the problem is...it's not consistent in when and why it happens. All we see out here are no or impossibly slow loading or 503-No server available messages. In my listings, as I have said before I see "waiting on api.smugmug.com" or some status message about a "cdn" server which I do not remember...but these are not unique nor are these issues better...I don't have time, the energy or resources to ride herd over SM or any service I pay to perform, that is what I pay for...I also have no interesting is try to "help" toubleshoot...my old consulting rates are $135/hr regular and $250/hr weekend or emergency drop everything else and fix the problem...wanna pay me, fine I will deal with support all you want...the issues on on either your servers, software or routing...given that they happen to a wide variety of users the issue is NOT anything on our end we can fix. So I do not see how contacting support in any way is worth my time...you are aware of the issue and are working on a fix...right?
now none of my galleries seem to show images and the "show off" tool is funtioning sporadically on my listings and other off-site use. So if a customer clicks through to see a larger image the either see nothing but an empty gallery or the tool does not load anything. I should have pulled the SM plug a few months back when these issues really came to my attention, but nope I believed issues had been addressed and when back to dealing with life...now I am in such a corner it is genuinely scary and I find SM has had a part in creating the situation by failing to deliver as contracted.
boy I want to tag this thread for Facebook...glad the button is there but the last thing I want potential customers to see is I have selected a problematic service provider...or since they seem to have given up, maybe it's not an issue...and my real friends know I am patient and very trusting willing to believe the best in people and happily accept their platitudes and promises as genuine when thing don't go clost to right...until I am not...and now, I am not...
You might try this...but it might be sheer coincidence and unrelated.
I decided to disable the "QUICK SHARE" option and immediately saw my site return to normal performance or as I expect the site to perform. What prompted me ti do this? The fact I was seeing an message in the browser status bar that the page loads but with errors, nothing new there as I have a LARGE HOSTS file that blocks most all metrics tracking out there. However I also noticed that the Facebook button was not loading at all. I decided to kill the option since it was obviously not working properly. Having done it about 10-minutes ago now, I have not run into any speed issues.
We'll see if this is indeed one of the problems we are not being made aware of by SmugMug. I never like 3rd party sites pushing content to pages because it adds yet another and, unreasonable, point of potential failure due to however they treat the users of their site. I waffle in FB & Twitter as it is, thanks to JFriend I am more appreciative of their potential but if this stops the instability for me I tell you right now I am not gonna be thrilled...and I am already spring loaded to the pissed off position. I know like that is not already obvious... s
I decided to disable the "QUICK SHARE" option and immediately saw my site return to normal performance or as I expect the site to perform. What prompted me ti do this? The fact I was seeing an message in the browser status bar that the page loads but with errors, nothing new there as I have a LARGE HOSTS file that blocks most all metrics tracking out there. However I also noticed that the Facebook button was not loading at all. I decided to kill the option since it was obviously not working properly. Having done it about 10-minutes ago now, I have not run into any speed issues.
We'll see if this is indeed one of the problems we are not being made aware of by SmugMug. I never like 3rd party sites pushing content to pages because it adds yet another and, unreasonable, point of potential failure due to however they treat the users of their site. I waffle in FB & Twitter as it is, thanks to JFriend I am more appreciative of their potential but if this stops the instability for me I tell you right now I am not gonna be thrilled...and I am already spring loaded to the pissed off position. I know like that is not already obvious... s
The FB button loads in an iframe with source from facebook.com and a couple other facebook domains and who knows what the facebook JS does in addition to that. That's just how the FB Like button works. It's not so much Smugmug's choice as it is how FB offers the capability. If your hosts file is blocking something used by the FB Like button HTML or JS, that could certainly mess things up.
The FB button loads in an iframe with source from facebook.com and a couple other facebook domains and who knows what the facebook JS does in addition to that. That's just how the FB Like button works. It's not so much Smugmug's choice as it is how FB offers the capability. If your hosts file is blocking something used by the FB Like button HTML or JS, that could certainly mess things up.
Or it's that the FB and Twitter code does things that are less than secure and worth enough of attention to block access to whatever site they are coming from. But I will add that the FB button was obviously showing up previously, with zero changes on my end, or I would not be aware of it's existence and you and I would not have had the helpful discussion about taking advantage of what FB could offer.
I don't see how this is different than your discussion of SM making these buttons opt-out vs. opt-in. It is still a change that was not offered with enough lead time for a site owner to test how it works. Plus if this is indeed related to a security setting issue then SM is doing that wrong as well. Heck for me half of eBay never shows because I have many things blocked which were slowing page loads and once blocked everything was fine again.
And don't neglect that it's now been SM's decision to profit from adding these buttons to every owners site. And how sad would be if in that effort a bug was induced...at our expense.
Since everything needs cloaked in niceties I will add, I understand they want generate more revenue, but guess what? I don't care, I care that something is inteferring with my site's reasonably expected perfromance and reliability. Let's see in a while, or tomorrow, before saying these are indeed a point of failure for the SM site that needs to be sent back to the drawing board. Then let's see what happens when i re-activate the buttons as this could be a case of FB having problems providing the connection for the buttons. After all is that not one of the more problematic possibilities with using a 3rd party content provider? And those 3rd party providers are likely getting content to push from other servers creating more layers of providers any of which can case a cascade of failures affecting the end of the food chain, as in us.
I don't see how this is different than your discussion of SM making these buttons opt-out vs. opt-in. It is still a change that was not offered with enough lead time for a site owner to test how it works. Plus if this is indeed related to a security setting issue then SM is doing that wrong as well. Heck for me half of eBay never shows because I have many things blocked which were slowing page loads and once blocked everything was fine again.
I'm not making any value judgements here, just trying to understand why your site performance could go haywire based on Twitter and FB buttons and sharing that with you.
I understand that you are completely neutral on issues and offering your observations. I will add I know how these things work from a fairly intimate level but sometimes assume everyone else knows this and also is aware of how these sort things function so your explaination is definately a productive part of the thread. Many, especially those who farm out their coding and are likely not even aware of these buttons, will benefit from the explaination.
My argument is that when things get handed off to others it really needs to be given serious consideration. I am sure SM did some due diligence but perhaps not enough or perhaps FB is simply not able to keep up with the demands of SM's site...or FB has a provider dropping the ball that either was doing fine during SM's testing or has since been added to the daisy-chain...but right now I feel like make of us site owners are at the head of an all male Greek Orgy Conga Line, if you know what I mean.
EDIT: Maybe SM needs to coax Maynard Webb into coming on board to build a team to address the whole issue of site reliability to save the day like he did when brought over from Dell to eBay. I will disclose I know him and while we are not what one could call friends, we are indeed friendly, he is a kind person who knows how to build a team and also great ethics...and worth the price if you ask me.
Hi brecklundin, we didn't add these buttons to profit at SmugMug - we added them because they're great for driving traffic back to your site. Thanks!
Yeah, perhaps I worded that poorly. SM does generate revenue but likely indirectly rather than anything cheesy like referral stuff. And indeed it could be a HUGE win all around, again I thank John (Jfriend) for the fruitful discussion about using FB and..shudder...twitter...as a marketing stream, but right now I am not feeling warm and fuzzy. And when I say these slow downs have brought me to the brink of bankruptcy, including days away from being forced to sell my home which is completely paid for, I am serious. There are other factors affecting my sales but at the same time, I have seen a huge drop off since incorporating Sm tools...but that could also be due to the Flash factor and I am considering the options there and none of them make me happy. Ever reason I chose SM over the other options is still present, but those other options at least work.
I should add in fairness a lot of my frustration is due to personal probs as currently my health is marginal for reasons nobody can identify. And at present these stresses and the unexplained weight loss, near to 80lbs since the end of April, are all affecting my ability to write even the most basic code, mind I have been a working developer since the late 1970s, so my attempts at a better custom solution is out the door...and I am also not the sort who knows better than the other guy...first thing you need to learn in college, or life I suppose, is to know you can say "...I dunno..." when asked a question the use that to learn from someone else. I think that is one of the reasons John is such a wonderful asset to DGRIN and SM, he is current and great at filling in the gaps. I appreciate our discussions.
But everyone has life to deal with...it's just I just can't survive the site here being flaky because, while it's not a large financial investment, actually the ~$200/yr for the account I have is dead cheap considering the control you give us, storage & bandwidth. What I do have is a huge investment time wise in the back-end/work-flow and business plan which I simply can't revamp in a week or worse overnight as I literally do not have the time for right now because I am out of time to adapt. Of course a handful of sales and I am back in the game for another week at least. Keep the site stable so I can stay in the game I am one to be very loyal and supportive and patient, ask anyone who knows me...but drop the ball repeatedly and I am not gonna be as much fun...
I think my comments are my willingness to say what others don't feel OK in saying right now, and trust me I do speak my mind but never take it as me not being open to discussion, I might be direct but I am actually very able to openly discuss my position and willing to have a discourse over an issue. But that discourse can't be sound-byte platitudes...I also feel for us all it distills down to one simple thing, a reliable site; or tell us it's only really for hosting images to sell prints or your photography services and not to rely in it for other income generating needs.
And as an aside, for me to swear as I did earlier today, I have to be at wits end over something. I do appologize for that but I also will not take back any comment I posted because they all represent my opinion on the matter.
I'm really curious... suppose I'm a collector of things that you specialize in. I come upon your eBay store. I see your item for sale, an awesome ring. If I 'liked' it - then maybe someone in my circle of friends may see the like, and who knows, my end up with a BIN offer asap... seems like you are doing yourself a major disservice in NOT having the like buttons on your site. I recommend you put them on, there's no harm and only good can come of it. But that's just my advice as your professional here at SmugMug.
I absolutely agree that the "like buttons" are a great idea...but since I have disabled them in the galleries I have not run into any performance issues. I already use the eBay feed of my listings into my FB page. BTW, the feed from eBay, is also not showing thumbnails anymore either (I saw someone with a similar comment here on SM and it's a FB side issue but thought knowing might be useful).
John and I had a nice chat about how to use sites like FB, yesterday as I recall, and that was when I began experimenting and figured why not, nothing else is working right now. I was mistakenly under the impression I had to be active on FB for this to be of use...but then John helped me "get it" and there is no downside from a marketing POV at all.
But now the issue is, I am not having any gallery probs since I opted out of them. Galleries became immediately snappy and responsive right when I opted out. And there is the issue. I plan on opting back in tomorrow (today now) or before finally heading off to sleep soon I hope, to see what happens. However my concern is, if people visit my site and don't have the gallery show anything, get a 503 message or eventually load but just taking forever as it waits on the "Like" button from FB, then, ummm, it's hard to "like" a piece and it dose damage to my image to these potential customers. I hope that makes sense somehow.
Since moving to SM I had plans to build out a mini-ecommerce site within my SM site using PP's shopping cart (more than good enough for my needs) and "Buy Now"/"Add to Cart" buttons, I even tried out some code briefly. The results were very positive with only the back-end the hold up the process. I would not even need to really worry right away at making anything look better than a default gallery setup and make those changes over time at a later date. Not difficult tasks in by any means, only time is needed and that has been put on the back burner for obvious reasons as I currently have about a 3-4 window each day when I am up to working and can concentrate. For a small seller it's a very nice option and also lets me leverage the image handling built into SM.
Also now that both Vendio and Auctiva (both online presence multi-channel sales management services) are officially wholly owned by Alibaba (China - wholesale supply b2b service in China) I don't want to move into store on Vendio even if the price is about the same as using PP alone and is a true ecommerce option...I prefer to keep people here in the US employed. But again if the site keeps the constant challenge stability wise my hand is forced to a different solution when, via SM, I have been actively persuing something very different than the typical cookie cutter sites.
OK, no way I would be able to sleep if I did not check some things. first I disabled my HOSTS file just for giggles to prove it's not the HOSTS file blocking anything. Next I went and re-enabled the Quick Share option in the Control Panel, then I returned to my SM site...galleries loaded very haltingly but loaded sort of and ONLY the TWITTER button loaded and FB button did not load at all. I then browsed to other galleries and they exhibited the behavior as earlier in the day -- as in they load everything but the images and if the images eventually do load, and sometimes they do, only the TWITTER button shows.
OK, now I run over to my FB page as I know I have some "Like" I sent over when the button was showing yesterday...clicked and while it did take me to the directory, no images loaded in 30s time span. And this happens in every gallery I check out. Slow/reluctant/halting loading a long wait time while the browsers try and do whatever it's doing with FB and it's button and then maybe images will so and maybe they won't.
OK, I now go back and disabled/OPT-OUT of the Quick Share and *poof* galleries are back to normal fast speed. Sorry, everything I try points to an issue with one or both of these buttons, btw, the Twitter button never has worked for me as far as I can tell, it takes me nowhere and does nothing and I do not have any blocks on Twitter or FB anywhere in my security setups.
So, there we are, a feature I could indeed use that when I, and apparently others (though it remains to be seen if anyone else has tried to disable them) the gallery pages come up fine again. Still this is a different issue than the periods when NO images are being served and sites cannot be reached in any fashion or we get 503's one moment then can load the page on a browser refresh.
As I said, I think I tried everything and it all points to these two buttons...it's that simple and I have been trying to get that point across all evening long. It does not matter if it happens to everyone for any reason other than for SM to figure out why and how to address it.
I guess that's just done and done...disappointed is not even close to how I feel.
Getting back to the original posts, my galleries have been loading very slowly for the past 5-6 days, and they are still loading very slow. Is this an individual site by site problem, or is SmugMug still trying to fix an overall problem?
Getting back to the original posts, my galleries have been loading very slowly for the past 5-6 days, and they are still loading very slow. Is this an individual site by site problem, or is SmugMug still trying to fix an overall problem?
I too was experiencing slowness for the past few days. Images took long time to load. I was a bit surprised, since Smugmug uses Akamai.net to deliver its content. After some network analysis I noticed that I was not routed to Akamai mirror closed to my geographic location. After some more investigation I realized that it was related to my DNS configuration. I was using OpenDNS as my DNS service provider, but after I changed my DNS server to my local ISP I was routed to Akamai mirror close to my geographic location. And now Smugmug is faster than ever
So, if any of you are using OpenDNS, or any 3rd party DNS service, and you are experiencing slow loading of images, try changing the DNS to your local ISPs DNS service.
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I decided to disable the "QUICK SHARE" option and immediately saw my site return to normal performance or as I expect the site to perform. What prompted me ti do this? The fact I was seeing an message in the browser status bar that the page loads but with errors, nothing new there as I have a LARGE HOSTS file that blocks most all metrics tracking out there. However I also noticed that the Facebook button was not loading at all. I decided to kill the option since it was obviously not working properly. Having done it about 10-minutes ago now, I have not run into any speed issues.
We'll see if this is indeed one of the problems we are not being made aware of by SmugMug. I never like 3rd party sites pushing content to pages because it adds yet another and, unreasonable, point of potential failure due to however they treat the users of their site. I waffle in FB & Twitter as it is, thanks to JFriend I am more appreciative of their potential but if this stops the instability for me I tell you right now I am not gonna be thrilled...and I am already spring loaded to the pissed off position. I know like that is not already obvious...
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Or it's that the FB and Twitter code does things that are less than secure and worth enough of attention to block access to whatever site they are coming from. But I will add that the FB button was obviously showing up previously, with zero changes on my end, or I would not be aware of it's existence and you and I would not have had the helpful discussion about taking advantage of what FB could offer.
I don't see how this is different than your discussion of SM making these buttons opt-out vs. opt-in. It is still a change that was not offered with enough lead time for a site owner to test how it works. Plus if this is indeed related to a security setting issue then SM is doing that wrong as well. Heck for me half of eBay never shows because I have many things blocked which were slowing page loads and once blocked everything was fine again.
And don't neglect that it's now been SM's decision to profit from adding these buttons to every owners site. And how sad would be if in that effort a bug was induced...at our expense.
Since everything needs cloaked in niceties I will add, I understand they want generate more revenue, but guess what? I don't care, I care that something is inteferring with my site's reasonably expected perfromance and reliability. Let's see in a while, or tomorrow, before saying these are indeed a point of failure for the SM site that needs to be sent back to the drawing board. Then let's see what happens when i re-activate the buttons as this could be a case of FB having problems providing the connection for the buttons. After all is that not one of the more problematic possibilities with using a 3rd party content provider? And those 3rd party providers are likely getting content to push from other servers creating more layers of providers any of which can case a cascade of failures affecting the end of the food chain, as in us.
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Always include a link to your site when posting a question
My argument is that when things get handed off to others it really needs to be given serious consideration. I am sure SM did some due diligence but perhaps not enough or perhaps FB is simply not able to keep up with the demands of SM's site...or FB has a provider dropping the ball that either was doing fine during SM's testing or has since been added to the daisy-chain...but right now I feel like make of us site owners are at the head of an all male Greek Orgy Conga Line, if you know what I mean.
EDIT: Maybe SM needs to coax Maynard Webb into coming on board to build a team to address the whole issue of site reliability to save the day like he did when brought over from Dell to eBay. I will disclose I know him and while we are not what one could call friends, we are indeed friendly, he is a kind person who knows how to build a team and also great ethics...and worth the price if you ask me.
Hi brecklundin, we didn't add these buttons to profit at SmugMug - we added them because they're great for driving traffic back to your site. Thanks!
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Yeah, perhaps I worded that poorly. SM does generate revenue but likely indirectly rather than anything cheesy like referral stuff. And indeed it could be a HUGE win all around, again I thank John (Jfriend) for the fruitful discussion about using FB and..shudder...twitter...as a marketing stream, but right now I am not feeling warm and fuzzy. And when I say these slow downs have brought me to the brink of bankruptcy, including days away from being forced to sell my home which is completely paid for, I am serious. There are other factors affecting my sales but at the same time, I have seen a huge drop off since incorporating Sm tools...but that could also be due to the Flash factor and I am considering the options there and none of them make me happy. Ever reason I chose SM over the other options is still present, but those other options at least work.
I should add in fairness a lot of my frustration is due to personal probs as currently my health is marginal for reasons nobody can identify. And at present these stresses and the unexplained weight loss, near to 80lbs since the end of April, are all affecting my ability to write even the most basic code, mind I have been a working developer since the late 1970s, so my attempts at a better custom solution is out the door...and I am also not the sort who knows better than the other guy...first thing you need to learn in college, or life I suppose, is to know you can say "...I dunno..." when asked a question the use that to learn from someone else. I think that is one of the reasons John is such a wonderful asset to DGRIN and SM, he is current and great at filling in the gaps. I appreciate our discussions.
But everyone has life to deal with...it's just I just can't survive the site here being flaky because, while it's not a large financial investment, actually the ~$200/yr for the account I have is dead cheap considering the control you give us, storage & bandwidth. What I do have is a huge investment time wise in the back-end/work-flow and business plan which I simply can't revamp in a week or worse overnight as I literally do not have the time for right now because I am out of time to adapt. Of course a handful of sales and I am back in the game for another week at least. Keep the site stable so I can stay in the game I am one to be very loyal and supportive and patient, ask anyone who knows me...but drop the ball repeatedly and I am not gonna be as much fun...
I think my comments are my willingness to say what others don't feel OK in saying right now, and trust me I do speak my mind but never take it as me not being open to discussion, I might be direct but I am actually very able to openly discuss my position and willing to have a discourse over an issue. But that discourse can't be sound-byte platitudes...I also feel for us all it distills down to one simple thing, a reliable site; or tell us it's only really for hosting images to sell prints or your photography services and not to rely in it for other income generating needs.
And as an aside, for me to swear as I did earlier today, I have to be at wits end over something. I do appologize for that but I also will not take back any comment I posted because they all represent my opinion on the matter.
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I absolutely agree that the "like buttons" are a great idea...but since I have disabled them in the galleries I have not run into any performance issues. I already use the eBay feed of my listings into my FB page. BTW, the feed from eBay, is also not showing thumbnails anymore either (I saw someone with a similar comment here on SM and it's a FB side issue but thought knowing might be useful).
John and I had a nice chat about how to use sites like FB, yesterday as I recall, and that was when I began experimenting and figured why not, nothing else is working right now. I was mistakenly under the impression I had to be active on FB for this to be of use...but then John helped me "get it" and there is no downside from a marketing POV at all.
But now the issue is, I am not having any gallery probs since I opted out of them. Galleries became immediately snappy and responsive right when I opted out. And there is the issue. I plan on opting back in tomorrow (today now) or before finally heading off to sleep soon I hope, to see what happens. However my concern is, if people visit my site and don't have the gallery show anything, get a 503 message or eventually load but just taking forever as it waits on the "Like" button from FB, then, ummm, it's hard to "like" a piece and it dose damage to my image to these potential customers. I hope that makes sense somehow.
Since moving to SM I had plans to build out a mini-ecommerce site within my SM site using PP's shopping cart (more than good enough for my needs) and "Buy Now"/"Add to Cart" buttons, I even tried out some code briefly. The results were very positive with only the back-end the hold up the process. I would not even need to really worry right away at making anything look better than a default gallery setup and make those changes over time at a later date. Not difficult tasks in by any means, only time is needed and that has been put on the back burner for obvious reasons as I currently have about a 3-4 window each day when I am up to working and can concentrate. For a small seller it's a very nice option and also lets me leverage the image handling built into SM.
Also now that both Vendio and Auctiva (both online presence multi-channel sales management services) are officially wholly owned by Alibaba (China - wholesale supply b2b service in China) I don't want to move into store on Vendio even if the price is about the same as using PP alone and is a true ecommerce option...I prefer to keep people here in the US employed. But again if the site keeps the constant challenge stability wise my hand is forced to a different solution when, via SM, I have been actively persuing something very different than the typical cookie cutter sites.
OK, now I run over to my FB page as I know I have some "Like" I sent over when the button was showing yesterday...clicked and while it did take me to the directory, no images loaded in 30s time span. And this happens in every gallery I check out. Slow/reluctant/halting loading a long wait time while the browsers try and do whatever it's doing with FB and it's button and then maybe images will so and maybe they won't.
OK, I now go back and disabled/OPT-OUT of the Quick Share and *poof* galleries are back to normal fast speed. Sorry, everything I try points to an issue with one or both of these buttons, btw, the Twitter button never has worked for me as far as I can tell, it takes me nowhere and does nothing and I do not have any blocks on Twitter or FB anywhere in my security setups.
So, there we are, a feature I could indeed use that when I, and apparently others (though it remains to be seen if anyone else has tried to disable them) the gallery pages come up fine again. Still this is a different issue than the periods when NO images are being served and sites cannot be reached in any fashion or we get 503's one moment then can load the page on a browser refresh.
As I said, I think I tried everything and it all points to these two buttons...it's that simple and I have been trying to get that point across all evening long. It does not matter if it happens to everyone for any reason other than for SM to figure out why and how to address it.
I guess that's just done and done...disappointed is not even close to how I feel.
www.bobupdegrove.com
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I too was experiencing slowness for the past few days. Images took long time to load. I was a bit surprised, since Smugmug uses Akamai.net to deliver its content. After some network analysis I noticed that I was not routed to Akamai mirror closed to my geographic location. After some more investigation I realized that it was related to my DNS configuration. I was using OpenDNS as my DNS service provider, but after I changed my DNS server to my local ISP I was routed to Akamai mirror close to my geographic location. And now Smugmug is faster than ever
So, if any of you are using OpenDNS, or any 3rd party DNS service, and you are experiencing slow loading of images, try changing the DNS to your local ISPs DNS service.