Known issue: Site very slow

Just a quick update before the weekend. I'm afraid we are still no closer to resolving the problem. If you are seeing decent performance this is because the problem is intermittent - it's not that it has been fixed or has gone away.

We have studied lots of data from the servers and the anecdotal information on here has been very useful but there is no clear pattern to the behaviour. We believe something must have changed on the evening of 1 July because we have clear evidence of dramatically increased load times from then on. Unfortunately despite looking into it for several days we have not yet identified what has caused it.

Our hosting company are doing a full health check on our infrastructure which will take some time. We are unable to progress things any further until we have the results of this health check (which we hope will be early next week).

However, we can tell you what is not causing it...

1. It's not to do with the number of galleries or the size of images being uploaded.
2. It's not one specific server - all of the servers seem to be affected - there is no "bad" server and never has been.
3. It's not to do with other programs you might have open on your computer, your version of Windows or your security settings.
4. It's not to do with cookies - clearing your cookies will have no effect (despite appearances).
5. It's not geographical as far as we can tell.
6. It's not dependent on the time of day.
7. It's not the browser you use
8. We don't think it's the broadband provider you use, but initially there were inconsistencies which led us to believe this might have something to do with it
9. It's not because there are backups running

Please rest assured that we are doing our utmost to resolve it and we are taking it extremely seriously.

Thanks again for your patience. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you for the update. Today the site is running smoothly for me though the last few days have been really problematic. You say it is not one...or more...specific servers Graham yet some people have been having no trouble at all or virtually none. If it is, as you say, an intermittent problem, surely everyone would get their fair share of the same difficulties.

Soooooo slow for me but luckily i am off to Llandudno on Monday anyway.I really don't have a lot of time for forums so have to be choosy anyway and i love wild-life and birds in particular.I really enjoyed popping in here but everything has gone a- wall.I wish you luck though as this is the worst forum i have been on for performance and i have been a member on freebies too so don't need to say more.I have 2 laptops 1 Vista and the other Windows 7 so knew the issue wasn't with either of them or the many sites i pop into.This is rather pathetic and i wish you all the best....

Graham don't let it spoil your weekend,get out there and do some birding os whatever it will still be there next week.

Sure ain't gonna spoil mine :)

THANKS!!  I think you have it fixed!! I just uploaded a  picture and it happened  quickly. I also tried the "Edit" feature which was not  working either and  the  edit loaded in  lightening speed  Thanks again !

Until a few minutes ago the site was very, very slow for me still - but all of a sudden it has improved here in south-west London (yes, I know you've ruled out geographical, but "just in case").

Thanks for your efforts, whether they're working or not :-)

Every time I join the site IE8 flags up an error it then recovers the page

The site has never been slow for me. I'm using Windows XP with Firefox 5