cannot cache the wp page the forum is on (as previously explained)... but they use it fine for caching the truly static pages...

5 mins and 4 mins as stated in post #6?  really time for a new host...  did you mean seconds??  still long...  you never did answer what kind of hosting you have (shared, vps, dedicated, etc)...   sorry, but it without w3tc your site loading in 17 seconds would be unacceptable?  how many page views and online visitors at same time do you get?

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FilmGames Etc
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Nov 11, 2013 - 4:20 am

I'm sorry, I meant 4 and 5 seconds, not minutes.  Site takes 20 secs to load with simple press plugin activated.  I deleted the w3tc plugin by removing the WP-cache line in advanced cache.php (or whatever line the plugin requires me to remove before the plugin could be deleted).  

So I decided to deactivate both w3tc and db cache reloaded and went with hyper cache.  I tried to specify "/forum" in the advance option of hyper cache under "URl to reject" but it still doesn't improve the load time.  What else should I do?

I don't recall this ever been an issue 6 months ago. 

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Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
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Nov 11, 2013 - 4:36 am

As a WordPress plugin Simple:Press has to be loaded on top of the WP core. This does require more data to be transferred. At the same time the data needs to be dynamic which is why it can not be cached in the same way that a blog post can - people want to see new posts when they are made not wait for them to appear later.

The main factor determining performance comes down to hosting. Steve (Mr Papa) has asked a couple of times now what sort of hosting you have. While shared hosting is generally adequate for normal WP blog based sites when you start to add more heavyweight tasks like forums, membership managers, e-commerce etc., then you will start to see some strain on the system. Shared hosting means you are in contention for server resources with - sometimes - a large number of other web sites. So - I ask again - what sort of hosting do you have?

A couple of other 'slow-downs' can occur if you have a large number of forums. The more the slower basically. We always recommend the use of sub-forums if you really do need a lot. And using Gravatars as the primary avatar setting can really dramatically slow down forum display although this can be remedied by using our Gravatar Cache plugin.

By the way - a link to your forum page will also mean we can take a look at it and advise if we see anything unusual.

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