Forum running slow... ad related

[cornershop]

I’ve just tried using DuckDuckGo, it’s way way faster than safari or chrome which both stop half way when loading PH.

[anonymous-user]

The silence from PH is deafening.

Speaks volumes.

[V8mate]

OpulentBob said:

The silence from PH is deafening.

Speaks volumes.

We should all start adding an 'I switched to Brave' signature to our posts

[ThunderSpook]

I switched to Brave, PH now totally unusable on Safari on an iPhone.

Maybe Brave is actually a secret PH project and this is all part of their big plan?

[HairyMaclary]

I thought my aging lg g5 had had it!

Been using cake browser for a while but cant get on with the buttons being the wrong way around compared to chrome. Thanks for the heads up on brave! Exactly what I need.

No more ghastly council outbrain ads! and buttons in the right place.

[V8mate]

ThunderSpook said:

I switched to Brave, PH now totally unusable on Safari on an iPhone.

Maybe Brave is actually a secret PH project and this is all part of their big plan?

Haymarket didn't have a plan for PH from the day they bought it to the day they sold it.

[Doofus]

V8mate said:

Haymarket didn't have a plan for PH from the day they bought it to the day they sold it.

Does anyone suppose CarGurus will be any different? Presumably, the monetising opportunity lies in the rest of the site which I, for one, never visit.

I'll read a News story, if it's discussed on tbe forum. The classifieds are st, have been for years, and I never use them. I've sold maybe half a dozen cars since I joined PH, and I have never even considered using PH to sadvertise any of them. I also necer browse them when looking (or pretending to look) for a new car.

I've never even clicked on 'Events' or 'Services', so I have no idea what they are about. As I understand it, most ticketed PH events have ended up being a bit crap.

I can't see why the new owners will waste any time on the forums given that they presumably don't make any money now. Without a subscription, there's little likelihood that they'll suddenly become profitable.

When you buy any business, there's always a bit you particularly want, and a bit you don't really care about. CarGurus are about selling cars (I think/assume). How will the forum help them do that?

[V8mate]

Doofus said:

V8mate said:

Haymarket didn't have a plan for PH from the day they bought it to the day they sold it.

Does anyone suppose CarGurus will be any different? Presumably, the monetising opportunity lies in the rest of the site which I, for one, never visit.

I'll read a News story, if it's discussed on tbe forum. The classifieds are st, have been for years, and I never use them. I've sold maybe half a dozen cars since I joined PH, and I have never even considered using PH to sadvertise any of them. I also necer browse them when looking (or pretending to look) for a new car.

I've never even clicked on 'Events' or 'Services', so I have no idea what they are about. As I understand it, most ticketed PH events have ended up being a bit crap.

I can't see why the new owners will waste any time on the forums given that they presumably don't make any money now. Without a subscription, there's little likelihood that they'll suddenly become profitable.

When you buy any business, there's always a bit you particularly want, and a bit you don't really care about. CarGurus are about selling cars (I think/assume). How will the forum help them do that?

It won't. And I'd suggest that you are quite typical of PH users.

[Butter Face]

Seems to be working again in Safari. I noticed that brave was having issues with pages when you were typing in a longer message and the text would disappear and it was impossible to see what you were typing!

[Doofus]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It barely works in any browser.

[MDMA .]

Doofus said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It barely works in any browser.

Works fine for me using Brave. Instant search.

[MrChips]

Has there been any indication from the gurus as to when they’re going to sort this crap out?

Been like it for days and on safari on iOS is completely unusable.
Sometimes it hangs when attempting to load the lower part of the forum, sometimes the upper bits hang but in any case a 30second delay is a pisstake.

[Rod200SX]

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

[B'stard Child]

Rod200SX said:

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

Very usable and no noticable slowness on

Desktop - Windows 8.1 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro

Laptop - Windows 7.0 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro or IE if I'm living on the edge

Ipad Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Iphone Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

[skwdenyer]

B'stard Child said:

Rod200SX said:

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

Very usable and no noticable slowness on

Desktop - Windows 8.1 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro

Laptop - Windows 7.0 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro or IE if I'm living on the edge

Ipad Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Iphone Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Unusable on Safari iOS and MacOS. I've installed JS Blocker on Safari/MacOS and that sorts it out. AdBlockPro didn't resolve the problem.

FWIW it seems *not* to be ad-related per se, but instead the insane amount of JS that's being loaded (including Hotjar - are we all being recorded now?). There are some major hold-ups in script loading somewhere, but I don't have the patience to test all the permutations to resolve the issues.

[B'stard Child]

skwdenyer said:

B'stard Child said:

Rod200SX said:

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

Very usable and no noticable slowness on

Desktop - Windows 8.1 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro

Laptop - Windows 7.0 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro or IE if I'm living on the edge

Ipad Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Iphone Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Unusable on Safari iOS and MacOS. I've installed JS Blocker on Safari/MacOS and that sorts it out. AdBlockPro didn't resolve the problem.

FWIW it seems *not* to be ad-related per se, but instead the insane amount of JS that's being loaded (including Hotjar - are we all being recorded now?). There are some major hold-ups in script loading somewhere, but I don't have the patience to test all the permutations to resolve the issues.

Try a different browser that works with ios is all I can say - Safari sucks IMO

[skwdenyer]

B'stard Child said:

skwdenyer said:

B'stard Child said:

Rod200SX said:

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

Very usable and no noticable slowness on

Desktop - Windows 8.1 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro

Laptop - Windows 7.0 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro or IE if I'm living on the edge

Ipad Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Iphone Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Unusable on Safari iOS and MacOS. I've installed JS Blocker on Safari/MacOS and that sorts it out. AdBlockPro didn't resolve the problem.

FWIW it seems *not* to be ad-related per se, but instead the insane amount of JS that's being loaded (including Hotjar - are we all being recorded now?). There are some major hold-ups in script loading somewhere, but I don't have the patience to test all the permutations to resolve the issues.

Try a different browser that works with ios is all I can say - Safari sucks IMO

I'm not changing browser, workflow, etc. just to suit PH. I rely upon the integration between Safari on MacOS and Safari on iOS. iOS Safari still holds 20% market share globally by use, and more like 50% by mobile revenues, so PH just need to sort this problem out

[B'stard Child]

skwdenyer said:

B'stard Child said:

skwdenyer said:

B'stard Child said:

Rod200SX said:

This is horrendous. No point repeating what everyone else has stated. Verging on unusable.

Have any staff addressed this at all? Took me over 10 goes just to get to this page

Very usable and no noticable slowness on

Desktop - Windows 8.1 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro

Laptop - Windows 7.0 Firefox browser & Ad-block pro or IE if I'm living on the edge

Ipad Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Iphone Firefox or Brave browsers - I never use Safari

Unusable on Safari iOS and MacOS. I've installed JS Blocker on Safari/MacOS and that sorts it out. AdBlockPro didn't resolve the problem.

FWIW it seems *not* to be ad-related per se, but instead the insane amount of JS that's being loaded (including Hotjar - are we all being recorded now?). There are some major hold-ups in script loading somewhere, but I don't have the patience to test all the permutations to resolve the issues.

Try a different browser that works with ios is all I can say - Safari sucks IMO

I'm not changing browser, workflow, etc. just to suit PH. I rely upon the integration between Safari on MacOS and Safari on iOS. iOS Safari still holds 20% market share globally by use, and more like 50% by mobile revenues, so PH just need to sort this problem out

In bold

Never gonna happen

PS when you are browsing PH you aren't working so you don't need intergration

Windows has a pretty dominant position in the market - doesn't mean IE is the "best" way to view the internet

[skwdenyer]

B'stard Child said:

In bold

Never gonna happen

PS when you are browsing PH you aren't working so you don't need intergration

Windows has a pretty dominant position in the market - doesn't mean IE is the "best" way to view the internet

SOLVED - see below

LOL re work. However I'm equally not using a different browser just for PH. And especially I'm not going to install a 2nd browser on my iPhone and then have to remember to use that one just for PH...

More pertinently, I was forming the web-based-business analysis that pissing off the most profitable segment of the mobile customer base is usually bad for business - advertisers prefer the demographics of iPhone users...

Anyhow, just for you I've tested performance on Chrome/MacOS. Total page load time 8 seconds vs 20 seconds on Safari. There are bucket loads of script errors in both cases.

Both are unacceptable in this day and age.

I've also downloaded Chrome on iOS to test. Bear in mind that Chrome on iOS still uses Safari as the rendering engine and Apple's JS engine.

And yet, Chrome on iOS is quicker for PH than Safari on iOS.

What does that mean? It means the problem is assumed to be linked to whatever the differences are between Chrome and Safari on iOS.

Anyhow, I've done a bit of digging. The killer elements (on my tests at least) are lots of __utm.gif instances being loaded from ssl.google-analytics.com - each one is taking a considerable non-zero amount of time to load, and they load late on in the page load process so interfere with rendering on Safari.

On Chrome, the same tracking gifs are being loaded, but this time they are loading in parallel on not sequentially.

Why is this? On a first pass (and I need to sleep not debug PH's crappy code) then it seems like there might be a need for an async declaration for some of the scripts - in particular utag.js

Utag calls ga.js, which in turn calls the multiple __utm.gif google analytics tracking gifs. There seems to be an implementation difference somewhere between Safari and Chrome regarding the async execution of some code - Chrome is clearly loading all of those tags asynchronously whilst Safari is not.

Utag is Tealium (Adobe Analytics). It may be they're trying to use some of the PWA functionality (not present in Safari yet I believe, at least not to the same degree as Chrome) and therefore missing something. There have been quite a few bugs in Tealium, too, so it is important that whoever is doing the admin on this (ha ha) is actually on top of this stuff.

Anyhow, the iOS performance gave me a clue. iOS Safari has a setting entitled "Ask Websites Not to Track Me".

If I turn that "Off" then there seems to be a slight speed bump. But still page loading is very delayed. But not so in Chrome (even on iOS).

That suggests it isn't related to the rendering engine nor to the JS engine, since they're not common across my tests. What does Chrome do on iOS differently? Largely the network layer, as far as I can tell. What else?

Err, it is new to me. As in, I've just downloaded it. What does that mean? Empty cache, no old versions of files (particularly perhaps cached versions of utag as above, since older versions had real bugs).

So, experiment - I cleared my website data (Settings -> Safari -> Website Data -> clear). And you know what? No more slow-downs! Hurrah

Now what about Safari on MacOS? Same effect. Safari -> Preferences -> Privacy -> Manage Website Data and clear all. No more slow-downs! Hurrah.

So there we are. Clear the cache (good old solutions) and all problems go away - for now

Edited by skwdenyer on Tuesday 11th December 02:59

[B'stard Child]

skwdenyer said:

So, experiment - I cleared my website data (Settings -> Safari -> Website Data -> clear). And you know what? No more slow-downs! Hurrah

Now what about Safari on MacOS? Same effect. Safari -> Preferences -> Privacy -> Manage Website Data and clear all. No more slow-downs! Hurrah.

So there we are. Clear the cache (good old solutions) and all problems go away - for now

Edited by skwdenyer on Tuesday 11th December 02:59

Ahh the old turn it off and on again routine

I still think safari sucks and will avoid it wherever possible

Note I think the same about IE