[vannak]

currently i have bbpress hosted on godaddy but users complaint that the site is slow and when i go to godadday they say it is because of the coding of the site and so on. so is that true?

[chrishajer]

bbPress could be slow depending on what plugins you have installed. You can use something like bb-benchmark to see where the delays are:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bb-benchmark/

A stock installation of bbPress has never been slow for me. It’s almost always shared hosting.

What *exactly* is slow on your forum? Can you post a link to the forum?

[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi vannak,

If the forum you’re reffering to is the one linked to in your profile, then it seems to be running nicely.

If you like showing off the fact that your server rocks,

1.298 – 35 queries

That said, if you think it’s running slowly the best bet is to do a few things:

1) delete any plugins that you are not using (i know they shouldnt have any effect but always better to be safe than sorry, wordpress 2.6.1 had a similar bug)

2) deactivate plugins one at a time, and see if you notice any difference.

3) use Yslow to see what is taking the time to load from the front-end.

4) try disabling the adverts on the website. they shouldn’t have an effect, but sometimes Flash banners can do that (though they should only slow it down after the page has loaded)

5) Ask godaddy for the server logs and error logs, or ask them exactly what page/script is slow.

BBpress isn’t perfect, but the code is well written and generally very very fast.

[_ck_]

1.298 - 35 queries is absolutely horrible actually.

However I only get 0.489 - 35 queries on that site which is barely acceptable.

It’s probably due to an overloaded shared hosting box.

Let’s review some basics.

First of all, let’s make sure you are using 0.9 and not 1.0

(If you are using 1.0 I can’t really help you much because it’s slower than 0.9 for now and I keep explaining to everyone not to use it but they do anyway)

Performance 101: (for everyone)

1. go into bb-config.php and add this line:

$bb->load_options = true;

2. after you add the above line, queries should be under 20 per page, usually less than 15 – if they are not, then you have a misbehaving plugin (or are running 1.0)

3. if you run your own server or VPS, turn on the mysql cache

4. if you run your own server or VPS, install a PHP opcode cache

(eaccelerator, APC or xcache)

5. if you are on shared hosting ask your host why they don’t use 3 and 4 and if they don’t give you a good answer, get a better host

GoDaddy is up there in like the top 10 for people who dislike their hosts.

Just google the number of people that have trouble with them on wordpress.

But unlike WordPress, bbPress doesn’t have any page cache plugins yet so if your host sucks in the first place, any large php program is not going to perform well.

[_ck_]

Another performance tweak that will help with the end user’s page loading times (but won’t reduce that queries - time report for the page generation) is to remove the shedload of external javascripts that bbPress tries to load on many pages. Note that doing this will remove the ajax features but bbPress falls back to the conventional page-reload method instead so that’s okay.

Only admin can use most of the ajax features anyway so this is crazy that bbPress adds half a dozen scripts for everyone, including the bloated 100k jquery library.

This technique requires a mini-plugin unfortunately:

<?php

/*

Plugin Name: bb-tweaks

*/

// get rid of default forum scripts

remove_action('bb_head', 'bb_print_scripts');

?>

(I’ve never tried it but it might be possible to just put the single line

remove_action('bb_head', 'bb_print_scripts');

inside functions.php in the theme folder.

[chrishajer]

_ck_ – I doubt a visitor is complaining about either 1.298 - 35 queries or 0.489 - 35 queries – that’s not enough for people to complain. I could be wrong, and the performance tips are good, but I doubt this falls into the range of horrible for a forum visitor. Loading Adsense and Analytics takes more time than that.

[_ck_]

Remember that 1.298 is the page generation time on the server side, not the transmission time.

Depending on how slow their server is, the transfer could take another full second.

Then each script needs another query and turn around and render time.

I’m showing a page load to ready time of 3.6 seconds on my Firefox when the page generation time was 0.6 seconds. So 3 seconds to transfer is not good on broadband.

I’d start with the load_options switch I posted above and the script removal.

GoDaddy might actually be complaing about the excessive queries which will be fixed with the load_options.

[Go Daddy]

Hi Vannack,

It looks like you’ve been given a lot of good information. We can certainly look in to this on our end as well. I will investigate and have one of our specialists get in touch with you.

Regards,

Alicia R.

Go Daddy Hosting

[chrishajer]

Seriously?

[_ck_]

Maybe they gave the topic link to GoDaddy?

I wouldn’t mind having company techs getting the proper info from here to solve the problem.

There’s a huge amount of competition out there and a good customer service attitude might prevent a bad reputation. Now if they can actually solve the issue, I’ll be impressed.

However Vannak needs to do their part too

and fix the bb-config.php option I mentioned.

[chrishajer]

I’ve never seen a hosting company visit a forum topic before, much less post there. It would be really cool if more companies did that. I won’t bad rap GoDaddy so much in the future if they’re really willing to resolve this on their end, if it’s their trouble.

[vannak]

Hi _ck_ I didn’t give the topic link to godadday. they actually found it by themself. anyway, i’ll try your suggestion. thanks indeed.

Vannak

[_ck_]

vannak, let me know what happens.

Chris, I see webhosting companies visit websites that deal with webhosting all the time, it’s possible GoDaddy hired a PR firm to scan websites for talk about them. Given the amount of competition for hosting, it’s very likely.

If you google their IP, you’ll notice that GD person looks for “godaddy sucks” and shows up to post things like “will look into it” so this is PR at it’s cleverest. They really are on godaddy ISP though in Arizona so it’s legit (or a offshore group hired to use GoDaddy as a proxy).

[Sam Bauers]

Having Google Alerts set up to tell you when your company gets mentioned is a pretty standard PR move these days.

There is probably one or two people at GoDaddy who look at all these and then route them to sales or service or whatever.

If they follow through I’ll be impressed then, not enough to use their service, but still.

[newsjunkie]

My understanding is that once 1.0 is release, all of the WP caching plugins like SuperCache will be able to be used.

If SuperCache is able to be used with bbPress – that will make bbPress extremely fast

[_ck_]

That’s news to me – Super Cache will require a little work to behave with bbpress (not too much but some) and then it will only help users who aren’t logged in.

There may be a way to cache parts of pages though to accelerate things – I already use this to cache the tag clouds and a couple other things.

[newsjunkie]

This thing about forum is that people have a common misconception that a forum is dynamic … and cannot be cached.

That’s not the case.

Entire pages (topics) should be able to be cached and then regenarated when some “adds a comment”.

So SuperCache, in theory, should work

[_ck_]

You are unaware of very important concepts like hidden forums that require carefully constructed mysql filters. SuperCache would have to maintain several versions of the same page for different users. By the time it’s all said and done it’s almost easier to regenerate the page.

Portions of the page that maintain for all or most users can be cached and that will cause a significant speedup. A complex forum will never be able to cache the entire pages for all users.

I should add that bbpress has a sophisticated object cache that can almost eliminate going back to the mysql database for some sessions.

[newsjunkie]

_CK_

SuperCache can easily be used for non-logged in users. I would imagine that most of the traffic to a site is for non-logged in users.

Just caching that portion of the traffic should SIGNIFICANTLY help performance

[vannak]

_ck_: it is like what u said “Godaddy sucks”. my site is slow not because of hosting but because of ISP. This means all ISP in Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia have problem. anyway, goodbye Godaddy!!!

[Go Daddy]

Hello,

I wanted to let everyone know that I work in the Hosting Development department at GoDaddy.com. We are always looking for ways to reach out to our customers and help provide a resolution.

Thanks,

Alicia R.

Go Daddy Hosting

[vannak]

Yes here is the solution that godaddy gave to me

After reviewing your inquiry it appears that you were able to connect to our servers in a timely manor. Please let us know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns by replying to this email. Our service departments and telephone lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to accommodate your needs anytime.

To me i don’t see the solution, but only waste my time sending email to the support team. and one more point, how many support stuff godaddy has? 100 stuffs? because anytime i send email to godaddy support i always get reply from different people even the same problem.

Vannak

[_ck_]

GoDaddy is massive and would have thousands of support staff, probably outsourced.

There is far too much competition in the hosting world to stay with such a provider, find yourself someone better and smaller that actually cares about losing a customer and doesn’t put 1000’s of clients per box.

My best advise would be to get someone with cpanel because it far easier for the host and far easier for you and makes the account extremely portable between other cpanel hosts. I can literally move an entire account between servers in 1 or 2 minutes flat, all settings, mysql, email, dns, structure, etc. preserved exactly (and you don’t even need to know linux).

Avoid the really big hosts, avoid the really little hosts.

If you can afford it, get a VPS so you have much more control but don’t get a small, underpowered VPS which can be worse than shared hosting.

Do not get a host that uses NFS (networked file storage) like Dreamhost because that makes file intensive programs like WordPress/bbPress slow. GoDaddy probably uses NFS too but I am not positive about that.

Quick summary:

1. get a host with cpanel
2. make sure the host does not use NFS
3. make sure the host does not run PHP in safemode
4. only get a VPS if it’s reasonable size/performance,

     as small VPS are worse than quality shared hosting

added: one more tip for choosing a hosting provider – if they use the word “unlimited” in any of their advertising, find another provider.

[Sam Bauers]

So in summary…

No, bbPress is not slow like GoDaddy says.

[Go Daddy]

At Go Daddy, we do not outsource any of our support or customer service staffing. We are looking into the issue further and will be in touch.

Regards,

Alicia R.

Go Daddy Hosting

[_ck_]

Alicia since you keep coming back (and it’s good to see such care but I still wonder what is taking so long to get some kind of definitive answer) can you tell us in general if GoDaddy uses NFS storage (networked instead of locally attached to the server) and if GoDaddy runs PHP in safemode?