Website Down

[Pete Eeles]

Hi all - I guess some explanation is due for the recent poor performance (or missing website!).

Over the last few days, the performance of the website has gotten worse and worse. After many discussions with technical support of the service provider (JustHost), it turns out that UKB is consuming 7% of all of the resources on the server it shares with over 100 other organisations. The consumption got so bad that JustHost felt they had no choice but to deactivate UKB, making it temporarily unavailable.

A quick fix would have been to upgrade to a virtual private server where there would be no shared resources. However, this would cost £60 per month for hosting, which is a lot more than we currently fork out. I know I need to look into funding, but came to the decision that the website needs to be "fixed" so that fewer resources are consumed.

This is a symptom of too many users accessing too many pages containing too many images. Simple as that!

Anyway - I hope to bring the website back piece by piece, but it's going to take some time, since I need to measure all of the resources being consumed for every page request before that page gets reinstated.

Cheers,

- Pete

[David M]

Wow...and to think I made a post the other day saying I hadn't noticed any issues!

Glad to see the forum back up and running (well done, Pete).

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks David. The fact that you're even able to make a post is such a huge relief!

Cheers,

- Pete

[David M]

Thanks David. The fact that you're even able to make a post is such a huge relief!

I can imagine this has caused you a lot of grief lately? If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. It would be a great shame if the site cannot be preserved in its default format.

[Wurzel]

Good luck with the sorting out Pete. When it comes to funding I'm sure that I'm not the only one that wouldn't mind chipping in a couple of quid a month if it would help keep the site tip top and make it easier to run for you?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks guys - very kind. To be honest, I think the website needs a sponsor that will provide enough funds for us to move the hosting to a dedicated server. I've already started looking into this.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Jack Harrison]

Thank you Pete.

Jack

[andy brown]

Pete,

To help the situation would you recommend we refrain from adding images at the moment like I am currently doing to my diary or shall we carry on as usual?

Good luck with finding a sponsor

Andy

[Pete Eeles]

Pete,

To help the situation would you recommend we refrain from adding images at the moment like I am currently doing to my diary or shall we carry on as usual?

Good luck with finding a sponsor

Andy

Hi Andy, and thanks for asking. No, please carry on as before since it's the rendering of large numbers of images on a single page, not the number of images in total, that's the problem. Since the forums topics naturally page, they're all fine. It's links such as "What's that Butterfly" that shows every aspect (male, male underside, female, female underside) for every species, in a single page, that is problematic.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Goldie M]

Hi! Pete, so glad your back, It's only when some things not there for you that you realise just how much you'll miss it if it had to disappear , like the others have said if it means donations we'll chip in. Goldie

[bugboy]

Thanks for keeping us all in the loop Pete. Hope it all gets back to normal soon

[Jack Harrison]

Pete.

I must be missing something (or probably just being naive).

If images are a major reason for website "bloat" can't images be hosted elsewhere, eg Photobucket, Flickr, etc via a link?

If that route is not feasible, then contributors to usb should be asked to compress their pictures to eg no more than 100 kbs. As it is many are well over 200 kbs.
A random check shows that many are 1200 pixels across. Do they really need to be that big?

Incidentally, I usually post my pictures on Photobucket and not directly on ukb but then make available via Img insert

Jack

[Pete Eeles]

Pete.

I must be missing something (or probably just being naive).

If images are a major reason for website "bloat" can't images be hosted elsewhere, eg Photobucket, Flickr, etc via a link?

If that route is not feasible, then contributors to usb should be asked to compress their pictures to eg no more than 100 kbs. As it is many are well over 200 kbs.
A random check shows that many are 1200 pixels across. Do they really need to be that big?

Incidentally, I usually post my pictures on Photobucket and not directly on ukb but then make available via Img insert

Jack

Hi Jack,

It's not the hosting of the images that's the problem, it's the rendering of the page when it contains a lot of images, no matter where they're hosted. The more images, the longer it takes the server to process, and the longer for the page to load.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Jack Harrison]

It's not the hosting of the images that's the problem, it's the rendering of the page when it contains a lot of images, no matter where they're hosted. The more images, the longer it takes the server to process, and the longer for the page to load.

OK, understand that.
Surely just a token image on the actual page with links to images held elsewhere would be less heavy? To be really clever, the link could be tiny thumbnail of perhaps a few kb only,

CS-2kb.jpg (1.95 KiB) Viewed 2386 times

That is one of mine and less than 2 kb and obvious what it is despite the small size. Auto thumbnail makers - as you will know Pete but not everyone will - are available.

Jack

[Pete Eeles]

It's not the hosting of the images that's the problem, it's the rendering of the page when it contains a lot of images, no matter where they're hosted. The more images, the longer it takes the server to process, and the longer for the page to load.

OK, understand that.
Surely just a token image on the actual page with links to images held elsewhere would be less heavy? To be really clever, the link could be tiny thumbnail of perhaps a few kb only,

CS-2kb.jpg

That is one of mine and less than 2 kb and obvious what it is despite the small size. Auto thumbnail makers - as you will know Pete but not everyone will - are available.

Jack

Hi Jack - yes, the smaller the image the smaller the problem. However, I personally think you need larger images for people to make sense of them, especially when it comes to an ID chart. I think the solution is simple - just show fewer images without losing too much on the usability front!

Thanks for the idea though!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

Website now back and fully-functional again. Thanks again for your understanding and input - much appreciated!

Cheers,

- Pete

[David M]

Superb effort, Pete. We all owe you a huge debt of thanks.

[MikeOxon]

for the more 'static' ID pages, would combining photos onto a single 'image' help?

I often use the facility, in Irfan View, to make a contact sheet from selected files, as a way of displaying several related photos in one 'image'

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks David.

Hi Mike - combining images would result in the same load times, but thanks for the thought. I think we're all ok now, and back to normal!

Cheers,

- Pete