# Boy, is this site getting slower.



## HampshireCountyNarrowGage (Apr 4, 2012)

I know the care taker of this site is busier than a one armed paper hanger, 
but it's almost 2014, Is there any chance of getting any more speed?


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## Kovacjr (Jan 2, 2008)

Chester, Being you have only been a member for a year or so you have not gotten to see it in its hey day. Back about 7-10 years, server was fast, forums were good and there was tons of posts and was a good time. Its sloooooow, has not changed in years. And more ads just keep getting added. People complain and threat not to be a paying member, many have and many have just left completely. I'm still here, not a paying member anymore though. That ended when all the real good threads were considered old and were archived and then eventually deleted by Shad when it was deemed not worth saving. I have personal friends that lost many threads and articles they wrote including myself. Mostly none post anywhere near in-depth as they used to. 

When I started my business last year, I submitted an Ad to Shad for a forum sponsor, but with a request that the forums are to be repaired and in date order again as they are still for years not in a random sort. The ad was not to be started until this was corrected. Well its just about a year later and nothing has changed. 

I continually get errors posting or just MLS opening and getting a red X saying its taking to long to load on the homepage. Adding new topics, works one day not the next. Single click for a post and you get 1 or 2 and sometimes 3 copies on the thread.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

I have never understood how some people seem to be having all these terrible problems, 
while other people, like me, have never had any of them..ever. 
strange.. 

Scot


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## Dick413 (Jan 7, 2008)

maybe your just lucky Scot. but i bet if you took a pole most would say there having problems. 
I can not get into home page without a timeout now. I have to go to active forms to get in. 
Dick


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## steam5 (Jun 22, 2008)

Dick, I have been getting the same, home and at work. 

Alan


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

I was shown how some of it on my end is not updated as the site gets up dated. So they don't respond right to the updates. 
But this has been my slowest loading site that I visit regularly . 
But I still love it, its home.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

It's been "time off" erroring and this is my first time to get through after numerous attempts all day.


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## Homo Habilis (Jul 29, 2011)

I use Google Chrome as my browser on a DSL connection that runs at about 10 Mbps. I use Speedtest to determine that speed and it's pretty consistent.


I, like Mr. Chaos, rarely have anything to complain about, especially as I am one of those that currently does not pay and use it for "free". Given the recent changes and fixes, I'm toying with manning-up and actually becoming a paying member.


The site that, for me at least, is consistently slow is LSC, again since I'm accessing it for free, I find it more that tolerable and don't feel it's appropriate to complain.


Just as a technique, I most always access the "Not Read" section and open each topic that interests me in a new tab. While a tab is loading, I often open more topics of interest and then select the first tab that I opened as it now has more than likely completely loaded.


Also, when opening a new topic or replying to an existing one, I almost always create a "draft" using Notepad and then once I'm satisfied I cut it and then paste it into the MLS Forum and then apply final formatting. This works well for me as, should there be some type of "crash", I still have my draft and do not need to recreate the text.


Mark


p.s. Thanks Shad for this site, as with some others this is my "home" site.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Of all the sites I visit, this one is the slowest and most onery.... 

Trying to sign back on later in day while still logged in: 
Critical Errors ... time out ... no load ... home page header no content, use header to gain access. 
Trying to post to a thread; 
Dumped in Forums no post added. 
Chose a topic in Active Topics from many, returned to none.... 
Tried to report to owner and was told that a forum that used to work fine suddenly took more time to work... poppycock! 

Like for Marty and others, it's home, except more and more I feel like a step child.... Please Mister may I have..... morsel of speed? 

My experience with lsc is it's 3 times faster than here....


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## Dick413 (Jan 7, 2008)

got kicked off took over a hr. to log back in. time out, not able to send. 
dick


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Well I seem to not have many issues with the site. Only time may be slow is when I post and may take a bit to appear. Other than that it works fine. Later RJD


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Just to balance things out a bit...

My G-Mail account will sometimes log me out without my doing anything... even in the middle of composing a new e-mail or while in Chat mode with one of my kids.

My 3 Yahoo e-mail accounts all work differently and as far as I can tell I have all the same settings, just different user ID's and passwords. The one I use the most is the most ornery, as it insists on displaying in the mode where the preview pane is at the bottom, except there is NO preview pane and the menu is set to No Preview Pane... I have to select to have the preview pane on the bottom and then select to have no preview pane to get a full page view of the inbox. And sometimes it will revert to the "Relaxed" view, which puts the "From" address the "Subject" on separate lines with lots of white space between and some times I cannot get it to display in "Compact" mode which removes the majority of the white space and puts the "From" address and "Subject" text all on one line. Screwy thing is that none of the accounts ever come up in the same mode, regardless of what mode they were in when shut down or what mode any of the other accounts were in when shut down. I can log-out and immediately log-in again and get a different arrangement of the page. Without doing anything but log-put and log-in again and get yet another arrangement.

Worst of all is my MSN e-mail account that ALWAYS refreshes the page 30 seconds after I open it, even if I have managed to get into the Compose mode... and I lose the text I had typed thus far. It also, after being open for a while, will deny me access to new e-mails. I can delete them, mark them as read, unmark them, highlight them and move them, but I cannot READ them unless I click on it and then click "Reply" and then I can read it in the compose mode below where I am to type a response. Once it gets in this mode of denying me access to new e-mails, I have to shut down all my open pages to other sites, close IE, run CCleaner to clean the cache and cookies, and reboot... then open IE again and log back into the MSN e-mail account and all is fine (after the 30-second refresh!) for another couple of hours.

Logging into Trains dot com hangs on the log-in page and I have to open a new tab to the forums and close the tab that is hung. The site is also sometimes very slow.

The Indiana RailRoads dot org site is never consistent when marking all forum threads as read... sometimes I get back to an empty list of unread threads and sometimes I get back to the list of all forum names and have to re-open the unread list. The site is also sometimes very slow to respond. I find that sometimes I have to click a link twice to get a response.

Both Trains dot com and Indiana RR dot org have a method to open a thread at the last entry, which is nice when there are dozens of pages of replies, but if there have been many replies since the last time I looked at that thread I have to scroll backwards and sometimes open previous pages to try to find the last entry I have read so I can read all the replies since then... whereas on MLS, it remembers which was the last reply I read and goes to the next unread one instead of the "last" one in the thread. MLS also allows me to set how many replies are displayed in a page (I have set it to 100) where as the other forums limit each page to just 15 replies, thus creating more pages to wend through when having to backup in a popular thread with lots of replies.

I frequent another forum that does not indicate when a new reply is in the list. The index of topics only lists the date of the initial posting and how many replies there have been, so if I don't remember how many there were the last time I visited I probably need to open each thread again and look to see if there is something new that I have not seen before... and because the topics are always in chronological order of the date of the initial posting, as the forum becomes more popular I am having to read an awful lot of stuff that I have already seen, just to see if someone added to one of the threads.

Many forums seem to have similar problems to how images and videos are posted and I cannot see about half of what gets posted, whereas others seem to be able to see those images and videos.


Yes, MLS has some problems and I do get frustrated sometimes with trying to work with it, but this forum is not alone in having problems, but it does stand alone (as far as the various sites I frequent) in some of the nicest features available. I have no trouble posting images. Until recently I had no problems with posting YouTube videos and now understand how to overcome the recent problems induced by changes at YouTube and don't expect to have problems now with doing so.


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

I've been here since it started...and yes it is slow for me...but not timing out for me. There used to be a feature on this site that told you who was on the site...and you could directly message others who were on the site at that time...almost chat in fact. 

Well, one thing I learned as we got further into the 2000s...was that there were a lot of "users" on the site that were bots. They were NOT garden railroaders. They were software spies. Bots were scouring the site for places like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc....and there were bots searching the site for email addresses and phone numbers I was told (ergo why many don't recommend you put them on your posts).

I would imagine that NOW there are hundreds of bots out there...just chewing up the services that Shad provides. If we were forced to log in, I'd bet the site would speed up a ton...but there's a lot of folks out there that would grumble big time about that.


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## Dick413 (Jan 7, 2008)

don't know what happened, but this morning it's like a different site as far as speed goes.

Dick


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## Chucks_Trains (Jan 2, 2008)

Yep, It's still terribly slow for me..and I'm hooked up at 25mb down & 10mb up.


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## Dick413 (Jan 7, 2008)

Chuck your right it's back to being slow. 
Dick


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Actually it's pretty good for a 

................................................. Dial Up Server








Active topics sent me to a forum and hitting submit to this post timed out. The Back button re-opened this Edit.


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## Ironton (Jan 2, 2008)

This site slowed down even more after Shad changed to the new, fancier, software. However LSC slowed down for me after the latest software switch. So I can only assume that the more bells and whistles in the software the slower the response time. Just takes the computers time to do all that stuff.


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Tried to get in last night about 9 pm PDT and got three timeouts. Hit my favorites this morning "Active Topics" and was VERY slow. I'm 30 megs down and 10 megs up. Also tried to post about LSOL going to close doors. Hit "quote" and it sent me back to "Active Topics". Tried again and it worked. Seems sketchy to ME!









EDIT: I got a timeout trying to post THIS one! Tried again and it worked! Frustrating!


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

I posted a reply in a thread. When I went back to edit the post, it wouldn't let me.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I agree, I did finally get logged back on though. Switched over to Safari from Firefox. Not sure if that is what did it or not.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

I get the same results with Explorer and Chrome, "timeout" errors. I guess I need to go sit in the corner.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I get a time out on the home page. PITB as I usually check out new postings first. 
Other pages are OK.


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## ShadsTrains (Dec 27, 2007)

As I mentioned, I am aware of the issues and am working on them.


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## pete (Jan 2, 2008)

Shad thanks for fixing the site loaded fast and runs fast .I,am a member of northern ohio garden railroad society and I tell the other members that MLS is my bible for all g scale questions and answers. I have been a member for about seven years here at MLS and have found it quite interesting thanks again for the fix. Pete Di Giacomo.


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

Fast this morning! 

Thanks, Shad. 

Larry


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## llynrice (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks, Shad. I also was pleasantly surprised at how fast MLS loaded this morning.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Thanks Shad, seems to be fine now. 
Get some sleep, musta been up all night! 

John


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## Paul Burch (Jan 2, 2008)

Marty, 
What updates are you talking about?


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## noelw (Jan 2, 2008)

Boy.. this loaded fast. WOW.. That's un-usual here. Shad must of killed a bug.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

Loads OK but the home page is missing the list of latest posts.


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## ShadsTrains (Dec 27, 2007)

It was necessary to cut those posts as the module that was loading them was incompatible with the newest version that was installed last week. It was causing a lot of problems.


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## Doug C (Jan 14, 2008)

What bugs me is when I clik to make a reply it finally loads the input box/field BUT will not allow input so I have to hit my reload icon wait patiently again (a little faster this time) THEN usually I can input a reply. 
No problems first try with lsol, lsc, ac, gr or b'mann forums. 

BTW, Ad links will slow down just about every site and depending on settings they're likely probing your 'privates' which also takes time . . remember your last physical 

nite,

doug c


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Paul Burch on 03 Dec 2013 08:05 AM 
Marty, 
What updates are you talking about? 

Paul sorry for the delay.
Dwight had me go and find my cache and there I pushed delete which I guess cleared the old fomat of pages and allowed the new ones to load up.
what I understand is the cache holds pages so next time you go to the web site you don't have to wait so long because most of the page is already loaded on your cache.
I think I said that right based on my notes.


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

Me thinks...we got new FAST servers...


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