Please Report Any Accessibility Problems

[Dallas]

Hi folks, has anybody been experiencing any problems loading Fotozones in the past 2-3 days? I have had one report from the UK of not being able to access the site intermittently and I have also had a similar thing yesterday and the day before, but only for a short while. 

 

If you have also been having this occur please advise me here. 

 

Thanks.

[Mike G]

Glacially slow to load images, time to make a cup of tea whilst they are loading!

[Dallas]

34 minutes ago, Mike G said:

Glacially slow to load images, time to make a cup of tea whilst they are loading!

 

Is this a new thing? If so when did it begin? 

[Anthony]

The site has been very slow for me (UK) for a long time.

 

I have to right click on posts to open in a new tab, because if I open a post in the same tab it takes forever to go back to the list of posts.

 

The slowness of the site was discussed some time ago, and things have not improved since then.

[Dallas]

This is the reason for the latest issues: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/324881-south-african-banks-hit-by-massive-ddos-attack.html 

 

@Anthony, that doesn't make any sense. If the other page opens then it should have the same response when clicking one of the feed links. All I can suggest is that perhaps you should log out, remove all cookies and then try logging in again. You may have a dud session token. Have you tried any other browsers to see if the same thing happens there? 

[Anthony]

Sorry, Dallas, I did not explain properly.

 

Everything I click on is slow to load.

 

If I do what I do on other sites, which is to click on a post to open it and then click the back arrow to return to the post list, the whole cycle is painfully slow.

 

If I open a post in a separate tab, I do not have to click the back arrow to return to the post list, as I have never clicked away from it.  This cuts the time of the cycle by half.

[Anthony]

I clear cookies regularly.  I have logged in and out many times.  The issue is the same with Safari (my main browser) and Firefox.  I do not have this issue with other photography sites.

[Dallas]

I think that clicking the back button might be part of the problem here. It’s not quite the right way to browse this site. The software will get confused when you do that because you are going back to a page that is supposed to have dynamic content. This is all controlled by the session data stored in (presumably) the cookie. The best way to use the software is to create a suitable feed based on your reading preferences and then make that your default feed to click on. For me this is “Unread Content”. Once I have read a post I click that link and it loads a fresh list of everything I have not read yet. This query shouldn’t take too long, regardless of where you run it from. 
 

If you are using that feed and it still takes too long to deliver a result check that the feed is only bringing in posts from (say) the past 2 weeks. If your search parameter is querying the entire database each time you run it that will definitely make results very slow to deliver. 
 

I think I should make another video to demonstrate this. 

[Anthony]

I have a custom feed My Unread Content which shows posts since my last visit.  Typically that would be from the day before, but sometimes from the same day.

 

Opening a post from that takes about 4 seconds.  Returning to that via the back button or by clicking on the feed button takes about the same time.  Opening a post from that feed in a separate tab also takes about 4 seconds, but means that returning to the feed is pretty much instantaneous, as it remains open in the original tab.

[Mike G]

7 hours ago, Dallas said:

 

Is this a new thing? If so when did it begin? 

Nope not new, have just put up with it, I am using an iPad Mini on WiFi.

[Dallas]

OK folks, so this past week or two have been very challenging on a technical level for my host. In the midst of DDoS attacks and other server problems, we also lost access to the website this morning due to an overnight automatic software update to cPanel/mySQL that apparently caused a variety of technical issues with accessing the database. Of more concern to me is that the site shouldn't be slow to load regardless of where you are in the world. I want everybody to have a good experience on FZ. 

 

The only way I can improve this speed issue is to move the website hosting back to the USA, however this is not something I can just do without support from the community here. The whole reason why I moved the site to South African hosting in the first place was because of the wildly fluctuating ZAR/USD exchange rate. As I pay for this mostly out of my own pocket, the costs are real to me and if I am to keep them in check I need the monthly overhead to be manageable. I have been looking into moving Fotozones onto the managed Cloud hosting offered by InvisionCommunity (who provide the software). As the site currently stands I think we will be able to get away with the entry level package ($45 a month) provided I move all the attachment storage to Amazon. 

 

At present I have 5 FZ members who have committed to helping me bring you the site by subscribing for $2,95. Once PayPal takes their chunk of that, assuming I take the $45 option from Invision I would still have to pay around $32,50 plus the Amazon fees to keep FZ fast and well equipped and supported (I have no idea how much these Amazon fees will be because understanding their pricing model is like learning how to land a human on Mars). So, if there is enough support on the ground at FZ to get me to within 50% of the monthly costs from Invision, I am happy to absorb the balance. This will take about another 5 or so subscribers, hopefully more. 

 

One thing I don't want to do is offer subscriptions that are long term. I want to keep the fees low and monthly, so I think that $2,95 is a fair price to pay for a site membership that allows you to make full use of the upload facilities here. 

 

If there are any other suggestions I am more than happy to listen to them. 

[vivionm]

21 minutes ago, Dallas said:

One thing I don't want to do is offer subscriptions that are long term

Why not?

[Dallas]

30 minutes ago, vivionm said:

Why not?

 

I want to build monthly income for Fotozones so as to avoid potential cash flow issues down the road. This monthly cloud hosted solution seems to be the ideal vehicle for that as it also includes the $110 license fees that I am faced with every 6 months (due next month again). I'd prefer to pay monthly for services than to run long term accounts, especially with FZ users. 

 

The way the subscription system works here is very simple. Once you sign up every month you will be debited $2,95 by PayPal. If our licenses are up to date once payment is received the system automatically reconciles that payment with your access level. If you decide you don't want to pay anymore you can cancel it from within PayPal and the system here will revert your membership back to normal. This protects everybody involved. 

[vivionm]

I stopped all use of Adobe products when they moved to a subscription model.

I will not participate in that model here.

I am ready to pay a lump sum for a time-defined enhanced membership., time, enhancements and tariff to be agreed.

[Dallas]

Sorry, I can't accommodate that request.