Sick of timeouts

[+benh57]

I've been getting so many server timeouts when using the site recently. It just makes things painful. Even just to log say 6 or 7 caches from my day's run takes forever and half my log submissions time out.

 

I usually browse by often opening new tabs, but nothing that should look like a bot at all.

 

Often, canceling the page and trying again makes it load *instantly*. So it really seems like a bug, rather than throttling. One would think throttling would be FIFO. But it doesn't behave like that.. some requests are just dropped.

 

If this is due to the anti-robot throttling, it really would be nice if the site could pop up an error page and tell me that i'm being throttled rather than just timing out and never loading, or making me worry that i'm submitting a log twice.

 

-Ben

 

- This occurs with Firefox 2, 3, Safari... (but mostly firefox)

- OS X 10.5 as well as XP at work...

Edited April 14, 2008 by benh57

[+benh57]

I have figured out that this only affects Firefox. I wonder if it's firefox's pre-fetching?

 

Safari is much better.

[+PJPeters]

I haven't seen any such problems, with Firefox, Opera, or even (gasp!) IE.

[+palmetto]

Me too - no problems, and I'm using Firefox, and do occasionally open a bunch of tabs here fairly quickly.

[+riviouveur]

Yesterday the site was working very slowly for me. I looked at Firefox's memory usage: it was 400MB, having been open for a month. Other sites were working OK but I think maybe I'd had too many pages from Groundspeak during that time for it to keep track of.

 

So I bit the bullet, killed Firefox, and restarted it with a session restore (which is often flaky; I find that if you type on a form before every tab has reloaded, it often crashes). Result, 300MB freed up, and geocaching.com back to normal speed.

[ao318]

I had the same problem but for me it was with explorer and safari. Firefox was the only one that wouldn't log me out. Currently it still is the only one that doesn't log me out.

[+briansnat]

The site has been working pretty well for me. I haven't encountered issues in quite a while. I use Firefox.

[+The Pathman]

We only use Firefox and have had no problems at all. Have had as many as 30 tabs open at once when logging finds and all still worked just fine.

[+joranda]

I haven't had any troubles logging my finds.

[+Viajero Perdido]

I've been getting timeouts today, yesterday, and every other day I can remember. All the time.

 

When I try to load a page on GC.com, one of two things happens:

1) It loads almost immediately, within a second (well, the maps might take longer, but who cares?)

2) Nothing at all happens.

 

In case 2, I know by experience that I can wait until the end of time, and still nothing will happen. Well, that's not quite true; after about 10 minutes Firefox will give up with its usual error message. So if nothing happens after a second, I may as well click reload. Or hit Submit a second time, if I'm entering a log. Often the second time works. (It's frustrating when I don't have an URL in the address bar, such as when opening a page from Google Earth, because then reload isn't available.)

 

Cache log pictures are a different story. Some are just plain unavailable. I can try anything I want, they just refuse to load. Via a direct click, via the log page, via the gallery - nothing. If I try again tomorrow, maybe that picture will load, maybe tomorrow a different server will try to serve up those pictures, I dunno.

 

I don't think it's my browser. Other sites work fine.

 

Do I want new features like Wherigo? No.

Do I want the basic functions to work properly? Yes please.

[+ReadyOrNot]

I don't think it's my browser. Other sites work fine.

 

If it wasn't your browser, there would be a TON of topics covering this issue from the thousands of forums users that would be having the same problem. Perhaps trying a different browser would be a good first step? Load Opera or Safari, or use IE like I do (and have no problems)...

[+Miragee]

I don't have any problems using the Opera browser, and frequently open several pages at a time, as separate tabs, from GSAK.

[+Dusk Eagle]

My experience pretty much dittos Viajero Perdido: I get timeouts all the time. Firefox 2.0.0.14, Windows XP. Clicking a link twice does nothing, but if I stop loading a page and then try to reload it, it reloads instantly. It really is kind of frustrating.

[+Driver Carries Cache]

Safari is much better.

 

The web developer in me just stuck a gun in his mouth.

 

DCC

[+TotemLake]

I've been getting timeouts today, yesterday, and every other day I can remember. All the time.

 

When I try to load a page on GC.com, one of two things happens:

1) It loads almost immediately, within a second (well, the maps might take longer, but who cares?)

2) Nothing at all happens.

 

In case 2, I know by experience that I can wait until the end of time, and still nothing will happen. Well, that's not quite true; after about 10 minutes Firefox will give up with its usual error message. So if nothing happens after a second, I may as well click reload. Or hit Submit a second time, if I'm entering a log. Often the second time works. (It's frustrating when I don't have an URL in the address bar, such as when opening a page from Google Earth, because then reload isn't available.)

 

Cache log pictures are a different story. Some are just plain unavailable. I can try anything I want, they just refuse to load. Via a direct click, via the log page, via the gallery - nothing. If I try again tomorrow, maybe that picture will load, maybe tomorrow a different server will try to serve up those pictures, I dunno.

 

I don't think it's my browser. Other sites work fine.

 

Do I want new features like Wherigo? No.

Do I want the basic functions to work properly? Yes please.

Your situation sounds familiar to the issues I run into. I find it's a DHCP/DNS refresh issue. I have to reset my gateway (modem) and my firewall router and then things work righteous again. For me, the fault seems to lay directly with the Comcast gateway that also integrates the digital phone service. I'm resetting that more often than I ever had to with the older gateways.

[+hairball45]

I've had the occasional confused looking Signal saying they were having a problem locating that page, but out and back in does the job and it's pretty rare.

[+_dxd_]

I haven't really had any problems before, but today I am. In both Firefox and IE, pages are taking forever and ever if they do load at all. I managed to log my 3 finds, by stopping/reloading, but had to go in and delete a couple of duplicate logs.

[+shannienkitch]

Servers must be having issues tonight because the site is running dog, dog slow (multiple browsers on multiple computers). Nigh impossible to log a single find.

[+Lacomo]

Servers must be having issues tonight because the site is running dog, dog slow (multiple browsers on multiple computers). Nigh impossible to log a single find.

I had 7 caches to log this evening. IE and Windows XP. I gave up after finally getting 3 logged. It was taking forever. I'll try again tomorrow.

[+Thrak]

Remember - there are a zillion people running queries for GW VI right now. It may be affecting system performance.

[+benh57]

Safari is much better.

 

The web developer in me just stuck a gun in his mouth.

 

Oh, trust me: i'm a web developer too and prefer firefox. I'm only referring to this specific timeout problem for me, on OS X. It is quite repeatable: It happens with firefox, but not with Safari. It's easy to demo if you will be at geo-woodstock... (will there be wifi? probably not, owell

 

(as a side note: safari's standards support is quite good now. No need to be afraid of it)