Guild Wars 2

Would someone be so kind as to have a look at what’s wrong with the forums lately?

Thanks so much in advance.

I concur. Making a new post is bad enough but editing one takes an inordinate amount of time.

Edit: I was attempting the edit and, whilst waiting, I opened a new tab to post here. Using this same tab, I navigated to the edited post and noticed the edit was in place. The response time for the edit to happen on the original tab was about three minutes

Still ongoing. Slow to load, very slow to post, and extremely slow to edit.

Ah good, thought it was my internet being annoying again

The last few days, I have not been able to access the Dev Tracker page, it just endlessly tries to load.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/devtracker

EDIT: For the first time in several days, I was just now able to finally connect to the Dev Tracker page after about 7 minutes of it trying to load. In general though, yes the Forums are very sluggish right now. Funky stuff!

It took me two minutes to load page one of Bug Reports here.

plus game kixk me out and cant log to a character.
It goes until caracter list and then message " lost connection to server"

Today’s the first day I’ve had trouble loading devtracker (it’s a lot of history, so it’s always slower than other subforums). In addition, every other folder is slow-to-load, as are individual posts. Edits take long enough that the connection resets (although the edit usually goes through).

Hope I don’t jinx it, or this is just an anomaly, but..

Thanks for fixing the forums; they seem to be working again. =)

Edit: Reading is much faster, but posting is still a little slow; will find out about editing when this goes through (or not – fingers crossed).

Seems ok.

Yay, thanks for fixing it.

Or almost fixing it. Better, but still slow posting this message.

Edit: Spoke too soon, jinxed it, obviously, the edit took about 2 minutes to load. Sigh. Sorry guys.

I always assumed the forums are on the same server as the login and update services? Because every time a patch comes out I can’t access the forum for ages.

Always struck me as insane that I can’t read patch notes while loading a patch…or for hours after. :x

Hmm, that’s odd. I don’t have issue with the forums at patch time. I almost always read the patch notes while the client is updating.

You might consider speaking to your ISP, in case they are throttling your service.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip, but I don’t have bandwidth issues if that’s what you mean. And all other services, websites and games work perfectly at the same time.

Of course it could be a routing problem, gw2 has been struggling with those since launch – especially in certain European regions – but I’m unlikely to affect that by talking to my ISP.

Everyone I play with (all from Germany, Austria and Switzerland) has the same problem during patches so I always assumed it was normal. Admittedly a small sample size but I’ve had the issues through a move, 4 different ISPs and varying network as well as pc hardware, so it’s unlikely something I can change.

It’s not a big problem, just always found it weird and slightly annoying, just thought it’s interesting within the context of the current problems.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Hmm, that’s odd. I don’t have issue with the forums at patch time. I almost always read the patch notes while the client is updating.

You might consider speaking to your ISP, in case they are throttling your service.

Good luck.

The forums/patch notes loading during a major patch has been an acknowledged issue by the devs and the wider community for a long time. It’s just a traffic thing as players surge to read up whilst patching.
Anecdotally, it didn’t happen to me this last episode, but has done every episode since S3 began.

just made a performance test with dev tools what takes the longuest to load is double click.g.net. in the performance graphic hole you have javascriptcall stack for google analytic those are for ads revenue. those takes even longuer to load then the image and web kit on the web site. could be a big part of the issue.

hope it help you in your work to solve the issue.

update: new performance test http request forum takes 19,26 second to load. better then yesterday. http forum request: content html css. size 5.94kb

best guess i would say it is either a server connectivity problem or you try to load to much stuff at start( like image, webkit or js that manipulate the dom.) that you could push back to be done after the page is loaded.

I do not see from the stuff that is loading alone how you can reach 19,26 second since the biggest one it takes about 200ms to load and the second biggest one is 160ms to load the rest of them are about 12ms to 16 ms in loading time.
as for the js you have 3 file using it. ga (google analytic) cloud front (webkit) and onload.

hope it help you to fix the issue.

stephanie wise.7841:

just made a performance test with dev tools what takes the longuest to load is double click.g.net. in the performance graphic hole you have javascriptcall stack for google analytic those are for ads revenue. those takes even longuer to load then the image and web kit on the web site. could be a big part of the issue.

It “could” be a part of the problem but it isn’t. I did a few tests using wget and the DE-forum (as the issue seems to be a LOT worser on the Non-EN-forums). I basically just ran

wget.exe —no-check-certificate -d -o"gw2f.log" https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Forum-teilweise-extrem-langsam

and it still took ages. And wget doesn’t download all those images/stylesheets/javascript-files that a browser downloads.

If you check the HTTP-headers the server sends in his response, there is one thats very interesting: “X-Runtime” – it seems to be added by the Rack Ruby-Module and contains the time the server needed to process a request. I did a few tests and the lowest I saw was “24.768275”. the highest was “97.057134”. The webserver spends somewhere between 20 and 100 seconds processing a request – so its not a problem of bad routing or slow loading external files but a messed up server or database (personally, i would start by rebuilding the database-indexes as it feels a lot like they are messed up).

Tiscan.8345:

stephanie wise.7841:

just made a performance test with dev tools what takes the longuest to load is double click.g.net. in the performance graphic hole you have javascriptcall stack for google analytic those are for ads revenue. those takes even longuer to load then the image and web kit on the web site. could be a big part of the issue.

It “could” be a part of the problem but it isn’t. I did a few tests using wget and the DE-forum (as the issue seems to be a LOT worser on the Non-EN-forums). I basically just ran

wget.exe —no-check-certificate -d -o"gw2f.log" https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Forum-teilweise-extrem-langsam

and it still took ages. And wget doesn’t download all those images/stylesheets/javascript-files that a browser downloads.

If you check the HTTP-headers the server sends in his response, there is one thats very interesting: “X-Runtime” – it seems to be added by the Rack Ruby-Module and contains the time the server needed to process a request. I did a few tests and the lowest I saw was “24.768275”. the highest was “97.057134”. The webserver spends somewhere between 20 and 100 seconds processing a request – so its not a problem of bad routing or slow loading external files but a messed up server or database (personally, i would start by rebuilding the database-indexes as it feels a lot like they are messed up).

tiscan according to what you are saying it would be a server bottlenecking at the processor level when issuing request.

1: this can be cause by spike in the user accessing the server.

2: it could be also if they are using the same server for static site and application.

3: it could be that the server is serving the game and the web site at same time.(since sometime when the game is down the forum is also down.) probably the processor bottlenecking. some stuff lag in the game or cause overhead. making the processor in the server working extra hard to keep up.

as for the quote that you took from yesterday about the doubleclic.net(4 minutes 36 second) and google analytic. the timing was over 1 second using dev tools. anything over 1 second or close to one second is enough to be perceived by user as a slow web site. that dev tool performance test is made to find exactly what is causing slow down from what is being sent by the server to the web browser. as for today the issue seams to be at the request forum page (19,26 second). but the timing of the item downloaded at the page request don’t seams to match the total timing of all the element downloaded of course each image of 1 inch on the page equal the same size as the total html and css on a page of 5kb on a fast connection it should not matter since they can send over 766 page in 1 second. (1page+ 10 image= 11 page) onless they are hosting the forum on a 28k line.

I have to agree with you that it could be a processor bottlenecking on the server. but the page request send a http 1.1 200 ok response from the get request.

a lot more speed today on the forum made a third performance test everything is under 1 second timing.

I found a error code on console when moving from the main forum page to a subset of the forum, error code is dom7011 back and forward caching disable on the page. from my understanding when you get a new page and no change is been done since last visit to the page the server do not resend all the page on each navigation. if it is disable then each time you move to a page the server needs to resend all the data. if it is enable then only when there is change on the page compare to last time the page was visited then the server will resend data. if there is no change the browser will load the web page from the cache.

of course this is disable if you are login in a secure https.

another error code was script 5 bug clicking on bug brings you to the debugger on line 1,1 where the doc html start page code is.

the devtracker link is still very slow I gave up on it after many minute waiting.

also used static scan to look for other issue. what is found:

The following is a list of missing selectors and their properties that may be causing compatibility problems. For example there may be a -webkit-box-shadow property but no box-shadow property, preventing non-WebKit browsers from rendering box shadows.
Location: //d1r2pgr9caw5gy.cloudfront.net/as
Selector
Property
Source line # 1
img.rotate
animation

hope it can help you out.

made another performance test the forum request takes 50,86 second to load today.

test from pingdom:
rating: f leverage browser caching
The following cacheable resources have a short freshness lifetime. Specify an expiration at least one week in the future for the following resources:
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0040/Frm_ICON_AccountIssues.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0041/Frm_ICON_Announcements.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0043/Frm_ICON_Bugs.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0046/Frm_ICON_DevTracker.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0047/Frm_ICON_Dungeons.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0049/Frm_ICON_Elementalist.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0050/Frm_ICON_Engineer.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0051/Frm_ICON_EventsMeets.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0052/Frm_ICON_FanContent.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0054/Frm_ICON_Guardian.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0056/Frm_ICON_GW2Discuss.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0060/Frm_ICON_Lore.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0061/Frm_ICON_Mesmer.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0063/Frm_ICON_Necro.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0066/Frm_ICON_PlayersHelpP.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0067/Frm_ICON_PvP.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0068/Frm_ICON_Ranger.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0069/Frm_ICON_Suggestions.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0072/Frm_ICON_Thief.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0073/Frm_ICON_Warrior.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0075/Frm_ICON_World1.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0078/Frm_ICON_World4.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0079/Frm_ICON_WorldvsW.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0080/Frm_ICON_BlogComm.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0086/Frm_ICON_API.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0088/Revenant_Icon.jpg
//dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/sprites/0000/0089/HoT_Icon.jpg
//ssl.google-analytics.com/ga.js

Response Headers
302
Pragma
no-cache
Date
Mon, 31 Jul 2017 13:59:47 GMT
Last-Modified
Sun, 17 May 1998 03:00:00 GMT
Server
Golfe2
Access-Control-Allow-Origin
*
Content-Type
text/html; charset=UTF-8
Location
Response Headers
302
Pragma
no-cache
Date
Mon, 31 Jul 2017 13:59:47 GMT
Last-Modified
Sun, 17 May 1998 03:00:00 GMT
Server
Golfe2
Access-Control-Allow-Origin
*
Content-Type
text/html; charset=UTF-8
Location
//stats.g.doubleclick.net/r/collect?v=1&aip=1&t=dc&r=3&tid=UA-18978290-1&cid=1228902663.1501509588&jid=648319188&v=5.6.7&z=1238708533
Cache-Control
no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate
Alt-Svc
quic=“:443”; ma=2592000; v=“39,38,37,36,35”
Content-Length
370
Expires
Fri, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMTCache-Control

if that 302 from //stats.g.doubleclick.net/r/collect?v=1&aip=1&t=dc&r=3&tid=UA-18978290-1&cid=1228902663.1501509588&jid=648319188&v=5.6.7&z=1238708533
from google analytic expire on fri,01Jan 1990 is not in use can be a security redirect concern and can cause slow down should it not be remove?

If you use an adblocker to block google analytics, you block doubleclick as well (“colateral damage”), because ga loads doubleclick, but the forum slowdown continues to happen. It’s exactly the same. It is the forum server itself, not any 3rd party server that has the issue.

No change. Still incredibly slow.

No change for the german forum. In the Firefox web console, timing looks like this:

Actually, most of the forums are fine – it’s just going into the DevTracker forum that is slow, ironically enough.

For me, it’s off and on today. Usually reading a thread is faster now (it can be just as slow, though), but posting, and god-forbid editing is still slow. I get really odd responses from the forum when trying to edit or worse, remove duplicate posts. In the place of my post will be a red splash with ‘Server Error – 502 etc.’ and all the quoted post passages will be small and the responses to quoted passage of a super tiny font size. It’s really weird.

The odd thing is…if I open a new tab in the browser when one of the threads/posts/edits is stalled, I can look at another thread/post without stalling… sometimes.

@galen…The Dev Tracker has always been slow due to the number of pages it must load. It would be nice if they split it into two or three threads.

During this forum wonkiness, I’ve had to wait several minutes for it to load, as opposed to the 1-2 minutes usually.

I edited the above post right after posting. You can see it took 6 minutes to load. Sigh.

Once logged in, the forums are responsive. However, the initial login is bad. Same issue on mobile, 30 miles from my home and with a different provider.

Its still pretty bad. I did some additional tests using wget (like i described earlier) and found something interesting: the first time i request a thread, its incredibly slow (20-40s or worse). But if i request the same page over and over, the requests got faster and took around 8-10s:

Reading Thread 1:

• X-Runtime: 41.267368
• X-Runtime: 12.243853
• X-Runtime: 10.341388
• X-Runtime: 8.846034

Reading Thread 2:

• X-Runtime: 29.154102
• X-Runtime: 9.691758
• X-Runtime: 13.086603

Reading Thread 3:

• X-Runtime: 26.912502
• X-Runtime: 11.611344
• X-Runtime: 7.867146

(X-Runtime is the time the server spends building the page in seconds). If it was my forum I would probably make sure that the hard-disks of the servers still have plenty of empty space left (full HDs can lead to bad performance), check the database for general errors (if its a MySQL-db, the slow-query log could be interesting to see what tables are involved, etc.). Another “solution” could be to get rid of old postings (for example: remove everything thats older than 2-3 years) to reduce the amount of “garbage” the server has to handle.

Silmar Alech.4305:

If you use an adblocker to block google analytics, you block doubleclick as well (“colateral damage”), because ga loads doubleclick, but the forum slowdown continues to happen. It’s exactly the same. It is the forum server itself, not any 3rd party server that has the issue.

adblocker are used to block ads that cause slow down in performance and bad script that can be use to fraud. block the bad ones you can set it up to block all of them if you want to. but in the case of a server using a third party service that is expire and needs to revalidate it affect the server connection it self.

but what you do not realize is that the doubleclick.g.net is expire since fri,1990 so it should not be in use. when I made test it takes it 4 minutes 36 second to load. so it is causing slow down, it got a 302 in the pingdom test. if some code try to use it and load it when you request the page and that is not responsive since it is expire in 1990 it as no cache and needs to be revalidated. so it might try it again and again trying to revalidate making the call over and over again to doubleclick.g.net for what ever resource the website was using it for, before giving you the forum page request. even that you view it like a third party the server is making the connection to that third party that as no cache and needs to revalidate x number of time since it expire in 1990. so that x number of time is added to your page request and that number was 4minutes 36second.

Common redirects are 301 and 302 redirects which use HTTP to explain that a page or resource has moved. A 301 redirect is permanent and a 302 redirect is temporary. These are both server-side redirects which means that the web server is using HTTP to direct the browser to the new location of the file. Web browser can handle these types of redirect much quicker than client-side redirects and can cache the correct location of the file.

Redirects that use the http-equiv=“refresh” attribute or javascript can introduce even longer waiting times and performance issues and should be not used if at all possible.

Removing redirects
There is a best practice of sorts when removing redirects…
Find redirects
Understand why redirect exists
Check to see how it affects / or is affected by other redirects
Remove if not needed
Update it if it affects / is affected by other redirects

I think things have gone back to normal now, ar least for me.

The german forum got back has its previous speed.

It’s still way slower than the english one, though. Opening a thread in the german forum takes about 5 seconds. Here it is about 1 second.

Silmar Alech.4305:

The german forum got back has its previous speed.

It’s still way slower than the english one, though. Opening a thread in the german forum takes about 5 seconds. Here it is about 1 second.

made a performance test for the german forum the only difference is a style calculation to the dom that need to apply css and recalculate that ads 23.93 ms to the loading of the website german version so it is far from the 4 second more that you say it takes.

You have to open a specific thread with postings in it. This takes many seconds. Just opening the forum overview or thread overview is always fast. Opening a thread not. It looks like this:

Silmar Alech.4305:

You have to open a specific thread with postings in it. This takes many seconds. Just opening the forum overview or thread overview is always fast. Opening a thread not. It looks like this:

well from what you have show in the picture there is a 302 path of fire html document and a 304 gift image redirect get request that cause issue. now why are they putting redirect on those since they are suppose to be host on the same guildwars2 server? is it that they are pulling those resource on another server? why not store them on the right server to not need redirect? or is it a js bug that pull this from another location and change the dom?

You continue to look at irrelevant parts of the request. Look at the bars. The top request (the request to open the thread) takes 1.968 seconds, which redirects to the post I last read in that thread, and that request takes 4.661 seconds. Together about 6 seconds to wait for the contents of the thread. The forum web server needs 2 requests with 6 seconds to produce the thread contents.
Network transfer time and time for everything else is negligible.

stephanie wise.7841:

now why are they putting redirect on those since they are suppose to be host on the same guildwars2 server?

The 302 (Found) redirect is because that’s how the forums work.

This topic for example is:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Forums-have-slowed-to-molasses-speed

… which will redirect you to the last post you’ve seen. You can avoid that by adding /first on the end or a page number /page/2

The 304 (Not Modified) is because the image was already cached by their browser.

stephanie wise.7841:

is it that they are pulling those resource on another server? why not store them on the right server to not need redirect?

Only the core forums are hosted by ArenaNet’s servers. Everything else is through CloudFront’s CDN, which isn’t a problem.

This forum software wasn’t really designed for this scope. It was made by the company Fangamer, which was only a few guys that wanted to make forum software tailored to games. ArenaNet used them for GW2 because they used them in GW1 for their small support forums. ArenaNet hasn’t updated these forums in years because Fangamer abandoned their own software. The recent performance problems are likely down to the database, where purging it may become necessary one day.

Healix.5819:

stephanie wise.7841:

now why are they putting redirect on those since they are suppose to be host on the same guildwars2 server?

The 302 (Found) redirect is because that’s how the forums work.

This topic for example is:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Forums-have-slowed-to-molasses-speed

… which will redirect you to the last post you’ve seen. You can avoid that by adding /first on the end or a page number /page/2

The 304 (Not Modified) is because the image was already cached by their browser.

stephanie wise.7841:

is it that they are pulling those resource on another server? why not store them on the right server to not need redirect?

Only the core forums are hosted by ArenaNet’s servers. Everything else is through CloudFront’s CDN, which isn’t a problem.

This forum software wasn’t really designed for this scope. It was made by the company Fangamer, which was only a few guys that wanted to make forum software tailored to games. ArenaNet used them for GW2 because they used them in GW1 for their small support forums. ArenaNet hasn’t updated these forums in years because Fangamer abandoned their own software. The recent performance problems are likely down to the database, where purging it may become necessary one day.

3xx are redirect

URL redirection, also called URL forwarding, is a World Wide Web technique for making a web page available under more than one URL address. When a web browser attempts to open a URL that has been redirected, a page with a different URL is opened. Similarly, domain redirection or domain forwarding is when all pages in a URL domain are redirected to a different domain, as when wikipedia.com and wikipedia.net are automatically redirected to wikipedia.org. URL redirection is done for various reasons: for URL shortening; to prevent broken links when web pages are moved; to allow multiple domain names belonging to the same owner to refer to a single web site; to guide navigation into and out of a website; for privacy protection; and for hostile purposes such as phishing attacks

In the HTTP protocol used by the World Wide Web, a redirect is a response with a status code beginning with 3 that causes a browser to display a different page. If a client encounters a redirect, it needs to make a number of decisions how to handle the redirect. Different status codes are used by clients to understand the purpose of the redirect, how to handle caching and which request method to use for the subsequent request.
HTTP/1.1 defines several status codes for redirection (RFC 7231):
300 multiple choices (e.g. offer different languages)
301 moved permanently
302 found (originally “temporary redirect” in HTTP/1.0 and popularly used for CGI scripts; superseded by 303 and 307 in HTTP/1.1 but preserved for backward compatibility)
303 see other (forces a GET request to the new URL even if original request was POST)
307 temporary redirect (provides a new URL for the browser to resubmit a GET or POST request)
308 permanent redirect (provides a new URL for the browser to resubmit a GET or POST request)

in the case of the 302 is was a html document for path of fire.

in the case of the 304 it was a gift image.

when you make a web page you have one file for html(Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications.)

then you have one page for css (Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language.¹ Although most often used to set the visual style of web pages )

and one file of javascript It is used to make webpages interactive.

those file are stored and host on a server now if you need a redirect to another location to get some html or a image it is because it is not stored on the same server.

now on a web page you might have link that redirect you to other site for image or video. but unless you click and make a request the server will not send you a response to your browser. the only time it will send you stuff is if it is coded to do it with out your interaction.

but a html file of guildwars2 path of fire should be stored on the guildwars2 server.

and a guildwars2 gift image should be stored on the guildwars 2 website.

the other image on guildwars2 website do not send 3xx redirect so they are stored on a file on the server.

when you make performance test on a website with dev tool it it gives you the timing and request of the web site. it is not because you moved somewhere else using a link, it gives you all the timing for all the stuff that the web site send to your browser the loading(everything sent to you by the server with each item timing.), scripting(the time it takes the scripting to be achieve), rendering(the time it takes the rendering on the browser to happen so you see the result on the screen). when you make the performance test what you need to do is set it to highest timing so you get the result by the highest timing to the lowest most often it will be in loading time that you will find the issue. you can also visit the JavaScript call stack to see those 3xx 4xx 5xx with a name next to it, to know what is trying to make a call to add something to the webpage.

so you see it is not because you click on a link that you made a redirect. when you are doing performance test you start the page and make a refresh of the page. then when the page is loaded you end the test and get the result.

as for cloud front there is a file called asset in that file there is 2 file one file is for js( javascript interactive application and programming) and the other is for css(cascading style sheet for the layout and appearance of the page.).

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thanks for the reports and for all these details!

I believe that the load times are better but not great. We’ll continue to investigate if there are additional ways to improve performance.

Sorry, my load times have not improved at all…still extremely slow.

stephanie wise.7841:

3xx are redirect

304 is a type of redirect, but it redirects to nothing since it means the resource has already been downloaded. RFC 7232.

None of this even matters, since it’s not the problem. Most of what you’re saying isn’t even accurate.

stephanie wise.7841:

so you see it is not because you click on a link that you made a redirect.

That wasn’t a performance test, it was captured network traffic.

Healix.5819:

stephanie wise.7841:

3xx are redirect

304 is a type of redirect, but it redirects to nothing since it means the resource has already been downloaded. RFC 7232.

None of this even matters, since it’s not the problem. Most of what you’re saying isn’t even accurate.

stephanie wise.7841:

so you see it is not because you click on a link that you made a redirect.

what I am trying to explain to you is that in the result it is what the server send if there is resource that the server needs stored on other server etc… they appear on the result. it is not because you clicked on a link to be redirected to another web page.

when you make a request to the server. it issue a response like this:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK, which indicates that the client’s request succeeded.

in the test result you will have other result like this: Http/1.1 3xx, 4xx, 5xx for each resource needed by the server or the web page.

That wasn’t a performance test, it was captured network traffic.

even if the guy would have pull those result from network traffic they would state the same response code 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx issued by the server for the request. so what is the problem?

not sure what you say is not accurate. from my view it is accurate. it is the problem that comes out from test result.

what test did you make that tell you that there is another problem?
since you say that this does not matter, since it is not the problem.

you seams to have made some progress on the dev tracker it takes 8,82 second to get a page request today.

stephanie wise.7841:

what test did you make that tell you that there is another problem?

The problem is the slow load time. Why is it slow? Because of the time it takes for the server to compile the page (this isn’t a simple *.html file), which is likely caused by the database. There is nothing you can do to help, as this a server performance problem that only ArenaNet can test. It doesn’t matter that css, js, images or whatever else takes however long to load, as that’s all done after the html is loaded, which is where the main problem is.

stephanie wise.7841:

not sure what you say is not accurate. from my view it is accurate. it is the problem that comes out from test result.

I was talking about the inaccurate information in that long post, which there is frankly too much to point out. For the obvious one, what is HTTP response code 304 and what does it cause your web browser to do?

stephanie wise.7841:

the other image on guildwars2 website do not send 3xx redirect so they are stored on a file on the server.

Once you understand what 304 is, do you realize why this is? Hint, every image on guildwars2.com should be a 304 response when you refresh the page, since the image should be cached by your browser.

stephanie wise.7841:

and a guildwars2 gift image should be stored on the guildwars 2 website.

Why should images be stored on the guildwars2 website? I assume you mean on their servers? Hint, what is a CDN?

Healix.5819:

stephanie wise.7841:

what test did you make that tell you that there is another problem?

The problem is the slow load time. Why is it slow? Because of the time it takes for the server to compile the page (this isn’t a simple *.html file), which is likely caused by the database. There is nothing you can do to help, as this a server performance problem that only ArenaNet can test. It doesn’t matter that css, js, images or whatever else takes however long to load, as that’s all done after the html is loaded, which is where the main problem is.

that is exactly why you run performance test with dev tool to see what is causing the slow down since you have the timing of every item from the server loading to the browser rendering. you can also view the error in html css js and if you have the server password you could correct it and save the change on the server. as for the server cloud front is amazon the client that use the server is Arenanet. so amazon correct hardware and software issue on the server. Arenanet correct the content that they put on the server.

A cloud database relies on cloud technology. Both the database and most of its DBMS reside remotely, “in the cloud”, while its applications are both developed by programmers and later maintained and utilized by (application’s) end-users through a web browser and Open APIs.

the data is stored on a server that is the database.

stephanie wise.7841:

not sure what you say is not accurate. from my view it is accurate. it is the problem that comes out from test result.

I was talking about the inaccurate information in that long post, which there is frankly too much to point out. For the obvious one, what is HTTP response code 304 and what does it cause your web browser to do?

stephanie wise.7841:

the other image on guildwars2 website do not send 3xx redirect so they are stored on a file on the server.

Once you understand what 304 is, do you realize why this is? Hint, every image on guildwars2.com should be a 304 response when you refresh the page, since the image should be cached by your browser.

false 304 means there is a redirect to a resource if not all of them are redirected it means that only some of them are. also the fact that when doing test you flush the cache and get the data from the server only.

stephanie wise.7841:

and a guildwars2 gift image should be stored on the guildwars 2 website.

Why should images be stored on the guildwars2 website? I assume you mean on their servers? Hint, what is a CDN?

Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to your viewers with low latency and high transfer speeds. CloudFront is integrated with AWS – both physical locations that are directly connected to the AWS global infrastructure, as well as software that works seamlessly with services including AWS Shield for DDoS mitigation, Amazon S3, Elastic Load Balancing or Amazon EC2 as origins for your applications, and AWS Lambda to run custom code close to your viewers.
You can get started with CloudFront in minutes, using the same AWS tools you are already familiar with – APIs, AWS Management Console, AWS CloudFormation, CLIs, and SDKs. CloudFront offers a simple, pay-as-you-go pricing model with no upfront fees or required long-term contracts, and support for CloudFront is included in your existing AWS Support subscription.

Amazon CloudFront is built on the expanding global AWS infrastructure that includes 44 Availability Zones within 16 geographic regions today, with announced plans for 14 more Availability Zones and five more Regions in China, France, Hong Kong, Sweden, and a second AWS GovCloud Region in the US. Amazon CloudFront also has 79 edge locations and 11 regional edge cache locations across 22 countries and 48 cities, helping ensure your applications deliver high availability, scalability, and performance for all of your customers from anywhere in the world. 

the use of a cdn is that it gives you the file reducing the number of hoop by giving you the file closest to the client by connecting you to the closest server. so the same file is suppose to be stored among all their server location where ever you are connecting from. it is suppose to reduce time and latency and cost to reach the server closest to the client. since it count the number of hoops before connecting the client to the closest server on their network.

CDN = content distribution network

what is guildwars2 website it is a domain name that once you make the search query will pull up a through a dns server a address to connect to a server that host the domain where the database is stored. that it use a cdn to connect you to the closest server to save the number of hoops is fine, but why would it need a redirect to give you a server resource? since the data is suppose to be on the server?

in the case of the html path of fire it is the first thing that is suppose to load on a page so why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

in the case of the guildwars2 image that will load with css or js why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the guildwars2 image that will load with css or js why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

OK, very quick explanation (and honestly my last attempt as I highly doubt that discussing that stuff with you is of any value for ANet):

The FIRST time you call any thread on the forum you will basically see nothing else but HTTP-Status 200 for all files (if you cleaned your cache first, otherwise you will see a lot of 304)

If you then reload the page by pressing F5 (or if you navigate to a different page/thread), you will get a few HTTP-Status 200 and a LOT of 304.

304 means: your browser already has a LOCAL copy of a file and asks the server to send a newer one but the file on the server is the same as the one you already have. Which means: if you get 304, your browser WON’T download that file but will instead just use its local copy.

IF you click on a link like “https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/6224577” the server will send a 302 Status first. This happens (as Healix already pointed out) because the server recognizes that you’re requesting a certain posting in a thread and redirects you to the correct page in that thread. If you click on the example I provided, you’ll notice that the URL in your browser won’t be

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/6224577

but

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/page/7#post6224577

because the forum found out that posting 6224577 is on the 7th page of that thread and therefore redirects you to the “correct” URL.

And like Healix and I already mentioned: you can clearly see that the initial GET-Request takes up most of the time. During that Request, the server queries the database to build the HTML-code for the page. And your browser won’t display anything before that initial GET-request is finished. Check out the attached screenshot. The browser won’t display anything for 4s. After that request is done, it will start rendering the page and download all embedded files (and it will download THOSE files more or less at the same time).

There are some other things that might matter (like load-order of JS-files, the number of maximum parallel requests to the same server, etc.) but explaining that stuff would get way too technical and doesn’t really matter for the problem at hand.

Tiscan.8345:

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the guildwars2 image that will load with css or js why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

OK, very quick explanation (and honestly my last attempt as I highly doubt that discussing that stuff with you is of any value for ANet): well it should be of value to Anet since we can tell them what is going wrong. if they don’t know what is going wrong they wont know what to fix.

The FIRST time you call any thread on the forum you will basically see nothing else but HTTP-Status 200 for all files (if you cleaned your cache first, otherwise you will see a lot of 304)

If you then reload the page by pressing F5 (or if you navigate to a different page/thread), you will get a few HTTP-Status 200 and a LOT of 304.

304 means: your browser already has a LOCAL copy of a file and asks the server to send a newer one but the file on the server is the same as the one you already have. Which means: if you get 304, your browser WON’T download that file but will instead just use its local copy.

IF you click on a link like “https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/6224577” the server will send a 302 Status first. This happens (as Healix already pointed out(what I was trying to point out to Healix is that when doing performance test you make a page refresh and do not click a link that will redirect you to another page so in that case you should not get a 302 response because you made a request from a link) because the server recognizes that you’re requesting a certain posting in a thread and redirects you to the correct page in that thread. If you click on the example I provided, you’ll notice that the URL in your browser won’t be

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/6224577

but

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Stuck-in-the-map-or-seeing-map-art-issues/page/7#post6224577

both of those have 5 error http1512 unmatching end tags and script error7012 https could be compromise by youtube.

because the forum found out that posting 6224577 is on the 7th page of that thread and therefore redirects you to the “correct” URL. (yes adding page number to the url will send you to the correct page that you are looking for)

And like Healix and I already mentioned: you can clearly see that the initial GET-Request takes up most of the time. During that Request, the server queries the database to build the HTML-code for the page. And your browser won’t display anything before that initial GET-request is finished. Check out the attached screenshot. The browser won’t display anything for 4s. After that request is done, it will start rendering the page and download all embedded files (and it will download THOSE files more or less at the same time).

There are some other things that might matter (like load-order of JS-files, the number of maximum parallel requests to the same server, etc.) but explaining that stuff would get way too technical and doesn’t really matter for the problem at hand.

I get it that when the stuff is stored on your browser and the web page did not change the server does not need to resend you the data so it should take less time.

now I cannot say if Silmar Alech flushed the cache to make is test. but if he is able to make a test I would assume that the cache as been cleared. maybe ask him if he cleared the cache.

as for the 4 second I did not see it in either link you gave using the dev tool performance test. everything came out in ms.

do you really get over 4 second for that page? the only difference I would guess is that my browser(edge) let me interact with the page even before all the js script is done. so if you get over 4 second to get the page it could be cause by js since js play with the dom to modify the page.

stephanie wise.7841:

now I cannot say if Silmar Alech flushed the cache to make is test. but if he is able to make a test I would assume that the cache as been cleared. maybe ask him if he cleared the cache.

The cache wasn’t cleared. This is obvious by the fact that it’s a 304 response (Not Modified), which can only occur when the browser has a cached copy. You can try this yourself by simply using the network capture and clicking the top link, with caching enabled of course. Considering you’ve apparently never seen a 304 response, you likely have the option set to clear your cache on each page load.

stephanie wise.7841:

as for the 4 second I did not see it in either link you gave using the dev tool performance test. everything came out in ms.

The red underlined entry with an arrow is 3992ms. 1000ms = 1s, so 3992ms is 4s rounded.

stephanie wise.7841:

what is guildwars2 website it is a domain name that once you make the search query will pull up a through a dns server a address to connect to a server that host the domain where the database is stored. that it use a cdn to connect you to the closest server to save the number of hoops is fine, but why would it need a redirect to give you a server resource? since the data is suppose to be on the server?

Remember, this was originally about the images with a 304 response, which you thought was a redirect, when it simply means the resource hasn’t changed and doesn’t need to be downloaded. Do you understand why the images and all other static resources are hosted through the CDN rather than the main servers? You should, since you wrote about it. Hosting those files on the these servers would only increase load times.

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the html path of fire it is the first thing that is suppose to load on a page so why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

Remember when you copy/pasted this from wikipedia:

stephanie wise.7841:

URL redirection is done for various reasons: for URL shortening;

That’s basically why. All off the primary topic links are shortened URLs that link to a reference page. That page is the server determining which post you’ve last seen and redirecting you to that post.

Yes, they could have done it without the redirection, but it’s simpler this way and it normally wouldn’t matter.

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the guildwars2 image that will load with css or js why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

I’m guessing this was written before you understood what 304 was? Or perhaps you’re wondering why these resources are hosted through a CDN, although you’ve mentioned it earlier?

Healix.5819:

stephanie wise.7841:

now I cannot say if Silmar Alech flushed the cache to make is test. but if he is able to make a test I would assume that the cache as been cleared. maybe ask him if he cleared the cache.

The cache wasn’t cleared. This is obvious by the fact that it’s a 304 response (Not Modified), which can only occur when the browser has a cached copy. You can try this yourself by simply using the network capture and clicking the top link, with caching enabled of course. Considering you’ve apparently never seen a 304 response, you likely have the option set to clear your cache on each page load.

stephanie wise.7841:

as for the 4 second I did not see it in either link you gave using the dev tool performance test. everything came out in ms.

on mine it did not take 4 second but like I stated I use edge the only browser that make the page response before all the js is loaded if you get a 4 second and I don’t it could be the reason, you can have more detail by reading this:
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2017/06/01/input-responsiveness-event-loop-microsoft-edge/#Oz5666XiK7cCKhbz.97

The red underlined entry with an arrow is 3992ms. 1000ms = 1s, so 3992ms is 4s rounded.

stephanie wise.7841:

what is guildwars2 website it is a domain name that once you make the search query will pull up a through a dns server a address to connect to a server that host the domain where the database is stored. that it use a cdn to connect you to the closest server to save the number of hoops is fine, but why would it need a redirect to give you a server resource? since the data is suppose to be on the server?

Remember, this was originally about the images with a 304 response, which you thought was a redirect, when it simply means the resource hasn’t changed and doesn’t need to be downloaded. Do you understand why the images and all other static resources are hosted through the CDN rather than the main servers? You should, since you wrote about it. Hosting those files on the these servers would only increase load times.

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the html path of fire it is the first thing that is suppose to load on a page so why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

yes the html is the first thing to load.

Remember when you copy/pasted this from wikipedia:

stephanie wise.7841:

URL redirection is done for various reasons: for URL shortening;

That’s basically why. All off the primary topic links are shortened URLs that link to a reference page. That page is the server determining which post you’ve last seen and redirecting you to that post.

Yes, they could have done it without the redirection, but it’s simpler this way and it normally wouldn’t matter.

stephanie wise.7841:

in the case of the guildwars2 image that will load with css or js why does it need a redirect if it is stored on the server?

I’m guessing this was written before you understood what 304 was? Or perhaps you’re wondering why these resources are hosted through a CDN, although you’ve mentioned it earlier?

healix I know all that I tough that Silmar Alech add cleared is cache before making is test since in is test it stated a 302 and 304 redirect. and if it does not redirect to is cache then it would be redirect to a resource outside.