Is it just me or do the ads really slow this site down?

[WideWebWitch]

When I go to click I often get messages like

transferring from ad.adviva.net
and the like

It's REALLY slow, other sites aren't, is it me or mumsnet?

What would be really helpful is if you can make a note of the precise moment you experience it - the more accurate the better ("just after The News at 10" isn't as useful as "22:31:15 on 28/3/08").

it's been happening for weeks, i blame that canodelling couple

Hi Yetmoretech, the thing is that this is happening for a lot more people on mn. If it stalls for me as it did about five minutes ago, I go to a few other sites to see if it the problem is mine or not. It is almost always mn. And by that I mean perhaps 20 times in the past 10 days as opposed to perhaps once a month in the past.
It is not a value judgement on your technical ability, but it is a problem that is occurring with mn. Tbh if I was a newbie it would perhaps irritate me sufficiently to give up on the site altogether. And that is why I am bothering to post on this thread.

it's the awful baldy man ad

haha - I didn't think anyone was evaluating my technical ability. After all, I didn't write any of Mumsnet.

I'm not ruling out problems with the site, just saying they're not the most likely explanation for a handful of people finding it slow sometimes. It'd be great if we can get to the bottom of it, but to do so I need quite a lot more detail I'm afraid; anything and everything might be useful (without wishing to sound like Morse).

When did it happen? What page did you ask for it when it froze? Did you get any kind of error? Did it come up eventually? If not, how long did you leave it before you gave up by hit refresh or back? Who is your ISP? What browser are you using? How old is your computer? What anti-virus software do you have on your computer? Is it just on Talk? If you're finding Talk slow and you go to another bit of Mumsnet is that slow too?

The problem with "I tried another site and it was fine" is that it's not very scientific. For one thing, problems with an internet connection can be very transitory and so by the time you've said "hmmm, MN seems slow, I'll try the BBC news page, hey that seems okay" the problem might have gone away.

ah but you go away try somewhere else and come back and mn is still stalling

what i was trying to say was that the recent problems i have had have been different

here is one thread i started recently

here

Ok well I will tell you what I will do, the next time it happens I will log all the answers to your questions and post them on here.

Apologies for the lack of science in my approach to technical problem solving.

No need to apologise!

Answering all those question is dull and tedious, I'm well aware, so please don't feel obliged. But it's the only way we can really figure it out so it would be helpful if possible.

OK, it's happening to me right now - started at 23.20 and is still going. Pages are i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y slow to load (and refreshing isn't making any difference).

Have been to other sites and they are working - come back to MN and it's loading, but really, really slowly (say a minute or two to load a page). Your 'is it just me' site said that it was just me!

I was trying to load the active conversations page. No error message. Yes, it did come up eventually. ISP - shit, I dunno . Browser - Explorer. Computer - five years old. Anti virus - none. Couldn't get into MN to see whether other bits of MN were being slow as well.

OK, it's stopped now!

PW, thanks for that. The server definitely wasn't busy at the times you mention, nor was the network at our end.

I've figured out who your ISP is and made a note. It's unlikely to be a problem with them either but it will be interesting if everyone with a problem is on the same ISP.

When the Active Convo page was loading slowly did any of the page appear and then seem to stall? Or did you just click the link for the page and get nothing for a long time?

In your browser could you click "Help" and then "About Internet Explorer" and make a note of what it says next to "Version" please?

Oh and just one more thing, when the page does finally appear it would be helpful to know which ads are being displayed.

Hello

No, in this instance I didn't get any page elements at all - just a blank page for a minute or so, and then everything seemed to load at once (well, in sequence, but not stalling after any particular element had loaded).

IE Version 6.0

Ta and sorry for being a techno numpty

right 10.42 today clicked on a weaning thread about people having difficulties at 6 months

only element loaded was tiny ad at the top was anabel karmel ad

at bottom left corner waiting for admedia plex or whatever

so took 5 minutes for page to appear

i have firefox

isp is tiscali

fast broadband

dell latitude d620

windows xp

macafee av

ok page stall as follows

time 21.17

page loads with ing advert at the top

page is the we should have a topic anput topics thread

loaded up to the top part but ie thread title but not any of the actual thread/posts so half blank page

btm left corner

read spe.atdmt.com

Thanks Zippi and PW. The server hasn't been particularly busy at any of the times you've mentioned.

I am pretty sure that you've experienced different problems from one another.

I think in Zippi's case it is one of the ads that caused the stall. Clearly it's not a specific ad, since there aren't that many on rotation and it doesn't happen to you often enough for it to be the same one every time. (Very occasionally it happens that an ad serving company serves up a consistently bad ad - usually it's a Flash ad that doesn't work well in some browsers. In that rare case we'd ask them to stop displaying it.)

Ultimately we can't control if an ad served by a third party does or doesn't download in a clean and timely manner. What we'll look at is ways of changing the way the page is displayed so that a slow ad doesn't slow down the rest of the page. It's not trivial so don't go holding your breath now, y'hear?

cheers mate

i shall post any more

heres another stall for you babe

14.08

page loaded with ing ad at the top

loaded top of page but none of thread or posts

i had submitted a post to zippi good life are hens mad ashsit thread

took three minutes for the thread to appear

l;a redoute ad at the btm

bottom left corner while stalling/loading was the spe.adtm.com

which is the same as last night

Time: 14:22 31/03/08
Page: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1373?ts=1206967500679
Page Title: Mumsnet Discussions (Special Needs)

Top ads which did load were:
Mini Boden
CenterParcs
John Lewis

Stalled fetching:
adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/js/7576-56867-10877-2
?mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]
&mpvc=ad .uk.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/3694/3/0
%2a/u%3B189232670%
Time spent fetching that file: 3.16 minutes
Resulting in no advert being displayed in DIV id="sky"

document.write('');
"

OS: WinXP SP2
Browser: FireFox 2.0.0.13
Download timing provided by: Firebug 1.05

oh nick you are so good at this

[sychophantic lick]

im not playing any more

Opps forgot some of the info YetMoreTech asked for:

Who is your ISP? Clara.net
How old is your computer? About 3 years
What anti-virus software do you have on your computer? AVG
Is it just on Talk? Yes, but just for that page request at that specific time... Talk is working fine now.

see zip... even I missed some things YMT wanted

i bet he wanted a lick too

ok heres another

23.01

this took several minutyes to load and even then i couldn't scroll to the btm of the page

ad at the top la redoute

page loaded again up to the point of poading the thread and posts then stalled

btm left corner view.atdmt.com

i think the ad that eventually appeared was easy car

the thread i was viewing was why are p[eopl so worried about being outed

again i posted and then it stalled

still in bed with my laptop