If you're having very slow load times...

TalkieT · July 26, 2007

Please post a brief comment here stating where you are in the world, your type of internet connection, and the results from the San Jose speedtest (from speedtest.net). A brief description of the type of slowness wouldbe good to. The reason for this request is to see if there's a pattern of problems that will emerge which might help Smugmug isolate the issue.

And Smugmug, I'd really appreciate if someone could weigh in ASAP as to whether the anecdotal speed problems reported over the last few weeks are viewed as a real problem, or a number of unrelated user problems.

I'll start...

I get about 500 kbps down, 200kbps up on speedtest.net with about 270ms latency. I'm in NZ on an ADSL connection. Local speedtest results are about 5Mbps and 400kbps toNZ, and up to 3Mbps / 400kbps to other North American sites.

I find that loading my site (www.nzsnaps.com) takes between 10 and 30 seconds, depending apparently on time of day. I have had reports from people in North America and Northern Europe that it takes between 1.9 and 4 seconds for them, but also many reports globally of taking 10-30 seconds as well.

It's getting amazingly frustrating - there's nothing I can do at my end to fix this.

Cheers - Neil Gardner

Andy · July 27, 2007

TalkieT wrote:

And Smugmug, I'd really appreciate if someone could weigh in ASAP as to whether the anecdotal speed problems reported over the last few weeks are viewed as a real problem, or a number of unrelated user problems.

Hi Neil,

Thanks for posting.

We have millions of visitors to the site a day, and very, very few complaints of slowness. This doesn't mean that we're satisfied, nope. I've made sure that our Director of Operations has seen your postings, including this one. I wish we could do something too, to make your connection to us faster.

TalkieT · July 27, 2007

Andy wrote:

We have millions of visitors to the site a day, and very, very few complaints of slowness. This doesn't mean that we're satisfied, nope. I've made sure that our Director of Operations has seen your postings, including this one. I wish we could do something too, to make your connection to us faster.

Thanks Andy - I know that it's definitely not the experience that most people are getting, but when I posted a couple of weeks ago there were numerous others that were having the same issues - Enough people from different places around the world for me to consider that it wasn't likely to be something at my end.

I was just hoping to get those people to post here with their results and maybe spot come commonality...

Cheers - N
www.nzsnaps.com

caroline · July 27, 2007

Hi Neil,
I'm in the Uk and here is the result of my speed test

and then an hour later

I have an 8mb connection but it never gets anywhere near that, not with Smugmug or any other site. You will see from the links the difference in the speeds, in the afternoon this drops even more, consistently, all sites.
I work from home taking appointments which I book into a 'live diary system' this means I'm accesing various sites constantly through a 2 or 3 hour period, both am and pm sessions, and am very sensitive to fluctuations in access times. I have had extensive tests done by both the ISP Pipex and BT who provide the line, they have bent over backwards to ensure that I have the best service possible but I have to accept that my location strongly influences the connection speed as well as other factors.

Sometimes it really is a PIA uploading pics to Smugmug and maybe sometimes they are to "blame" but I do believe that at all times they strive to provide the best service possible - its not in their interests to do otherwise. The number of pics uploaded to your site is far greater than mine, and I do sympathize with your frustration, but know that despite my 8mb connection I just have to accept things as they are - maybe that is how it is with you too

Caroline

TalkieT · July 27, 2007

caroline wrote:

[snip...]But know that despite my 8mb connection I just have to accept things as they are - maybe that is how it is with you too

Caroline

Thanks for the data Caroline... It's just that the service has dramatically declined in speed for me recently. I used to be able to get a rock solid 2Mbps upload to Smugmug using multiple (3-4) threads from my cable connection. Then it got worse, and even before I shifted (now have much slower ADSL) I was enduring 10-15 second LOAD times for my site. I regularly now have to wait TWENTY seconds or more from opening my site to having it start to render. This has been replicated by quite a few people around the world and I think you'd agree that 20 seconds is too long to have something start to render.

The frustrating thing is that occasionally, it will only take (the normal) 2-4 seconds to load. The other salient point is that even when Smugmug is cripplingly slow for me, no other sites (in NZ OR in the US) are demonstrating anything like the degradation in speed.

Unfortunately I'm starting to feel like there's no troubleshooting that I can do which could help the smughelpers...

SMugmug has been amazingly helpful in the past with all manner of issues from customisation to print orders etc, but for some reason, I'm not feeling the Love this time.

Cheers - N

habanr · July 27, 2007

Hello,
I experiencing low upload speed. I live in Central Europe and from my point of view smugmug server is rather slow compares to servers located in Europe...
Smugmug

connection to London

Frankfurt

My tracert list to smugmug is following:
1 19 ms <1 ms <1 ms aa.bb.cc.dd
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms aa.bb.cc.dd
3 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms v80.c1.pur.brn.vol.cz [195.250.139.97]
4 7 ms 7 ms 6 ms fa0-1-s303.c1.kon.brn.vol.cz [212.20.123.62]
5 7 ms 6 ms 6 ms fa0-1-s302.c1.brn.vol.cz [212.20.123.60]
6 106 ms 206 ms 214 ms ge1-1.tr1.prg2.vol.cz [195.122.207.114]
7 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms ge1-1.tr1.prg2.vol.cz [195.122.207.114]
8 16 ms 17 ms 14 ms WARSBC06-CZECH-ON-LINE.highway.telekom.at [80.1
0.167.61]
9 * 15 ms 14 ms 195.3.70.65
10 16 ms 13 ms 15 ms 195.3.118.30
11 27 ms 35 ms 28 ms tge5-4.fr3.frf.llnw.net [80.81.192.221]
12 29 ms 27 ms 28 ms ve5.fr4.frf.llnw.net [69.28.172.106]
13 47 ms 51 ms 47 ms tge1-2.fr4.ams.llnw.net [69.28.171.54]
14 48 ms 65 ms 48 ms ve5.fr3.ams.llnw.net [69.28.172.113]
15 118 ms 117 ms 118 ms tge5-1.fr4.lga.llnw.net [69.28.171.86]
16 118 ms 119 ms 120 ms ve2002.fr3.lga.llnw.net [69.28.171.201]
17 147 ms 145 ms 146 ms tge2-1.fr3.ord.llnw.net [69.28.171.193]
18 149 ms 160 ms 158 ms ve6.fr3.ord.llnw.net [69.28.172.41]
19 199 ms 198 ms 199 ms tge1-3.fr4.sjc.llnw.net [69.28.171.66]
20 198 ms 201 ms 198 ms smugmug.ge4-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [208.111.152.82]

21 199 ms 198 ms 199 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Andy · July 27, 2007

TalkieT wrote:

SMugmug has been amazingly helpful in the past with all manner of issues from customisation to print orders etc, but for some reason, I'm not feeling the Love this time.

Cheers - N

I'm sorry about this. I really am. As I've been saying to you, I wish there was something "magic" I could do to make it work faster for your connection to us.

Our engineers are all reading your posts. I make sure of it. They are constantly looking under rocks to see what's possible.

cdonovan · July 27, 2007

I have to agree Caroline.

I can't understand why or how the connection problem lies with us...when smugmug is the only site that is slow for us.

that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me....can someone explain that to me...in easy to understand terms???

Andy · July 27, 2007

cdonovan wrote:

that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me....can someone explain that to me...in easy to understand terms???

Sure. And again, I'm sorry that you experience slownessl. From where you are in Canada, you have a slow route to SmugMug. We don't control the route.

I don't know what else I can say

But our engineers are constantly looking for ways to help you.

TalkieT · July 28, 2007

Andy wrote:

[snip...]But our engineers are constantly looking for ways to help you.

Hey, right now... 4:11pm Saturday NZtime, 9:11pm PDT Friday...

Smugmug is blazing fast for me! 1.5seconds to start loading, 2 more seconds to complete loading www.nzsnaps.com

Have you guys changed anything?

I don't believe either 4:11pm Saturday, or 7:11pm Friday night are exactly offpeak times for either location, so what's happened?

My speedtest.net speeds are better too... about 1.1mbits down and 200kbits up

Here's hoping it continues.

Cheers - Neil G

marlof · July 28, 2007

Smugmug definitely is one of the slower sites I connect to. The upload speeds most of the times are fine, but downloading from smugmug is slow from my place, while other servers in the area don't show the same slowness.

For instance now for Smugmug:

while a minute beofre, speakeasy (LA, similar distance)

And again:

Smugmug:

Unwired ltd (San Fran)

emilyza · July 28, 2007

I have been having this problem over the last few weeks-- although my photos upload quickly, when I actually go to visit the site, it loads very slow, both at home and at work.

Here's my home connection (Verizon Fios)

TalkieT · July 29, 2007

emilyza wrote:

I have been having this problem over the last few weeks-- although my photos upload quickly, when I actually go to visit the site, it loads very slow, both at home and at work.

Here's my home connection (Verizon Fios)

Hi Emilyza - To get a feel for how fast your connection is to Smugmug, you need to choose the San Jose server in speedtest.net. (one of the pyramids on the west cost of the USA)

And for the record, my site has been fast for the last 36 odd hours... Cautiously optimistic... I'd still like to know if any specific changes were made or if it's just the network fairies...

Cheers - N

xxclixxx · July 29, 2007

I received a complaint from a customer a few weeks ago about slowness, but myself I've experienced unusual fastness on the site.

droo · July 29, 2007

Intermittent slowness problems too
Add me to the list of folks who have been having a lot of slowness problems the last few weeks. Before that, everything was perfect. So something seems to have been altered at the smugmug end of things recently.

Smugmug works fine and then it doesn't work fine. Within the last 5 minutes, smugmug was timing out whenever I tried to move my homepage. Here's my speedtest as this was happening:

...and now magically...once again...smugmug is back. I like smugmug but the inconsistency in availability is maddening. Anything you can do to resolve the problem would be appreciated.

And yes, I realize that Flickr is even worse.

Thx.

droo · July 29, 2007

More info
Oh yeah, I have broadband and I'm near Albany, NY.

Cameron · July 29, 2007

I've found the same thing. Smugmug's speedtest.net server used to give me the fastest speed tests of any of them, now it's among the slowest (note, my site is still pretty fast at the moment). Just now I tested the San Jose (smugmug) and San Fran. servers - both same distance from me:

My smugmug server results used to always be above 6000 kb/s in months past but recently it has been like above.

TalkieT · July 29, 2007

And now, Monday morning here... SLOW again
Tested from 3 different ISPs, which all have different peering policies and diverse International bandwidth... ALL Slow again... (12+ seconds to load my front page)

This is after it was fast all weekend for me.

I'm just sending an email to help@smugmug.com , but what I want is twofold...

1) A statement from Smugmug accepting there is a speed problem, and that it's at their end - or at least MUCH closer to their end thn my end.

2) A commitment to fixing the problem in a reasonable timeframe.

Cheers - Neil Gardner
www.nzsnaps.com

Andy · July 29, 2007

TalkieT wrote:

I'm just sending an email to help@smugmug.com , but what I want is twofold...

1) A statement from Smugmug accepting there is a speed problem, and that it's at their end - or at least MUCH closer to their end thn my end.

2) A commitment to fixing the problem in a reasonable timeframe.

Cheers - Neil Gardner
www.nzsnaps.com

Thanks for reiterating your concerns here to the help desk, too.
Your posts have been seen by our engineers. I wish I had more to say than this: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=603944&postcount=7 , but I don't.

Our engineers will post in that thread if they have anything new to say about the situation.

I'm terribly, terribly sorry that SmugMug is slow for you. We do have millions of visitors from all over the world, and hundreds of thousands of customers, who use the site and get fast connections and speed. I'm really sorry that it isn't fast for you. I'll ask our engineers again if they see anything unique to your connection to us.

I wish I had a better answer for you, Neil.

TalkieT · July 29, 2007

Thanks Andy, but...

Andy wrote:

[snip...]I'm terribly, terribly sorry that SmugMug is slow for you. We do have millions of visitors from all over the world, and hundreds of thousands of customers, who use the site and get fast connections and speed. I'm really sorry that it isn't fast for you. I'll ask our engineers again if they see anything unique to your connection to us.

I wish I had a better answer for you, Neil.

Hi Andy, thanks as always for the prompt response... Two things I feel I still need to point out though...

I don't think they'll find anything unique to my connection at fault, since there are several others from all around the world reporting BIG slowdowns at the same time. YES, I accept you have hundreds of thousands of customers that haven't complained about the speed.

Secondly, it spasmodically appears to speed up, and the times that it speeds up are NOT peak internet use times in New Zealand. I happen to be a solution architect for the biggest Telco in NZ, and there are no international traffic related congestion or shaping issues at this end.

I'm concerned that Smugmug hasn't accepted that there even appears to be a problem anywhere but the users end.

Cheers- Neil G
www.nzsnaps.com

Andy · July 29, 2007

TalkieT wrote:

I'm concerned that Smugmug hasn't accepted that there even appears to be a problem anywhere but the users end.

Cheers- Neil G
www.nzsnaps.com

Hi Neil, we're not saying it's at your end.

What I've said all along, is that there's nothing on our servers that we can do to make it faster for you - but that there could be an issue somewhere along the 5,000 mile route from you to us.

droo · July 29, 2007

It's not just neil
The problem's not just on Neil's route, Andy. It's on my route too and it's getting worse. It's been the pits all evening. All this makes one think that perhaps it's not really along any route...but at smugmug.

Hey, I like smugmug. I just want to work as well as it did until a couple of weeks ago.

TalkieT · July 29, 2007

Andy wrote:

Hi Neil, we're not saying it's at your end.

What I've said all along, is that there's nothing on our servers that we can do to make it faster for you - but that there could be an issue somewhere along the 5,000 mile route from you to us.

It's ok Andy, I know and understand it's likely to be an issue outside the direct control of either of us. If we can isolate the issue however, then perhaps it would be possible for you / your upstream to route around the obvious damage somewhere.

I'm going to start exploring from where it's slow, and locations where access is quick. If I can create a simple test (a timed wget for a particular file or something) that illustrates the problem, I'll post it here and people can start collecting some data that might help.

Cheers - Neil G
www.nzsnaps.com

Andy · July 29, 2007

droo wrote:

The problem's not just on Neil's route, Andy. It's on my route too and it's getting worse. It's been the pits all evening. All this makes one think that perhaps it's not really along any route...but at smugmug.

Hey, I like smugmug. I just want to work as well as it did until a couple of weeks ago.

Hi, we know there's more than Neil. Never meant to imply otherwise.

Can you give us a traceroute of you to us?

Try these instructions to run a traceroute on a PC:
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2959046

To run a traceroute on a Mac, follow the instructions here:
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/3073291

droo · July 29, 2007

Here's the traceroot
Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 4 ms 5 ms 5 ms 10.117.0.1
2 6 ms 6 ms 5 ms gig3-1-1.albynywav-rtr02.nyroc.rr.com [24.29.37.185]
3 19 ms 17 ms 16 ms rdc-24-24-7-70.nyroc.rr.com [24.24.7.70]
4 27 ms 27 ms 27 ms te-3-2.car2.Cleveland1.Level3.net [64.156.66.41]
5 26 ms 26 ms 27 ms ae-11-11.car1.Cleveland1.Level3.net [4.69.132.197]
6 25 ms 34 ms 35 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.194]
7 29 ms 35 ms 36 ms ae-71-71.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net
[4.69.134.134]
8 80 ms 204 ms 204 ms ae-11-79.car1.Washington3.Level3.net [4.68.17.71]
9 26 ms 27 ms 27 ms 64.212.107.61
10 112 ms 107 ms 108 ms SMUGMUG.gigabitethernet3-35.ar2.SJC2.gblx.net [6
4.214.196.246]
11 104 ms 103 ms 104 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Trace complete.

TalkieT · July 30, 2007

Tracert from NZ to Hera.smugmug.com
Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.199.246
2 60 ms 61 ms 59 ms ip-58-28-15-72.wxnz.net [58.28.15.72]
3 59 ms 60 ms 60 ms ge-1-0-0-57-jcore3.wxnz.net [58.28.13.49]
4 60 ms 59 ms 60 ms ge-0-0-0-akl-core1.wxnz.net [58.28.8.8]
5 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms Gi9-1.gw1.akl1.asianetcom.net [203.192.166.105]
6 61 ms 61 ms 61 ms ip-202.147.55.210.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.210]
7 213 ms 213 ms 213 ms po7-3.gw2.sjc1.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.158]
8 214 ms 214 ms 236 ms ge3-11.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [68.142.116.249]
9 215 ms 215 ms 216 ms smugmug.ge3-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [208.111.152.78]
10 215 ms 215 ms 215 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Right now, I am getting good performance again, so consider this a baseline Tracert, with good performance... I'm on ADSL, so 60ms is fine for my first few hops, and only adding another 2-3ms after the pacific hop is astonishingly good.

Cheers - Neil Gardner
www.nzsnaps.com

RogersDA · July 30, 2007

Andy wrote:

What I've said all along, is that there's nothing on our servers that we can do to make it faster for you - but that there could be an issue somewhere along the 5,000 mile route from you to us.

Just FYI:

Using Comcast from Waldorf, MD to San Jose the speedtest.net downloads are typically 500 kbs or less, and uploads are usually slightly higher.

It doesn't make sense that I can get relatively high speedtest.net results at home for almost any area except San Jose. Traceroutes from Waldorf, MD to smugmug didn't show anything of significance. I will try to post those tonight. Also, I have noted that, irrespective of what my speedtest.net results are at home I always seem to have a significantly higher upload speed when actually pushing images to my account.

This morning from Alexandria, VA/Washington, D.C. to San Jose via my office's connection:

So, something is working right from the office.

Thando · July 30, 2007

TalkieT wrote:

Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.199.246
2 60 ms 61 ms 59 ms ip-58-28-15-72.wxnz.net [58.28.15.72]
3 59 ms 60 ms 60 ms ge-1-0-0-57-jcore3.wxnz.net [58.28.13.49]
4 60 ms 59 ms 60 ms ge-0-0-0-akl-core1.wxnz.net [58.28.8.8]
5 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms Gi9-1.gw1.akl1.asianetcom.net [203.192.166.105]
6 61 ms 61 ms 61 ms ip-202.147.55.210.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.210]
7 213 ms 213 ms 213 ms po7-3.gw2.sjc1.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.158]
8 214 ms 214 ms 236 ms ge3-11.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [68.142.116.249]
9 215 ms 215 ms 216 ms smugmug.ge3-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [208.111.152.78]
10 215 ms 215 ms 215 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Right now, I am getting good performance again, so consider this a baseline Tracert, with good performance... I'm on ADSL, so 60ms is fine for my first few hops, and only adding another 2-3ms after the pacific hop is astonishingly good.

Cheers - Neil Gardner
www.nzsnaps.com

Actually, 60ms from line 1 to line 2 isn't very good. That should be your home shooting information to your ISP and back. You should be within a few miles of your ISP's equipment to even have internet and anything over 20ms should raise your concern.
To see more of the puzzle, we will need to have a traceroute run from SmugMug to your computer so that we can start to see the connection when we are sending you information. If you click on this link, it will run that test for you. http://www.smugmug.com/homepage/traceroute.mg
We'll need both to and from information from everyone that is having a problem with their speed. Just one way won't give us enough information. If eveyone would run both then get us that information, we'll take a look.

simplykristi · July 30, 2007

I use Comcast HSI.

Here's mine:

Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 8 ms 9 ms * ge-1-3-ur01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net
[68.87.234.97]
3 20 ms 9 ms 9 ms te-4-3-ar01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net
[68.87.234.9]
4 24 ms 14 ms 14 ms 12.125.74.21
5 23 ms 23 ms 26 ms tbr2.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.123.24.238]
6 36 ms 23 ms 26 ms tbr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.10.45]
7 21 ms 21 ms 23 ms 12.122.99.81
8 23 ms 31 ms 20 ms 12.86.156.10
9 72 ms 75 ms 70 ms tge1-3.fr4.sjc.llnw.net [69.28.171.66]
10 67 ms 67 ms 72 ms smugmug.ge4-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [208.111.152.82]

11 73 ms 71 ms 71 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Trace complete.

Kristi

Thando · July 30, 2007

simplykristi wrote:

I use Comcast HSI.

Here's mine:

Tracing route to hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 8 ms 9 ms * ge-1-3-ur01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net
[68.87.234.97]
3 20 ms 9 ms 9 ms te-4-3-ar01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net
[68.87.234.9]
4 24 ms 14 ms 14 ms 12.125.74.21
5 23 ms 23 ms 26 ms tbr2.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.123.24.238]
6 36 ms 23 ms 26 ms tbr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.10.45]
7 21 ms 21 ms 23 ms 12.122.99.81
8 23 ms 31 ms 20 ms 12.86.156.10
9 72 ms 75 ms 70 ms tge1-3.fr4.sjc.llnw.net [69.28.171.66]
10 67 ms 67 ms 72 ms smugmug.ge4-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net [208.111.152.82]

11 73 ms 71 ms 71 ms hera.smugmug.com [63.81.134.23]

Trace complete.

Kristi

Cool. That looks fast. I don't seem to see the traceroute that you ran to SmugMug. We'll need that one too. Email us at the help desk with it and referrence this post.

simplykristi · July 30, 2007

I did a tracert from the link posted above.

1 gw2.sv3.smugmug.net (10.27.27.11) 0.287 ms 0.147 ms 0.216 ms
2 r2.sv1.smugmug.net (63.81.134.2) 13.169 ms 13.515 ms 1.835 ms
3 ge3-1.fr3.sjc.llnw.net (208.111.152.77) 2.112 ms 1.967 ms 1.720 ms
4 12.87.109.161 (12.87.109.161) 3.375 ms 2.984 ms 3.029 ms
5 tbr2.sffca.ip.att.net (12.122.114.86) 59.192 ms 58.058 ms 57.264 ms
MPLS Label=32133 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=0
6 tbr1.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.122.10.41) 57.655 ms 57.327 ms 57.789 ms
MPLS Label=31682 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=0
7 12.123.24.201 (12.123.24.201) 101.789 ms 56.948 ms 56.924 ms
8 12.117.139.86 (12.117.139.86) 61.757 ms 61.908 ms 61.775 ms
9 te-4-1-ar01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net (68.87.234.1) 63.417 ms 63.433 ms 63.285 ms
10 te-5-3-ur01.independence.mo.indepen.comcast.net (68.87.234.10) 63.244 ms 63.165 ms 64.389 ms
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *

Kristi

If you're having very slow load times...

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