Support » Fixing WordPress » Site slow to respond (already using WP Super Cache)

  • Resolved john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)


    Been trying to figure out why the WordPress blog I’m running is so often slow to respond to the initial HTTP request. Eager for pointers about what other strategies I should try to (a) understand what’s wrong and (b) fix what’s wrong.

    Monitoring the home page for the last week from an external service shows average response of just over 3 seconds, and repeated spikes of up to 7-8 seconds. This is for first response, not measuring full page load. (None of the pages are super heavy: once the server responds, the page pops in.)

    See graph for Thursday Jan 28 2010 here. Top graph is the WP blog. Bottom graph is a flat file site running on the same hosting service, for comparison.
    http://www.sticadhesive.com/2010-01-28-mon-itor-us.png

    Running WP 2.9.1 at http://www.sticadhesive.com
    Hosted at MediaTemple on their Grid Service (gs).
    Not a high traffic site: information about an industrial adhesives/coatings company.
    Using only Pages, not Posts.

    Following plugins activated:
    * Contact Form 7
    * Exclude Pages from Navigation
    * Google Analytics for WordPress
    * Google XML Sitemaps
    * Page Excerpt
    * SImple Popup Plugin
    * Simply Exclude
    * WordPress Custom CSS
    * WP Super Cache (fully ON with Expire time set to 21,600 seconds)

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Hmm, Media Temple usually runs WP pretty quickly. If it’s any consolation, your site is very quick from where I am.

    I have guesses… the first is that there is a plugin conflict. Had you added one recently? I would try disabling them one at a time and testing. I’ve also found cacheing to be sometimes tricky to get working, and very sensitive to upgrades and other plugins. I have one client who is absolutely plugin crazy, so when he carelessly does upgrades, boom, his site has been borked.

    Another think to check would be your tables. I use PHPMyAdmin to check and repair them. If I haven’t checked in awhile, sometimes tables can get pretty stale. I can’t recall if Media Temple has PHPMyAdmin, but chances are they have the equivalent database tool, and you can check it out.

    Good luck! D

    Thread Starter john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)

    Thanks, Flamenco.

    I haven’t touched the database at all, though I can. The site is only a few months old, with fewer than a dozen pages, so wouldn’t expect the tables to be an issue.

    I’ve played a bit with turning plugins off and on again, but haven’t been scientific about it. I listed them in case anyone had had similar problems with some combination of what I mentioned.

    John, I am having the exact same problem with MediaTemple with my GS account.

    I rebooted the mysql container, did nothing.
    I removed all plugins, definitely faster, but still 3-6 second lag on initial load. thought it was Firefox trying to pre-render or something and is a bit faster on Chrome, but still slow.

    I don’t use WP super cache but have CF7 and a few of you plugins.

    My flat file delivery times are much faster as well.

    Please keep me/us updated on this topic, amazing we’re on pretty much same system through and through and having same problem.

    Thread Starter john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)

    I went back and forth with MT last week. I appreciate their responsiveness, but still haven’t figured out the problem. And it is still a problem. They profiled some things, and are convinced it’s not their system. I’m not yet confident of that, because outside monitoring shows just awful response time most of the time. I have another blog on a different domain, also on MediaTemple’s GS, with fewer/different plugins and similar bad response time.

    Going to get another host right now (was on the to do list) and see what happens with a similarly-configured WordPress install.

    Having the same issue as the rest of you. Haven’t made any changes to my site other than adding 2 posts since I upgraded to 2.9.1. When I went to update some plug-ins, they timed out. Then 2.9.2 appeared as an option, tried to upgrade, and that too timed out.

    The site (www.WineGeekTV.com) appears to load a bit slower than normal, but I figured it was just my computer (which I’m in the process of upgrading). I ultimately knew something more was wrong when I tried doing any upgrades. I’ve tried performing the same functions with IE, FireFox, and Chrome (Chrome being the fastest), but have the same results on all.

    I don’t think this is a content or hosting issue. It appears to be something with 2.9.1.

    I’ll keep looking myself and will let you know if I figure it out.

    BTW…has anyone manually downloaded the upgrade to 2.9.2 to see if that solves the problem?

    Having the same issue with my site hosted on Media Temple! Keep us posted on the new host and if it helps.

    I’m hosted on BlueHost, so it doesn’t appear to be host related…I think.

    Thread Starter john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)

    For anyone stumbling on this thread now, I decided to disable WP Super Cache and try W3 Total Cache in its place. I haven’t turned on every possible feature yet, but initial numbers are promising… but going to wait a few days before I’m convinced.

    This might help out some more. It modified the default wordpress htaccess to reduce the amount of disk reads per page load by half.

    http://www.canonicalseo.com/wordpress-performance-improvement/

    Thread Starter john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)

    Darrell, reviewed and will consider, thanks.

    Thread Starter john_roberts

    (@john_roberts)

    Note… I’m marking this resolved because W3 Total Cache has definitely made things much better. Will consider the link Darrellonsite provided for increased speed, but at least things are no longer painful now… offsite monitoring backs up my anecdotal reviews.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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