Concrete running slow on host

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Just uploaded our new site to our hosting company and it's SO SLOW!

It takes well over 10 seconds to load a page the first time. Once the page is cached, it's not too bad.

We can't go live with the site until we resolve this issue.

First of all, I don't believe our hosting company is a "budget" host (but I could be wrong). We're using NetRegistry (Australia).

Yes, I know Concrete5 offer their own hosting and things like this wont be an issue etc. But we want it hosted locally rather than the other side of the world.

Any ideas why it's taking so long to load?

I've read some optimisation tips, but I don't think they make that much of a difference, certainly not 10 seconds.

I was told by someone that NetRegistry's MySQL is very slow. Even before I had mention my problem.

Is there anything I can do and if not, is there any reliable Aussie hosting company we can transfer to?

 
tek01 replied on at Permalink Reply
Did you already enabled full page cache from the dashboard?
hivoltage replied on at Permalink Reply
Haven't changed any of the defaults (that I'm aware of).

Basic cache = enabled
Full page caching = enabled if blocks allow it
Full page cache lifetime = default 120 minutes

I'm not sure what these settings do so haven't touched them.

Is it normal for an uncached page to take 10 seconds to load, or is there something wrong going on here?
Pritam replied on at Permalink Reply
I suggest you check these articles, also inquire with your hosting if APC caching is available for your hosting account.

http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/system/performanc...

Here's another onehttp://andrewembler.com/posts/5-easy-ways-to-speed-up-a-concrete5-s...
hivoltage replied on at Permalink Reply
Strange thing!! The Concrete5 cache is actual causing the site to run extremely slow.

It takes 38+ seconds for the home page to load when cache is turned on for the first time (thereafter it loads faster).

When I disable cache, it actually runs much faster - pages load in a second or two.

Cache is supposed to speed the site up not slow it down.

Why would this be the case?
Veronikan replied on at Permalink Reply
Veronikan
I'm having the same problem on IPower in the US. Disabled C5's caching and the site runs faster. Site runs fine with caching on a different host.

Wish I could help with an Aussie host.
hivoltage replied on at Permalink Reply
Yes, I had the same problem with one of the hosts. For some reason turning cache off increased performance dramatically, but I wasn't happy with this approach and ended up trying other hosts until I found one that worked.
hivoltage replied on at Permalink Reply
It turns out that NetRegistry's hosting is not compatible with Concrete5. So time to move hosting providers.

Basically they tell me that it's not them it's Concrete5 that's the problem. Their databases are hosted on separate servers from their websites, therefore due to this configuration Concrete5 can't handle it as its been designed for 'lower end' cPanel.

They claim cPanel performance is 'terrible' in comparison to their 'cloud clustered' hosting. They also claim Concrete5 is designed to run in an environment which allows no redundancies or guaranteed up-time.

I've been shopping around for a new host and it seems to be very difficult to find someone decent in Australia.

I never knew Concrete5 will be such a hassle for hosting. Love the CMS, but what use is it if it's the easiest to use, but the hardest to host?

Right now, I'm finding Concrete5 to be a pain since I cant find anyone local (and decent) that can host it.

PLEASE ... ANYONE ... can you please recommend an Australian hosting company?
stretchrt replied on at Permalink Reply
stretchrt
I have a personal site (only a few pages) hosted with VentraIP - you can choose to use their Melbourne or Sydney datacentre. Work's website is also hosted with them, but not using C5 yet - will be uploading work's c5 site in the next few days, so will be able to check out performance then. I have to say I hadn't really noticed any issues with page loads on my own site.
Just go on their forums and ask if you have any questions, they're usually pretty good at responding.
stretchrt replied on at Permalink Reply
stretchrt
OK finished uploading the new c5 site - check it out for speed if you wish -http://www.wallbrink.com.au

As mentioned previously, hosted on VentraIP in Melbourne datacentre.
hivoltage replied on at Permalink Reply
stretchrt ... Speed looks good - but have you looked at the
portfolio page? I see a bunch of errors where images are meant to
be.
stretchrt replied on at Permalink Reply
stretchrt
arrgh wondered if that was going to happen to other folks or not. I was developing this locally using a transportable localhost (USBWebserver) so I could work on it at home and at work. At home I was getting that happening, but at work I wasn't, so was thinking it was just something on my home machine - seems it wasn't :(

Any ideas on what could be causing it?
Stiny replied on at Permalink Reply
Stiny
Just wanted to throw in my .02 here...

We noticed on our site that it only went slow when we were logged in. When we disabled page statistics, the speed dramatically increased. We think it was going slow because our website is huge, containing over a hundred pages and over a thousand files.

My idea would be to ditch the page stats, and instead add in Google analytics or something.
soupmedia replied on at Permalink Reply
I know this is an old thread, but if you're still looking for Aussie hosts for C5, try Jumba (www.jumba.com.au)

I've got a dozen or so sites running on their basic small business plan and all seem to run ok.

I had similar problems with Netregistry and a client who insisted I use them for a C5 site. I did all the tweaks and workarounds I could, but it was still pretty slow. Netregistry also told me that it was a problem at my end, when the exact same code worked flawlessly and quickly on Jumba's server.
mesuva replied on at Permalink Reply
mesuva
Sorry soupmedia, but I have to respectfully disagree with you about Jumba and concrete5.

Although C5 will work on their servers, in my experience speed times were often really terrible. (5+ second page loads). It made editing unbearable.

I have had to move two c5 sites away from jumba because of slow speeds - those sites on a different host immediately ran quickly. I also had to move one urgently as it ended up being unable to be edited because of it hitting memory limits (the top editing bar would just disappear).

Jumba also doesn't have anything installed (at my last look) for advanced caching (memcache, xcache, apc, etc).

Interestingly, for the single site I've been asked to put on Netregistry, I've had pretty decent results. Perhaps they have a few different server setups.
soupmedia replied on at Permalink Reply
Strange. I've never had any issues with Jumba after doing most of the C5 speed tweaks. Agreed re: no APC or advanced caching etc. which would no doubt help page loads, but I'm getting ~1 sec page loads on average.

My experience with NetRegistry was about 18 months ago. Maybe things have changed in the interim. Their attitude of "it's not our problem, it's your code that's at fault" really turned me off them. My client at the time insisted I host with them and I was really struggling to get decent performance. Maybe you're right and they have different setups, some more compatible with C5 *shrug*
mesuva replied on at Permalink Reply
mesuva
Just a few notes for anyone who stumbles across this thread:

I've been setting up another site with Netregistry. They have plans available using Zeus webserver as well as Apache. Zeus will run Concrete5, but it doesn't support the pretty urls. (So simply use their Apache setup).

The main thing I've found is really slow speeds if concrete5's caching is turned on. Slow to the point of being unusable. I don't understand the complexities here, but one reason might be because they run their mysql server on a separate server.

But with caching disabled, the site runs at a reasonably speed, at least for editing. I've still added on caching wrapper around concrete5 to speed things up as I think it is still slow.

This is an exception case though; with other hosts I've normally found the caching improves things dramatically, especially if something like memcached is chosen as the caching backend.
mdg replied on at Permalink Reply
I'm having the same problem.

For some reason C5 has started to take forever to load pages.

Never used to take that long.

Wish we knew what the answer was.
Dushka replied on at Permalink Reply
Dushka
I know this is an old thread,but I thought I'd add a comment in case it might help someone. I was just talking with our service provider (I'm with Iinet in Australia) about launching a C5 site, and he said that C5 is more memory intensive than Joomla or Wordpress. Its minimum php memory requirement is 64 Mb, while Joomla and Wordpress only require 32 Mb. Many providers are not yet equipped to handle C5. The good news is that Iinet has recently upgraded their system, and is now able to handle memory requirements up to 250 Mb. But one has to specifically ask that the new Linux NG server be "added" (the word he used) to one's account.