Slow to load My Ancestors?

[Tony]

I've noticed recently that the LostCousins My Ancestors page seems to be taking longer than I expect to load. Timings made today with "Sort entries by: Household" are these:

My own account with 706 ancestors is taking 35-45 sec on an older fast PC, 27-40 sec on a new fast PC;
My wife's account with 364 ancestors is taking 22-24 sec on the older, 16-20 sec on the newer.​

These figures work out to about 19 ancestors per sec on the older PC, 25 ancestors per sec on the newer.
Both PCs are running Firefox 40.0.2, the older Win 7 Pro, the newer Win 10 Home. My ADSL link tests at about 4Mbit/sec and the page tests above use no more than about 10% of that.
My impression is that the My Ancestors page used to load much more quickly, but now there's a noticeable wait. Are others seeing this?

 

[Gillian]

After reading your comment, Tony, I immediately gave My Ancestors (sort by household) a try. Result? Instant loading. I don't know how many parts of a second it took, but it wasn't many. I am running Windows 7 on a relatively ancient (3 years old) laptop. I have 450 gigabytes, of which 327 are 'free' (literal translation from Finnish; it's probably something else in computerspeak) and access the Internet via a 3G USB modem (correct term?) I have 801 ancestors or so.

 

[Tony]

Well, it's frustrating me, I recall instant loading and would like it back
I've also tried Internet Explorer on the Win 7 PC and Edge on the Win 10 PC, with similar timings to those with Firefox. Even my iPad 3 takes a similar amount, 30 sec to load My Ancestors. The router stats look good, very low error rate, etc. Other long web pages are loading almost instantly. Any suggestions, anyone?

PS "Free" disk space is perfect.

 

[Bryman]

I also have noticed a slight slow down but have assumed that to be due to my increased number of ancestors - currently nearly 2,400.

I use an aging Toshiba laptop which I bought when Vista was first released. It has 2 cpus running at 2.25 GHz and 3GB memory with latest Firefox and broadband download speed at just over 3 Mbps. There is no shortage of free disk space.

My sorted list of ancestors starts to appear after 10 secs and a few lateral adjustments occur about another 5-10 secs later. The final advert display appears after about 25 secs in total. That seems to be pretty consistent at all times of day/night (except during back-ups) with transmission distances probably greater than for most members.

I can see that it might be a bit frustrating if the list is being repeatedly sorted into different sequences but I tend to do most work without resorting.
I would find some type of direct finding/locating a particular record to be more useful than a general speed up of any sort request. I don't think that there is much that Peter can do to speed things up for the few members that might experience poorer response times. Certainly, according to the stats produced by Red Dragon, the system is not being over worked.

 

[Tony]

The final advert display appears after about 25 secs in total.

That's a lot faster than I'm seeing, given that you have over 3 times the number of ancestors to list and a slower system & broadband speed. My frustration comes from not being able to determine the reason, thinking that it's probably something wrong at my end.

 

[peter]

Under Windows 7 on my fast desktop with a solid-state drive and 8.77mbps broadband the My Ancestors page appears almost immediately using Chrome - I've got 1584 entries at the moment. It took a little longer using Firefox 40.0.2, but only about a second.

The timings on my fairly fast laptop (i5, SSD, WiFi) with Windows 10 were similar.

Perhaps you are using a browser extension that's slowing the process down? An adblocking extension might have this effect (and you shouldn't use one anyway, since free and mostly free sites like FreeBMD, UKBMD, LostCousins and many more wouldn't exist without advertising income). But the first thing to try when you run into problems is a different browser - I almost always use Chrome because I can use it seamlessly across multiple devices.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I don't think 'fast' machines play too much part as none of my computers/laptops are fast per se and none have SSD. What they do have in common is a fast fibre broadband which -on a good day is around or slightly in excess of 20mbps but haven't tested it of late. Sorry Peter I do use ad blocking but if any consolation I have exemptions, including LC. As for my router (HG Super router) it performs (fingers crossed) almost faultlessly and I seldom if ever interfere with its settings unless it gives cause, and can't remember the last time it gave cause.

As they say in the Eurovision song contest here are my marks. (NB Using 3 browsers and 3 different machines and I have around 850 ancestors recorded in LC). IE on a Windows 7 PC almost instantaneous. On Firefox W10 laptop about 6 seconds and on Google W7 (different PC) about 5 seconds.

 

[Gillian]

Judging by other posts, I see I should have added that I get my almost instantaneous LC download (W7 laptop) with Chrome as my browser.

 

[Bryman]

the first thing to try when you run into problems is a different browser

Not that I was experiencing real problems, I thought that I would give this a try.

I normally only use Chrome to access my reported electricity usage because my provider's web site has stopped working with Firefox a couple of months ago (and hasn't been corrected). Chrome has to work because the site developers and support staff all use Chrome!

I was logged into LC on both Firefox and Chrome so that I could alternate browsers for a fair comparison. To within a couple of secs, Firefox always took 25 secs to sort My Ancestors whereas Chrome was always slower by 5-10 secs.

I suspect that my times are slower than most other members due to the relatively slow broadband link from my local exchange. The extra number of internet nodes that transmissions have to pass through would also slow things down a bit but that should be more or less the same for all sorts performed and browsers used. I would suggest that anyone noticing a sudden change in performance should probably check their broadband connection initially.

 

[Tim]

What they do have in common is a fast fibre broadband which -on a good day is around or slightly in excess of 20mbps but haven't tested it of late.

Bob, this is not fast for fibre optics! A friend of mine gets 80M on theirs and I regularly get about 18M on my standard broadband (not fibre).

 

[Bob Spiers]

Bob, this is not fast for fibre optics! A friend of mine gets 80M on theirs and I regularly get about 18M on my standard broadband (not fibre).

I wasn't boasting! Just telling it as it is and as you know it depends on location, location, location. If you knew what it was before fibre you'd understand my term 'fast' was relative.

 

[Tim]

You need to move closer to your exchange! But I thought fibre wasn't affected by so much by distance? Are you far from your roadside box?

 

[Bob Spiers]

You need to move closer to your exchange! But I thought fibre wasn't affected by so much by distance? Are you far from your roadside box?

If I said the BT roadside box was down the road and half way along a side street that would not give you much idea of distance but its far enough and I presume you were joking when you said I should move nearer to the Exchange. Having lived here for close to 30 years broadband comes to me not me to it and fibre has only been available in the area these last 3 years. I signed up for it last year.

I have a Fibre to Cabinet option and the package promised up to 38mbps (based on my location-exchange-box configuration). After upgrading I only recorded around 18mbps and whilst miles better than the 2-4mbps previously, fell short of the promised 38. After a visit of an engineer and a few trips for him back to the box, returning, testing and back to the box it improved to 26-28mbps and the odd drop to 22. Having checked with the few neighbours on fibre that seems to be par for the course in the immediate area.

Of course I too know of those, family in Birmingham and Solihull included, who are scornful of my 20+ speeds, and of people (brother-in-law specifically) less than 20 miles away who cannot get fibre and is envious that I can. So it is really horses for courses and as I said before location, location and location.

 

[Tony]

Very unexpectedly, my slow loading problem has gone away this evening
Yesterday, I tried various tests - running Firefox with no Add-Ons, trying IE and Edge again, rebooting the PCs and the router - all to no avail. The only experiment to make a difference was loading a locally-saved copy of the My Ancestors page: that was near-instantaneous. This suggested it wasn't a browser issue. I was about to tackle the problem again this evening but found that my re-check of loading time was down to 2-3 sec on both machines.
So thank you, whoever/whatever has changed something somewhere!

 

[Sue345]

Like Gillian, My Ancestors on LC is almost instantaneous to load and to sort. I run on Chrome and my (just checked) broadband speed is a dismal 1.59Mb.

 

[Heather]

Very unexpectedly, my slow loading problem has gone away this evening So thank you, whoever/whatever has changed something somewhere!

Come on own up, who waved their magic wand ?

 

[Bob Spiers]

Come on own up, who waved their magic wand ?

There is no magic to curing computer glitches and hang-ups; just Rules of Procedure: Try them in order and only go on to the next if the one previous fails to work.

Rule 1: Reboot.
Rule 2: Simply leave it well alone and make yourself a cup of tea, coffee or beverage of choice; return after at least 20 minutes and try again.
Rule 3: Speak sharply to it and tell it you have now had enough. Close down programs and browsers and shut down (if the machine has frozen hold in the power button on the machine for a few seconds* until the screen goes black). The time interval for your absence can be varied but should be at least two hours. Boot up, choose Start normally - or if you see it the option to select the last occasion the computer performed normally, select that -and wait until the desktop opens.
Step 4: Contact an IT friend or post to the Forum.

*before anyone reminds the action to force closure used to be a 'no-no' but since the days of Windows 7 and onwards it merely brings up a screen with multi options including start in Safe Mode. Just select as shown and your PC/laptop will not even know you chose that method of closing down.

 

[Bryman]

There is no magic to curing computer glitches and hang-ups; just Rules of Procedure: Try them in order and only go on to the next if the one previous fails to work.

Bob, there is one final step which is close to magic . . .

Step 5: Hit the computer with a large hammer (many times).

This might not solve the problem but at least it never recurs!

 

[Bryman]

Very unexpectedly, my slow loading problem has gone away this evening

I reran my tests to see if I could get a similar improvement. Sorry about the needless waste of your server's resources Peter. As partial compensation, I have poured you a glass of red wine but I may have to drink it myself if you don't turn up in the next hour or so. I do so hate waste.

The first resort took almost exactly the same amount of time as before. I then tried a repeat and by mistake achieved exactly that - I requested a sort into the existing sequence! The timings were also exactly the same so I think that shows that the LC server is not at fault.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Bob, there is one final step which is close to magic . . .

Step 5: Hit the computer with a large hammer (many times).

This might not solve the problem but at least it never recurs!

You are of course quite right, but as that was an advanced option and not everyone has a large hammer (although a house brick can be a good substitute) I would have left that -as you have now revealed - as Forum advice.