Support Forum

Folks, I really appreciate you trying to help, especially over the weekend. So I really dont want to be rude, but unfortunately this is not of much help. This type of wild guesses, without taking the time to read, what I already said in detail, only increase my frustration, because I am forced to repeat, what I have already written.

I understand that it needs time to read all, what I have written already, but it is necessary if you truly wish to help.

See it from my perspective:

If I dont write enough and dont give enough detail, you tell me, there is not enough information.

If I adress every piece already - as I more or less tried, you dont read it, because its too much.

Now you please tell me, what shall I do? Hmm? 😉

What I am looking for, is a professional support, that works with me step by step. I dont expect that you solve my problem, it is mine, as long there is no identified issue in SP itself. But I need professional guidance from the SP side, to nail this down.

So let me make this straight. General assumptions and guesses about hosting do not help. I can do them myself, I am well capable of that. What I need, is concrete, qualified input. Concrete hints where to look.

For you, I will sum all this up again below.

Please read the following in full now. Step by step. This sums up everything.

If after that, one of you has a concrete, qualified, professional hunch, what might be going on here, I can guarantee my full attention and gratitude!

1. SP shows a dismal perfomance, when trying to call the main page with forum (eg loading the forum structure needs 40-50 seconds). The dismal performance not only happens when loading the complete structure (all groups and forum), but also loading a single forum too (15 seconds).

2. SP was freshly installed on a running WP System with Mingle, S2 Members and other plugins. PHP is 5.4. Dedicated Apache Server. mySQL 5.1.

3. As of yet, SP consists of 6 groups and 40 forums which are ALL EMPTY in terms of threads. This is the starting forum structure I created in advance, before I present the forums to the community.

To repeat it: there is NO LOAD, NO THREADS, NO CONTENT. An empty SP installation not accessed by users yet - instead of myself.

4. I fully understand, that this behaviour is "not normal" to SP. I am far from saying, this is general SP performance. And I dont blame SP as a cause yet.

But "something" is very wrong here. I know that myself. All I am seeking, is professional help, to identify the cause.

5. NO, the backbone (hosting, server) is NOT THE PROBLEM. Your stories about personal experiences with hosters are nice and I can add some myself from my last 25 years of experience in that business, but they dont add to a solution. Fact is: THE SERVER IS NO ISSUE.

I am fully capable myself of checking its logs and monitoring its load. Everything is fine. The server is idle most of the time and does never ever peak to its limits.

6. The connection between the server (hoster) and the web is also fine. Any other application - ANY - from wordpress to other load - is running within expectations and is showing NO signs of performance degradation.

7. Within the WP installation itself, everything runs fine too! If I  try to load an empty! SP, it needs 40-50 seconds. But a second later, if I try to load Mingle with all its load and content or any other part of my wordpress installation, everything is OK performancewise and works as expected!

So what ever the problem is, it ONLY shows when SP loads its structure. Please recognize the major difference: it dont say SP is the cause. I say: it only shows, when SP loads!

8. So there is no slowness that might go away when I disable SP. The slowness iexists ONLY, when SP loads its structure!

The admin options of SP behave perfectly performance wise. When I am within a thread and using the SP editor, everything is perfectly fine. And so on.

BUT WHENEVER SP LOADS ITS STRUCTURE (groups, forum, etc) the performance there seems to be in a "loop" and nothing happens for a long time. This points a little bit to the database as cause as far as I see this.

9: What did I try already?

9.1. I disabled step by step every plugin used, including Mingle, S2 Members, Security you name it: NO EFFECT.

9.2. I installed the debug tool, that Mr. Papa mentionend. In WP Debug Mode the Server ran into an 500 internal server error when loading SP. Dont ask me why - maybe timeout . All other parts of WP work perfectly even in debug mode. This debug tool is not updated for more than one year, and compatibility to current WP is in question. So it makes no sense to invest too much in searching for the cause of this 500.

9.3. I disabled every of the 12 SP Plugins I use (beside Theme reboot) with NO EFFECT on the general issue.

9.4. I played with most of the options in the SP admin panel but found nothing, that affected the performance issue.

9.5. I checked HTML calls and relinks but there is nothing of reference that could cause this, as I disabled almost anything in SP Options that could cause an outbound link - for example Avatars are either individuell uploaded or SP standard, no gravatars.

Simple: I am lost after hours and hours of work.

Where does this leave me?

Maybe the last step before dumping SP is a complete reinstall. But I want to do this only as the last option, because I already spent hours customizing SP in building the new structure with all rights and groups and forums and giving them good, user friendly descriptions, so that the community immediately knows  what to do.

Some theories on what might happen from my experience:

(1) A strange sideeffect/incompatibility with another part of the installation. I hope this is not the case, because after deactivating every other plugin, I am out of options here.

(2) A database inconsistency or type of locking in SQL caused by whatever. This sounds more reasonable, as this behaviour is related to loading the SP structure only! I ran an optimization of the SQL database with a tool, but with no effect on performance.

(3) Some strange parameter on the server I cant monitor myself easily, for example some memory area that is too small or something like that. Not probable but possible. I would need hints here, where to look. Is there a special area, where SP has a known strain on servers?

(4) An inconsistency to PHP 5.4 oder any other basic part of my installation. Not probable, but possible.

All this are just shots in the dark. As I said, I am lost and if I am forced to completely redo all the customization I already did, I am in the mood to throw SP out of the window. 😉

What do I want from support - from you?

First - hearing ANY professional hunch AFTER reading all my bullets above. I am open to ANY idea, I just dont want to repeat over and over again, what I already said.

Second - an explanation how to debug this "40 seconds" optimaly. I am looking for a tool, with that I idealy could execute SP Step by Step and identify, where the time of the 40 seconds is spent.

SOMEWHERE in this 40 seconds of loading the SP structure, must be a loop or a hangup or a deadlock or whatever. When having identified this call/routine/function causing the hangup, I will soon have the solution together with your guidance.

So I am happy to install and debug whatever you propose to take a closer look into the 40 seconds of loading the SP structure when loading SP from the main page.

Please keep in mind that although I am an "old" IT professional with a lot of experience in software and hardware, I am by no means an expert in modern web programming or web hosting. So whatever you propose must have this in mind.

Thats it. Now I hope, I made finally clear, what this is all about.

I dont expect anything over the weekend from your service. As I said, we all have family and it is not your job, to debug my installation. As long as there is no identified problem of SP, this is all my problem, I am aware of that.

But a professional step by step approach starting next week, to help me debug the situation from a SP viewpoint, is all I am asking for.

Thanks!

sent you via form of your website. thxs.

PS: Forget the link. I did not think far enough. It cant work that easy way, as the forum is behind a S2 members paywall and cant be seen from outside. You would need an access code and I would need to provide you with admin access to see all forums in full. Impementing all this would cost me more time to explain, than it would help.

Unfortunately I need to figure that problem out myself within my system, supported by hints and guidance from others.

But your question was indirectly helpfull. As a test, I now called the forum link not as an admin with full access, but with lower access rights, only seeing 2 of the 40 forums as a test.

The result is: 6 seconds instead of 40.

So there is obviously not ONE major bottleneck, but loading every forum and group takes its (too much) time.

Maybe the problem is related to the S2 Members access logic. Unfortunately I cant just kill S2 Members in general as this protects my content. And shortly deactivating it, didnt make any effect.

But it is still a valid theory, that the access rights slow things down to much, because of some sort of interface problem of SP with S2 Members access logic.

I will do some more thinking.on that assumption, until the SP guys come up with further ideas.

Anyway FidoSysop, thanks for trying to be helpful. I appreciate that. At least it created another idea/path to follow. Have a nice weekend.