The tick on My Ancestors page

[peter]

As Peter says, it is probably just cosmetic. Everything behind the scene seems to be working in both cases. I was curious in case it was indicative of something that I ought to do/adjust.

I'd certainly recommend that you try the tests that I suggested since, even though it's cosmetic so far as LostCousins are concerned, the fact that some part of your setup isn't performing as it should could possibly have a less benign impact at other websites.

For example, I quite often receive emails from members in Australia/New Zealand saying that this or that website isn't working for them, even though I have no problems when I check them here. However I'm sure I'd get many more emails if ALL members in the Antipodes encountered the same issues.

 

[Bryman]

Peter, ever since you made those suggestions, the red SEARCHING icon has appeared as soon as I click the blue SEARCH button so everything is back to 'normal'. I thought that effect only happened when talking to a medical doctor or car mechanic! Have you started a new career?

I have made several attempts at reproducing the 'error' situation and consistently get 35 secs elapsed for searching and a further 30 secs or more (up to 1 min!) for all adverts to get displayed and final completion.

 

[peter]

I have made several attempts at reproducing the 'error' situation and consistently get 35 secs elapsed for searching and a further 30 secs or more (up to 1 min!) for all adverts to get displayed and final completion.

The Search icon changes as soon as the search is finished - the remaining time is spent fetching, sorting, and displaying the information for the thousands of relatives you've entered. On my computer the latter time is negligible - whether that's because my computer is faster, my broadband speed is faster, or just that I'm closer to the servers I'm not sure (it's probably a combination of all three).

 

[Bryman]

It would seem that the return to 'normal' with display of the red SEARCHING icon was a flash in the pan. I have now added members of several more households and repeated the search with NO red display at all but everything else performing as expected and taking similar lengths of time as before.

Until Peter tells me otherwise, I am assuming that the display of the red icon is performed by local processing on my system rather than being sent from the LC server. In that case I am at a loss as to the reason for failure to display. I am not aware of any changes locally which might have brought this about.

Please note . . . I am NOT complaining, just curious. The search is working and I have received a new match, unfortunately not of a blood relative of mine.

 

[Pauline]

It would seem that the return to 'normal' with display of the red SEARCHING icon was a flash in the pan. I have now added members of several more households and repeated the search with NO red display at all but everything else performing as expected and taking similar lengths of time as before.

This - or something very similar - has just happened to me. I hadn't been adding any new entries but was doing a periodic check from my 'My Ancestors' page.

The My Ancestors page was being a bit slower than usual to load and I clicked on Search before it had finished loading. The normal red searching icon didn't appear but everything else worked as expected. When I clicked on search again I got the red searching icon as normal.

I closed my browser and did exactly the same again a few minutes later, and the same happened. I suspect it may have been because I had clicked on search before the page had finished loading.

 

[peter]

I suspect it may have been because I had clicked on search before the page had finished loading.

You could well be right. Whatever the cause, it's only a cosmetic difference - what matters is the message you get at the end.

 

[Pauline]

Whatever the cause, it's only a cosmetic difference - what matters is the message you get at the end.

Agreed. However, I thought I would post my experience in case it helps satisfy Bryman's curiosity.

 

[Bryman]

Back to the original post from Webwiz in this discussion topic . . .

I am now just as confused with the colours of ticks. Although most adhere to the convention described in the page help, there are several instances which differ. I have some which are blue with a relationship shown as "Marriage", while others are grey with a relationship of "Blood relative".

1. What am I not understanding about this display?
2. Do any other members have similar occurrences, or am I the only one out of step (yet again)?

 

[peter]

Back to the original post from Webwiz in this discussion topic . . .

I am now just as confused with the colours of ticks. Although most adhere to the convention described in the page help, there are several instances which differ. I have some which are blue with a relationship shown as "Marriage", while others are grey with a relationship of "Blood relative".

1. What am I not understanding about this display?
2. Do any other members have similar occurrences, or am I the only one out of step (yet again)?

Here's what it says in the Help information on your My Ancestors page:

"A red tick indicates a new match; a blue tick indicates a match with a cousin (someone who shares your ancestry) whilst any other type of match is shown by a grey tick. "

In other words, the colour of the tick tells you how you are related to the other person who shares that relative - your relationship to the particular individual is irrelevant.

 

[Rhian]

For what it is worth, I get the red searching as good as instantaneous always so it has nothing to do with distance or lag as my first internet link is 38K Km, approximately the circumference of the earth, so twice the distance from the server to Bryman, of course as I use a satellite internet it is only one node and the number of nodes may make a difference. I have not noticed any speed difference between subscribing or not, but the few seconds wait is all the excitement I can cope with in a day.

 

[peter]

For what it is worth, I get the red searching as good as instantaneous always so it has nothing to do with distance or lag as my first internet link is 38K Km, approximately the circumference of the earth, so twice the distance from the server to Bryman, of course as I use a satellite internet it is only one node and the number of nodes may make a difference. I have not noticed any speed difference between subscribing or not, but the few seconds wait is all the excitement I can cope with in a day.

Although your traffic is travelling twice the distance as the crow flies Bryman's traffic won't be going in a straight line on a Great Circle route. Also, the speed of light in optic fibre is typically 30% slower than in air. However, as you rightly surmise, it's the delays in the various nodes that make a difference (including delays within your own premises).

However online sources suggest satellite hookups introduce delays. A ping test ought to reveal all! On the other hand Bryman has many times more entries on his My Ancestors page, so refreshing it will take a lot longer.

 

[peter]

Interestingly I can't successfully ping any addresses other than my own router - all the others I've tried time out. Is this a Sky Broadband 'feature', does anyone know?

 

[Bryman]

In other words, the colour of the tick tells you how you are related to the other person who shares that relative - your relationship to the particular individual is irrelevant.

Thank you Peter. I had misunderstood the explanation on the page help.

 

[Heather]

Not knowing what a ping test is, I Googled it and apparently Pingtest.net is soon to be shut down.

 

[Bryman]

Interestingly I can't successfully ping any addresses other than my own router - all the others I've tried time out. Is this a Sky Broadband 'feature', does anyone know?

I think it is more a 'feature' of the site/address that you are trying to ping. Many sites block incoming pings as part of their network security.
When I entered "ping lostcousins.com" nothing was returned, ie the site blocked the four 32 byte messages.

I performed a ping test to a couple of arabian horse web sites that I had set up in UK before leaving and which do not have any blocking in place.
The results were average latency of somewhere between 350ms and 400ms, which is a bit slow. Latency of less than 100ms is more normal.

When I pinged bbc.co.uk, the latency was about 330ms. I have not tried to determine how many nodes such messages were sent through but it does indicate that communication between NZ and UK is a bit slower (as expected) than purely within UK.

Anyone wishing to check for themselves should just enter the ping request at the Cmd line within Windows.

 

[peter]

When I pinged bbc.co.uk, the latency was about 330ms

I can't get any response when I ping bbc.co.uk

Eventually I discovered some sites that would respond: gov.uk was an amazingly quick 22ms; gro.gov.uk averaged 35ms. A guide to the difference that a trip round the world makes is the comparison between yahoo.co.uk (30ms) and yahoo.co.nz (163ms).

 

[Bryman]

A guide to the difference that a trip round the world makes is the comparison between yahoo.co.uk (30ms) and yahoo.co.nz (163ms).

Agreed. But is the difference significant for LC processing? I would suggest that any program using the internet should not be that intolerant.

 

[peter]

Agreed. But is the difference significant for LC processing? I would suggest that any program using the internet should not be that intolerant.

It's nothing to do with the processing at LostCousins (it's a transitory graphic) - surely it's to do with the way your browser and ISP between them handle the data? I would have thought ISPs are more likely to use cached data when accessing a distant site, and to give lower priority to graphics since the information ratio is low.

It may well be that by the time the browser has fetched the red Searching graphic it's already time to display the Search Again graphic. But unless you experiment with different browsers and different ISPs you'll probably never know.

 

[Rhian]

Although your traffic is travelling twice the distance as the crow flies Bryman's traffic won't be going in a straight line on a Great Circle route. Also, the speed of light in optic fibre is typically 30% slower than in air. However, as you rightly surmise, it's the delays in the various nodes that make a difference (including delays within your own premises).

However online sources suggest satellite hookups introduce delays. A ping test ought to reveal all! On the other hand Bryman has many times more entries on his My Ancestors page, so refreshing it will take a lot longer.

My ping od gro.gov.uk was what I expected 4981ms, this is fairly typical for satellite connections, which is why I cannot play any real time onlines games, not that I have desire to play games, life is to busy with important stuff.

 

[FredC]

I'm located in the Antipodes and the search function operates as intended.