Yup. Suspect it’s a peak hours issue. You can do all the load testing you want in non-prod but it’s bloody hard to replicate actual user behavior as it interfaces with all the other variables that impact performance.
Let’s be patient. We had a month’s notice of features that would be different, video playthroughs, and time for questions; the rollout isn’t perfect; we’re seeing improvements continue throughout the day; and we’re getting regular feedback. The old forum wasn’t sustainable for the volume and history and the amount of data to transfer and index is astounding.
The old email I originally had when I fist joined would be defunct. I thought it was changed but I guess not. I hope there is a way to sort this out - thanks for checking into it…
It seems there has to be more going on than just too many people. I got on around 6am EST this morning and though it was faster than it is now, I would certainly not call it fast. I doubt the user load was very high at that point of the day.
I am glad they are working to get us a functional forum. They have already fixed some things! They are clearly working hard for us.
Came back to screenshot the nested replies issue, and it’s fixed now! So thank you for whoever did that!
Still can’t actually browse the forums, and it still takes over 10 minutes to load each page (when they’ll load at all), though. And I’m on high speed Internet, so it’s not my connection; this is the only site that’s struggling.
I know an update was needed, and I’m trying to be patient, but this format as it’s currently (not) working is a major problem. I hope the ability to navigate the forum will be restored soon. Fingers crossed!
This is what the site looks like through Chrome for me since last night. After several reloads, I was able to get here, but only because this “thread” was on the list on the first page of the forums, I can’t get to anything but “all categories” without the spinning wheel of death for literally 5-10 minutes. I don’t have time to sit here for several minutes as pages load. Hopefully the IT team can figure out why this site is slower than dial up from 20 years ago.
Yes! That worked! Ok, you just go to the chain link icon at the bottom of the post you want to share – click, and then you can copy the URL and share it in your post, like I did above.
One cool thing I just noticed - I left this thread, then came back, and it automatically jumped to the first new post, the one right after the last one I viewed. Sorry, that’s a bit clumsy, not sure how to explain it correctly.
Anyway, if this is a new feature, then it should take us to the next new post (to the user) on a thread they have read previously. That’s way better than going to the end and scrolling backwards, IMHO…
Also, it automatically updates with new posts - no having to refresh to see new ones!
I also went into my user settings and checked the box to “open external links in a new tab” - it’s not selected by default.
This is pretty darned awkward to use. It took me all day to log in (bad gateway, the endless spin until it times out) I also miss having pages. You know, 20 or so post per page. I don’t know where the heck I am without that. And it’s awfully slow. Trying to keep an open mind here. Going to see if I can post!
Right, lets be patient, as we were with the old platform, that kept falling apart like a too old, embarrassingly threadbare and faded shirt.
Of course no one will be happy to need to start a new shirt, stiff, too tight or loose in the wrong places yet, the label scratching annoyingly on our neck.
It is going to take several wearings and washings to loosen up into our fit, for us to get along without pulling at it all day, finally cutting that scratchy label off, getting more used to too long sleeves and colors that were not as pleasant as they looked initially, but are growing into us as we learn to match them better.
It won’t be easy, some will just give up and leave the new shirt in the closet, go in search of others to try for size, some will come back a time or two to try again, who knows.
Well, COTH is trying a really needed new shirt, all we can do is try it for size and help altering it to suit (pun intended) best it may the community that has a home here.
We may not like the new model, but lets try to wear it for a bit, best we may, is all we got!
Those that questioned the newbie levels, maybe it needs to be explained the levels of granting access is a spam prevention feature, that up front keeps most spammers from progressing into the forums and disturbing and using up extra individual attention to get rid of them.
Thank you for all your hard work @Moderator 1 and @Simkie.
I am disappointed in some of our members who are being impatient to the point of rudeness.
I don’t understand how everything works yet either, but the entitlement exhibited by a few members is very off-putting.
The tech people need time to work out the kinks and the Moderator needs to receive input from forum members in a civil manner, as we all take time to learn the new format so we can help to get the forums working as we would like them to.
As @bluey mentioned, we had advanced warning of the change and that tweaking would be necessary.
I don’t mind learning new tricks or being patient while things are better organized. But, sloooowwww is an old trick that shouldn’t be here unless the server needs an upgrade or there is a “glitch” that somehow got transferred from the previous software.
Perhaps it’s rude of me to say that but I’m a function over form type.
I would bet you a bucket of horse treats that part of the problem was underestimating the amount of time it would take to index the MASSIVE post history (dating back into the early oughts) so that it could be searchable; or underestimating how continued indexing would interact with live user load.
Personally, in those shoes I might have been tempted either to take the site back down until it finished (if that really were the problem) and the performance had been fully tested, but see above about load testing not being perfect at modeling live user variables, this is a free forum, we are consumers but not clients, and COTH would then have to deal with unhappy people saying “you said it would be back up on Monday.”
I am confident that the developers are fully aware of whether or not the performance is meeting whatever SLA they have, if it doesn’t, are working to address it. You always hate your rollout to go with a bellyflop instead of an Olympic dive.
I’m also noticing a substantial improvement in load speed on desktop (Chrome) compared to this morning and around but loading on iOS mobile hasn’t improved substantially since morning. Any time I was on during the day today was a 5-minute escape from quarterly planning so I wasn’t exactly benchmarking with precision, but I’m finding that Chrome page load of this thread is within 10 seconds and iOS is over that mark. (I’m attuned to 10 seconds as the upper limit of our edge case loads for a service that’s given trouble, but I’m not suggesting 10 seconds, especially with no loading indicator, is desirable UX…)
Every time I open a new page/thread/post, I am getting kicked to the very bottom of the page, below all the stupid & annoyingly large ads.
Is this a glitch or is there a setting on my end I can change?
Everything is so damn SLOW…
Each thread is one page, no matter how many posts are in it. Pain in the butt to get to the last post, unless there is a way to do it.
Where is the ignore button?
Now there is no way to know who started the threads without opening it up.
These forums have been VERY active. You can see from the amount of new posts that people are either fed up with the waiting or just don’t like this new format.
The link dynamically updates as you scroll down (magic!)
.
