Which Script is Slowing Down The Site?

DRE

Well-known member
What's the best way to discover which addon is slowing down my site? Simply disabling addons doesn't seem to work.

I looked at this: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120611_EQ_Z45/

and sent it to my host and this was their reply:

Host said:
It's the PHP of your script that is taking a while to process:

*bunch of test results, omitted*

As shown by the php file I uploaded to your site and ran the test for, the site loads fast, indicating that it's not a server or a generalized issue with your account (or it would load slow too). Unfortunately since your issue is a script issue, it's not really something I'd be able to help with.

Thank you for the swift response. I am investigating now. Are there any tools in my cpanel or any websites that you know of that can help pinpoint scripts that are slowing down a site?

Host said:
We like to let you know that unfortunately there is no tool for pinpoint scripts that are slowing down a site in cpanel. It's better you need to contact wit your site builder and optimize your site. Please let us know if you need any further support.
So when he says script, could he mean xenforo the whole forum software itself or the style I'm using or an addon?
 
DB Tech Users Viewing A Thread is another addon that slowed down the site. Uninstalling that too. It's an old addon.

First Byte Time score was a D. Uninstalled it and it went back up to a B.
 
8thos, are you getting this from the debug data I suggested or just trial and error?

Strongly suggest using the debug tools - you may not understand the data (neither will I to be fair) but someone will and it might be there in black and white what add-ons are or aren't causing the problem.
 
8thos, are you getting this from the debug data I suggested or just trial and error?

Strongly suggest using the debug tools - you may not understand the data (neither will I to be fair) but someone will and it might be there in black and white what add-ons are or aren't causing the problem.
Trial and error.
 
I'm really trying hard to help you...

I already suggested posting the output here so that we can take a look. If we find something then it might even help you to know what to look out for in the future.
 
Ah I can see the output now.

I think I went on your site earlier, and I couldn't see it.

Though I must say, your site seems to be running quite quick at the moment. Maybe the work you've done has solved your problems.
 
Ah I can see the output now.

I think I went on your site earlier, and I couldn't see it.

Though I must say, your site seems to be running quite quick at the moment. Maybe the work you've done has solved your problems.
I am uninstalling a lot of addons. I started at 104 addons... right now I'm around the 85 mark.
 
You also on shared hosting, I am too. but that is not the problem, have you singled out any addon which is at fault?
Well I followed ragtek's advice and re-installed TMS. Unfortunately when I uninstalled TMS it lost some of the TMS edits that I had actually backed up. Apparently that addon has problems with saving your edits. I've had this problem before. Luckily I have saved several versions of some of my edits into my new xampp installation though before I uninstalled it. I also deleted several of my extra logos (I'm using a vBulletin logo generator addon for my logo) when ragtek said the logo was loading a little too slow for him.

Before I reinstalled TMS though I uninstalled several addons that I know isn't really being actively used on the site like groups, bank, sportsbook, urlrewriter, ad management, viglinks, top monthly posters, gender percent and uninstalled pretty much everything by certain coders on here, no offense to them, but really just a bunch of stuff I either wasn't using or my members didn't seem to care too much about. I uninstalled all the extra social sharing options and deactivated them in the admin cp/options such as twitter, facebook and google plus. Once that happened I had a signficant speed boost. It looks like the social sharing options were one of the major culprits. Now although my 'First Byte Time' score didn't increase, everything else did.

I can't beat that First Byte Time score without installing more addons, but I decided not to worry about it because my site's speed now passes the 'click test'. If you click on a page and it only takes a second or two to load then it's passable. My main page is passable but barely because I have taigachat on the main page and people keep posting smilies in the chat box. That also effects my score. What I also learned is that you should have your smilies hosted as sprites or on your own server because if you have smilies linked from another site that you added to your site, it will slow down your site just a lil. If I disable Taigachat, there's a very noticeable speedboost for the main page. I would completely uninstall it if my members didn't always complain so much the times that I have uninstalled it.

So yeah for now on I'll use 'the click test' as the rule of thumb now when it comes to how many modifications or styles I should have before it's time to stop, since I'm on shared hosting. I'm now sitting at 76 addons, 70 template modifications and 3 styles. Some of the addons are actually template modification packs. So about 85% of the 'template modifications' are TMS modification pack addons I've created for the site. Earlier I mentioned that my site's EXTRA.css file also slightly slowed down the site so I'm going to go through that and delete frivolous bs I don't need.

I learned that my shared hosting doesn't have any kind of caching feature that is talked about on this page: http://xenforo.com/help/cache/ So I'm going to try to go the 'cookieless domain' cdn route. I'm following these directions right now. http://xenforo.com/community/threads/anyone-use-maxcdn.19155/#post-275709 which I saw posted about here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/load-avatars-using-alternative-domain.22165/
 
I am still surprised that you are running 75 or so addons.. :D ( I was running and disabled 5 of them yesterday only !! )
I would like a list of all those as they were considered useful by you even when you uninstalled the other ones.
CSS sprites is why I haven't also yet added more smilies on my foro, I have asked a staff member to make a spritesheet, I think that you are doing right by going the cdn way if your userbase is large and from all over the planet.
Taigachat was suggested by some staff but I said no.. its better if I don't give that from the start...
But I am afraid now, coz I want to amalgamate the social plugins as an added bonus for my new forum.. but if they slow down so much then I would be sad..

and using 'click test' is logical way, as that is human way.
 
I ain't typing up all that. I'm worn out man. Yes please don't let them convince you to install Taigachat.

Holy crap wow putting images in a cookieless subdomain will kill your score in webpagetest.org if you do not use a CDN for it.

Use a CDN for all static assets: 2/100
 
I ain't typing up all that. I'm worn out man. Yes please don't let them convince you to install Taigachat.

Holy crap wow putting images in a cookieless subdomain will kill your score in webpagetest.org if you do not use a CDN for it.

Use a CDN for all static assets: 2/100

When I went to your site earlier, it seemed like Top Monthly posters query was slowing it down. Just sayin.
 
When I went to your site earlier, it seemed like Top Monthly posters query was slowing it down. Just sayin.
Yeah I noticed that too. That's one of the many addons I uninstalled.
That is allot of addons. Just a little bit off topic, but have you updated your xF install with that many addons? I would be very interested in your experiences with that.
Huh? What do you mean by update?
 
I ain't typing up all that. I'm worn out man. Yes please don't let them convince you to install Taigachat.

Holy crap wow putting images in a cookieless subdomain will kill your score in webpagetest.org if you do not use a CDN for it.

Use a CDN for all static assets: 2/100

You can effectively create your own cookieless pseudo-CDN to deliver images/data/javascript from - I've done it with CycleChat and GeeksChat.

Just setup a new "site" in Apache using a subdomain such as "img" or "cdn" and point it to the root of your current site - then just update your XF config to use this new sub-domain for data/java:

Rich (BB code):
$config['externalDataUrl'] = 'http://cdn.yoursite.com/data';
$config['javaScriptUrl'] = 'http://cdn.yoursite.com/js';

For images just update the setting in the ACP: Appearance > Style Properties > General > Path to images - http://cdn.yoursite.com/styles/default

Apache will deliver simultaneously to both URLs so you get to speed up page delivery a bit too. (y)

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Yeah I noticed that too. That's one of the many addons I uninstalled.
Huh? What do you mean by update?
Don't know the add-on, but you could talk with the coder and check if it's a "slow query" if yes, he could cache the top posters and rebuild them every 10 minutes / 30 min / 1h (depending on activity of your board^^)
 
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