I recently got sucked into being the volunteer web admin for our racing group. With success on two UBB 5.x installs in the past, I convinced the group to pay for the UBB as an upgrade from a cheezy pub domain WWWboard. Now with 6.1.0.3 installed, a lot of the 56K guys can't even access the board, and it's slower than balls for the rest of us. Some of the guys even want the old crap back. GAck.
I've spent a couple hours pouring over posts here regarding slowness and haven't found a silver bullet or even a nice FAQ of things to check/try. The server does not have PHP installed, and I really am not looking forward to waking up the hosting company from their perpetual slumber to install and configure it. UBB caching is enabled, but is there anything else I should check, set, configure, twist, etc? The server gives what I'd consider reasonable performance for other types of files, so I know that's not the bottleneck. Did we make a mistake in buying this 6.x UBB? Is it reasonable to expect all installs to have PHP installed and acceleration turned on? I can't help but feel a little snookered at this point.
It's a small group, so spending a lot of extra time/money/effort is hard to justify here. Any help is greatly appreciated.
The performance you describe would make it sound as if there were thousands of topics in each forum.
If performance is universally poor, chances are the web hosting provider is at fault. You should seriously consider seeking out a new one if the current one doesn't respond to concerns...
-- Charles Capps Programmer, Infopop Corporation Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!
Maybe you didn't read my questions carefully... it's pretty clear in there that it's a small group, with a small volume, etc. The fact that there are very few posts makes it even worse IMO that the response time is so slow.
Thanks for your help. I would strongly recommend you guys make it clear in your pages where you pimp the UBB that customers will need PHP installed and a multiple gigahertz linux server to get reasonable response times. From a customer who was extremely happy with UBB for going on 3 years, I'm really disappointed here. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />
The UBB doesn't require serious horsepower to operate - it works as fast as the server lets it.
As I stated above, the performance you describe would be typical of a really, really big UBB. Your UBB isn't big.
Therefore, the performance problems are being caused by the web hosting provider, and you need to take it up with them. It is very common for some web hosts to overfill a server and ignore performance issues.
-- Charles Capps Programmer, Infopop Corporation Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!
When I upgraded to version 6 the very first time I was gutted as it seemed to kill everything on me server and was running REAL slow.
I dont know whats happend between then and now but version 2 is running as fast as any version of UBB I have ever run, most of my users have commented on a great speed increase since the upgrade.
I find this surprising, as the UBB files are getting bigger and bigger lol..
Also it seems the busier my board gets the faster its running!! is that odd or what, maybe something to do with the UBB caching?
I was thinking seriously about switching to VBB, but now I have 6.2 installed I am happy again, just a few little bugs to sort and i'll be sorted.
And yes I am using PHP and zlib.
If I was you I would install 6.2, get your host to sort out PHP for you, if they say no, then its time to get a new host.
Thanks for the input tenshu. I would try upgrading to 6.2, but there seems to be a number of problems people have had with the upgrade AND there is nothing in the release notes (that I have seen) to indicate the performance should be better. Since Infopop hasn't recommended it as a possible fix to my dilema in this thread, I'm even more hesitant to go through the exercise.
I've started the support process with the provider to turn on PHP... fingers crossed that the resulting performance will allow 56K users to access the board.
6.2 won't perform any better than 6.1, however upgrading would be a wise idea due to a recently discovered security issue.
Frankly, we've reached the limit of performance with the UBB. We've pushed the limits and are paying for it. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
If your UBB is large and you're having performance issues, it would generally be advised to upgrade to Threads.
On the other hand, as in this case Chris, your board is NOT large - the performance issues are NOT directly caused by the UBB, but by the host. Again, please bring up the issue with your web hosting provider.
That's the last time I'm gonna say that. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
-- Charles Capps Programmer, Infopop Corporation Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!
My 6.2 is running faster than any previous version, you just ask my board members! <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
I would switch to UBBthreads, its just Threads looks so boring to me. I like the look of the UBB.
But if my UBB keeps growing like is is, i'll have to switch.
Yes it does now because the new 'Recent Visitors' works with the accellerator. I used to have a 'hacked' Who's Online and that didn't so I didn't.
It wasn't much slower but the bandwidth used was much higher.
I'm not going to pimp my host here but they are very good for the price. Take a look at www.vhforums.com or www.vhlinks.com He uses the same host and I don't beleive he has the accellerator running. He too has a big board.
Email me if you need my host's info.
Raven Steve Webmaster www.ravensnest2.com The Place For Ravens Football Talk
Update... our provider is moving our site to a different server which has PHP installed... say it's going to take a few days. Ugh.
So, does anyone out there have an example of a 6.1.x or 6.2 UBB on a "fast" server that is NOT using PHP? I'd like to check it out and compare the difference.
I can't immediately recall the URLs to any UBBs on fast servers that don't use the Accelerator. Most fast servers belong to decent web hosting providers that keep their servers up to date and the load managed. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
On the other hand, I can give you URLs to UBBs on slower servers with the Accelerator enabled, so you can see the vast difference it makes...
-- Charles Capps Programmer, Infopop Corporation Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!
not the busiest board in the world by any stretch, no php some hacks that slow it down and running 6.1.0.3 http://www.theemeraldorder.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi it runs pretty ok for a shared hosting plan if you ask me.