1.8.1 Slow Speed (Not Server Related) Options

[Crickeys]

ADMIN'S COMMENT:
PLEASE UPDATE TO VER 1.8.2. THIS VERSION OPTIMIZED FOR SHARED HOSTING AND WORKS MUCH FASTER.


I am using the 1.8.1 version of the cart and the system is quite slow. I am on a virtual dedicated server, and this is NOT a Server setting.

Something in 1.8.1 is really creating a bottleneck that makes this great cart, not so great.

If you get to the checkout page and then click PAY (which should redirect to paypal). It pauses for several seconds. Plenty of time for the user to click PAY again.

Which, if they do click pay twice, it will say their cart is empty, because the system already cleared the cart but they didn't get to paypal. So - no way to pay me

Could someone please discover where this bottleneck is? I've tried with caching and not caching. I'm sure it's some line buried away in the CORE files. Perhaps a remote call? What could be blocking!?

You can test the site here: http://www.butterflyandbee.com/indexTest.php

I put the seconds loaded at the FOOTER of each page.

Please help!

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FURTHER RESEARCH
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I may have SOME insight into this. On testing this in FIREFOX it seems to go MUCH faster. Even if I have INTERNET EXPLORER 7.0 open in one window and simultaneously test in FIREFOX, firefox outperforms by several seconds.

I wonder if there is some sort of IE related bug? Perhaps with output buffering or something?

Any ideas?!?!?!

[Goodstuff]

If you get to the checkout page and then click PAY (which should redirect to paypal). It pauses for several seconds. Plenty of time for the user to click PAY again.

sometimes crossing over to a payment gateway can slow a process down, best thing is to have a notice not to click twice, some major sites do this, hmm I know there are some big sites as i read it once (cant remember which one now) when doing a transaction and was surprised

btw im using FF and the cart works fine, oh and who do you host your site with?

[Crickeys]

It's not just the payment gateway that's slow. All the pages that access the cart is slow. It is NOT the server, there's some other bottleneck in the code.

I'm on a virtual dedicated server at mediatemple.net.

It's lightning fast with nothing else slowing it down. There's something in the code.

[Jeff]

It's not just the payment gateway that's slow. All the pages that access the cart is slow. It is NOT the server, there's some other bottleneck in the code.

I'm on a virtual dedicated server at mediatemple.net.

It's lightning fast with nothing else slowing it down. There's something in the code.

I am having the same problem here too. My client is getting quite upset about it being so slow. I am using Jumpline so I figured they would be optimized for Avactis!

Any help would be appreciated Avactis. Thanks!

[adamgough]

Same problem here - it's something to do with the code in 1.8.1 - the shopping cart pages take 11 seconds each, and the transfer to the payment gateway takes 19 seconds.

With the software not letting you cut out any of the 5 steps in the cart process, this is a seriously bad bug.

Is there a fix to this issue, please?

[Marco]

While this problem is reported by several webmasters, most Avactis-powered stores experience no problems. This leads us to a conclusion that this has something to do with a particular server's PHP and MySQL configuration issues.

The next Avactis release, 1.8.2, which will be available in June 2008, has several improvements in the database layer that affect, amongst different cart components, the checkout process too.

But generally, in case your installation is working too slowly, you should let our Support Team review it. Open an FTP account that we could use to access your server and use our contact form to report the problem and the FTP account details.

[adamgough]

Thanks for your response.

I have noticed some people agree that the cart process is slow, but they say that it doesn't bother them - rather than that it's not slow.

Some sites get 100s or 1000s of sales per day, and so a 10% abandonment because of speed is costly, even if it doesn't seem to "bother" the webmaster.

Avactis support today logged into my server and have reduced the delay from 12 - 20 seconds to less than 2 seconds, which is a massive help, and greatly appreciated. If anyone's having this issue, I suggest that you contact the support team because they can make drastic improvement, it seems.

[Goodstuff]

Thanks for your response.

I have noticed some people agree that the cart process is slow, but they say that it doesn't bother them - rather than that it's not slow.

Some sites get 100s or 1000s of sales per day, and so a 10% abandonment because of speed is costly, even if it doesn't seem to "bother" the webmaster.

Avactis support today logged into my server and have reduced the delay from 12 - 20 seconds to less than 2 seconds, which is a massive help, and greatly appreciated. If anyone's having this issue, I suggest that you contact the support team because they can make drastic improvement, it seems.

Thanks for sharing your experience and outcome Adam.

[jamco12]

I have the same problem. We are on a dedicated server box with nothing else running but our site. Strange thing is, the load times between pages from home (Broad Band) running xp/ie 7.0 are 12-20 per click (Its like its on a delay) but on my machine at the office running vista and ie 7.0 is 1-2 seconds. I've gotten plenty of complaints from our clients that the site is painfully slow, were others say it runs just fine (Both broad band and dialup)

Support team logged onto your server and tweaked some settings to make it run faster? Would the support team care to share that with us. What file and what setting? It would be great is we could tweak this ourselves without support involvement. Thanks!

[Linda]

I have noticed this problem with clients using paypal. It seems the paypal server times out before the actual sale gets to them. I am not sure where the problem lies and have written paypal. They do not appear to care. The same issue has happened when I have tried to purchase from sites that use paypal. (the 3 occurrences WERE NOT running avactis) ... there would be a lag and all of a sudden I would get an error from paypal saying return to make the purchase again and when the link was clicked it took me to my own paypal account. Of course when I went to the cart it was empty.

With each error I have written the web owner to alert them of the problem. I am now wondering if it is not simply a browser problem. I have only had it happen using IE or Maxthon which apparently runs an IE engine. By one site owner I was told he has a lot of problems with browsers that support tabs.

[jamco12]

I agree , Paypal is a slow and they do not care, tech support from them always seems to lead nowhere.

These 12-20 second page load times are not effected by Paypal. We experience the slow load times simply browsing the site, outside of the checkout process. Does our site seem slow to you? Thanks!

https://www.musikraft.com

[Linda]

Hi Jamco12,

I just finished a test on your page loads using a stop watch. All loaded under 6 sec with most 3 or under.
I am using a DSL 28575 kbps speed from CA to Chicago at this time.

To answer your question about the carts I have installed. Yes I have had a problem. I have been working on it for 6 mos now. To be honest I still do not know where the problem lies. Several things happened at the same time. I moved my hosting company to a new server, Avactis did the upgrade to 1.8.1 and my own internet connection seemed to have problems.

The internet connection was fixed almost immediately.
I then started working with the techs at the server. They are very cooperative and willing to help. I have set with stopwatch in hand for hours trying to pick up some kind of pattern. My own 2 sites are not upgraded to 1.8.1 ... all new clients are running 1.8.1 ... I DO notice they seem slow ... apparently my clients do not. The techs on my server set up a special account on a different server for me to test there. I have yet to be able to check that out. I also purchased space on a new server to test myself. I have not done that testing yet either.

My time is limited right now with a big gallery site that must be finished soon ... it needs Avactis so part of the hold up is the new upgrade (I do not want to be faced with new pages on top of old).

Here is what I have noticed so far. It seems like the browser stalls on entering the page (any page where my 1.8.1 is installed). At first I thought the server was simply not available for some reason. Once the page starts to load it takes forever for the page to fully load. This can range from 20 seconds to 1 1/2 minutes. Nothing consistent on the same pages (I do not have the timer on those pages ... using stop watch ... they are client sites).

What I will do next week (if possible ... it seems of late nothing goes quite as expected) is run a test on the 3 different servers that I have available to me. Alex gave us a code that goes at the bottom of each doc. It displays the exact load time of that page (pretty handy) perhaps that will help detect where the problem lies

I will keep you posted on this thread.
If any of you come across more information if we all post here maybe the developers will know more and we can solve the problem for everyone.
Perhaps if we post our server information with our questions or results that might be helpful too.

Linda

[Avactis Team]

Hello,

We optimized Avactis so version 1.8.2 is much faster than 1.8.1.

Version 1.8.2 is already released and there will be update files available within 1-2 weeks.

Best Regards,
Steve Irwin
Avactis Shopping Cart Team