Thread

While the MetaWeblog API module authentication (?) bug is being fixed, I have been using the CP to edit posts to my small weblog (not using MSM).

It is frustratingly slow. Almost useless. As I began to create this topic, I opened the CP and chose to create a “new entry.” Here are the data from EE’s own profiler of the time taken to render the entry form. Appalling.

———- <snip>——————————-
Loading Time: Base Classes     2.1807
Total Execution Time     37.0882
Controller Execution Time ( Content Publish / Entry Form )    35.0244
———- </snip>—————————-

Those data are especially bad: typically the total execution time is about 8 - 12 seconds. But still…

I have no idea what the problem is; I don’t even know how how much of the blame rests with EE. I have found EE2 to be MUCH slower than EE1 (and that was pretty leisurely). But the DB queries are apparently running quickly. To open the edit form there are 44 queries every one of which runs in less than 0.3 seconds and most in less than 0.05 seconds.

I’m not sure what “Controller Execution Time” means (it’s not in the EE docs)? Whatever it means, it is pretty close to the time it takes to actually render the page in my browser.

I’m on the other side of the Pacific ocean from my server (a Joyent shared-hosting Sun Opteron; pretty fast, not overloaded: I’ve checked with the Joyent techs). But the trans-Pacific latency is very small these days: maybe 0.03 seconds. Simple web pages and images served from my domain render very quickly (< 0.42 seconds) So the latency of distance is not the problem.

The server is running PHP5 with Zend optimization and a few standard libraries (deflate and the like). My htaccess file is pretty standard (rewriting the RSS feed links, ‘deflating’ text type files, setting caching for different assets). In EE itself I am running only a few standard First-Party modules, Solspace Tag (modules + extension), a few plugins (trunchtml, excerpt, Low Nice Date, Low Yearly Archives) and a few extensions (Low No Spam, CP Analytics). I am not using the Pages module or static pages (and don’t have the sort of traffic that would justify it).

BTW: checking installed Modules in the CP is faster than opening an edit form: “Script executed in 8.0794 seconds - 20 SQL queries used”. But this is still a very long time for 20 queries, each of which ran in the nominal time.

I have tried disabling extensions with no apparent impact on the speed of the CP interface.

——————————-
Apologies for the length of this message. I’m prepared to believe that it is not the EE code or installation, but the Joyent techs say they see no problems with the server itself.

I’ve run out of ideas on how to debug this problem. If you have some suggestions, I’d be grateful for them.

Best,

Peter

Having the same problem

Peter, Since this is likely a more complex issue than just “fix this” and done, I’d like to have a first-hand look to see what’s going on here. Be on the lookout for an email from me.

Andy, could you give us some more details about the problems your experiencing. Is it just a slow CP in general or is it only slow on certain pages? Does globally disabling extensions correct the problem?

Thanks for your patience, Peter. I’ve taken a look at your site, and it’s extremely slow not only in the CP but also on the front end. It’s slow on both sides to about the same degree. I’ve done some diagnostic work and tweaked some things (like hiding all Accessories for all Super Admins and turning off EE version update checking), but to no avail. On other thing I would note is that since the front-end is equally as slow, it’s not likely that the problem is due to anything CP-specific. From my digging around, I can’t find any single spot where EE is held up trying to process anything. Unfortunately, it looks like every part of the page load is just dramatically slower than normal.

Have you been able to run EE on a local server and experience the same slowness? Could you check with your host to get some specs on the server and post them back here. Is the site hosted on a shared server, a VPS, a dedicated box, etc?

Thank you for looking at the problem, Kevin. I have not run EE locally for some time. But I don’t expect a problem.

My reasons for suspecting EE may be implicated are:

1. The server is a shared server at Joyent but not heavily loaded (according to Joyent techs) and has been quick in the past…. Before I upgraded to 2.2.1 as it happens (but that could be a coincidence). There are no RAM problems or bandwidth or logging problems that I can see.

2. Non EE-related items on my server render very fast. No problem with images, text files (.css), plain HTML. Everything else is quick.

3. As you note, the problem is both at the front-end and in the CP. So it looks like something to do with execution, not with rendering complex templates or long pages etc. It’s not even the database, since most queries are quick.

Of course it could still be something to do with PHP rather than EE/CodeIgniter.  Any ideas how I can check this?

Peter

Hi Peter,

Are the non-EE parts of your site static HTML? Do you have anything non-EE that is a PHP application of some kind running as well? That might help narrow down between the problem being EE-specific versus PHP-specific.

Hi Kevin,

Sure. Apart from phpinfo.php (in the root of the site) I run Shaun Inman’s Fever RSS database. I’ll email you the login so you can test it. Doesn’t seem slow to me.

Best,

Peter

Hi, Peter -

Can you try manually clearing your cache directory, and resetting its permissions to 777?  That is in /system/expressionengine/cache - and often resolves this issue (clearing AND changing permissions).

It’s an easy thing to try, let us know if it helps?

Hi Lisa,

Clearing the Caches was one of the first things I tried 😊 Made no difference.

Also, just verified, the Cache directory permissions have been set to 0777 since installation.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Peter

Peter, I don’t have the Fever details, but I don’t need to.  Can you confirm if that is suffering from speed issues? If it is, it points to either PHP, MySQL, or the PHP <-> MySQL connection.

However, if it is not slow, then we need to continue troubleshooting on the EE site and find out what is going on for you.  Since this impacts the troubleshooting directly, I’ll need to await your response before more investigation.

Please let me know, thank you!

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for following up.

As I think Kevin found, the Fever installation is working fine. I think that is why he offered to set up a test installation of EE 2.2.1 on a sub-domain that I have set up for him at his request (there was an initial hiccup with the sub-domain but it’s working fine now at eetest.petergallagher.com.au).

Peter

Kevin, Lisa

Please don’t bother pursuing this problem further, for the moment.

Joyent have offered to transfer my server to another box: one that should work faster. I think it may be a good idea to wait to see if this solves the problem before spending time on “debugging” my current installation.

Thank you for your attention. I’ll let you know if this works (in a week or so).

Best,

Peter

Sounds good, Peter. We’ll just leave this thread open for now. Update us when you have additional info.

Hi Peter,

Just wanted to follow up to see if the move to a different server straightened things out for you. Is everything working smoothly now?

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for following-up. Yes, in part the move did solve the problem. The new server on Joyent is much faster. I also moved my site (with some difficulty, using the RSS feed) to WordPress which, so far, has been delightfully easy and quick.

Best wishes,

Peter