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Flashing while waiting to download photos - cacheing issue?


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On 21/05/2019 at 19:41, Nick Belbin said:

Never had it until now, specifically this thread:

 

 

Nick

Going back to that one, it seems those pics are broken somehow, as they're just cycling through trying to load from Google, which we have already established don't stick around for a while, and eventually will disappear.  I checked the source on those and they were horrific looking jumbles of letters after Google URL as below:

 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/zSXWMp_rDEWbfFwXKuzNn5MiTvGlZknEU964KAb6oN4sNc_4cyHvn7SDpV-CAEY-AI_VOO8TKocI03Ky4vYtDIUDXtN1COpXr1Mh1j2wIu725HHPQ8BnUD0MxPF-EQjB3BhHMSPcNNf9arHwqzuL0r0AFMFweIA7jDhilgxz9Tkt3h5_94HCWHS3Y5RAP88CsaICFjBZEcgqp7ITFS9gycKyZ9ESHR06kCcR1YF_UJ7xjpCos7buQjtbk7YOv7CZapj3NBWvvgRt7avf0EJRID-blGbYYO2ZumXOL50bPvLND8iN2KhMcuAdwKHndIj17YK0YQFr6tvxW9QCjRONMrf6g2zQ4DJqL5oq8xEYjOfTaipSLCQvJchI8dyg9WINmk0BTqilfv7F3PeKzDXoK9mEFhOQt_DdCRkpSxQDC9Q0ufalD69xU1G6HPjFlvu5WhxxiSeL3CQBOuvlvX1wl_UdEvbKiEyniLTgg0FCziN-lFt8UIdYS6hQ-fVPeP9Ik9-BUrJ17SvV4OcG8xxWzcERr-Er9vfqhM7JonJI9iMDEckKbgaM1JhdchY6w3Obx453ZJ2PUjd-H4JhoTz70T-J1mkFlbm0ZbDIF1zJCATJuKjmraXBgAv-xSqaz-Euxf9KrokYKvEPH5zZr9D0SUoTKrBQr5kS=w1198-h674-no" height="674" src="https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png

Scroll away, it's pretty long! :blink:

 

If anyone's having trouble with specific threads either not loading, loading slowly or flashing like the re-herring above, just copy the URL and post it in this thread with an explanation. :yes: I've copied Support in so they can see examples.

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After speaking with Support, some of the information we need to be able to pass this on to Support are as follows:

  • URL/thread in question (the links could be broken)
  • Device (PC, Mac, Phone, etc)
  • Operating SystemB
  • Browser being used, and its version.
  • Connection Type (wired, Wi-Fi, Cellular data)

You also have to remember that almost all of the pictures (apart from reviews, walkarounds, and team members' photos) are hosted elsewhere, i.e. not on our server, so some delays are bound to occur if any of them are experiencing problems.  Another weak-point is of course the quality of connection.  I have a slight weak-point in my wi-fi at home, so I never use my devices there, and installed a wi-fi repeater in my workshop to remove the more inconvenient dead area.  The same goes for cellular reception.  You can move a foot one way and get full bars, but step another foot and it'll drop right off, and don't get me started about poor cell-to-cell hand-off issues - those are the same ones that causes a sudden dropped call when you're driving.  So if you ever have a lag incident, just check your reception first before you wonder what's going on and blame us.  We get quite hurt you know :crying:

 

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URL/thread in question (the links could be broken) - could be.  Doubt it. Too many occurences in different posts by different authors (including experienced posters).  The pictures usually come through eventually.

 

The Stuart M3 post referenced by Nick above is an exception, and looks different - that shows greyed URLs as text lines.  The images issue shows grey blocks the same size as the final picture.

 

 

Device:  PC

Operating System: Win 10 home

Browser being used, and its version: Firefox  67.0 (64-bit)

Connection Type (wired, Wi-Fi, Cellular data): wired

 

Just ran a speed test and I get:

Ping: 20 ms

Download: 13.13 Mb/s

Upload: 0.95 Mb/s

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1 hour ago, Robert Stuart said:

URL/thread in question (the links could be broken) - could be.  Doubt it. Too many occurences in different posts by different authors (including experienced posters).  The pictures usually come through eventually.

We need actual threads to even begin to diagnose the issue though Stuart.  There's nothing we can do about "too many occurrences" unfortunately :shrug:

 

Where's your ping coming from?  If you ping the site, that will get a realistic figure, so from a command prompt (type cmd<enter> at the run box on the start menu), type ping britmodeller.com - I got a consistent 90ms, which is decent.  Don't forget that the site will then have to go and collect those pics from the various sources before it can show them, so you have to make allowances.  I just pinged Imgur and got a very nice 32ms, and then photobucket at 113ms, so it varies, and it all adds up when you're looking at a picture heavy thread.  Check out one of my threads, and you'll be getting the best performance, as all my pics apart from a few silly memes are hosted on the site.  Those should be the gold standard, and if they're lagging, flashing or blocking for too long, then we could say we've got an issue as long as you're 100% certain of your connection speed at the time.  It's a bit of a problem because we've got so many variables. 3rd party sources, variable connection speed, general internet vagaries and so forth.  It's difficult without proof to know where the finger should be pointed, but in general a member looking at our site would automatically point the finger at us.  It's all those variables that we need to root out. :hmmm:

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>> ping britmodeller.com

Pinging britmodeller.com [154.16.147.20] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 154.16.147.20: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=47
Reply from 154.16.147.20: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=47
Reply from 154.16.147.20: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=47
Reply from 154.16.147.20: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=47

Ping statistics for 154.16.147.20:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 98ms, Maximum = 104ms, Average = 99ms

 

 

Mike,

The flashing is far more significant to me than any delayed download.

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37 minutes ago, Robert Stuart said:

The flashing is far more significant to me than any delayed download. 

If you can copy & paste some links into this thread, that would allow me to test them myself and then pass them on to Support.

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The effect is more apparent on photo heavy threads

 

Try this thread: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235055200-crouching-tiger-hidden-tamiya/

And scroll down.

 

Or this: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235055203-172-tiger-i-ausfe/


There is some hidden content on this thread that *might* show the effect https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235055194-123-twice-zvezda-ryefield-comparison/

 

 

If you do see the problem, and need to repeat it, move off the page, clear your browser cache, and return to the page,

 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, Robert Stuart said:

If you do see the problem, and need to repeat it, move off the page, clear your browser cache, and return to the page,

  

I think I'm starting to see a pattern. The first thread you linked, that top animation of the Tiger firing is 1.9mb, which will be delaying the loading kg the other pics. I also noticed that at least some of the pics, certainly on the third thread were over 800kb each, which won't load instantly unless you've got seriously fast connection. If each pic is 800kb and there's 10, you've got a LOT to download.

 

I think most of this perceived lag (based on me investigating briefly from my tablet) is due to large files and badly optimised photos. Our review photos are usually either 1024x700 for standard sized sprues or 1280x800 for massive sprues, and we usually top out on picture size at between 180kb to 250kb for the most part, with a very small number breaking that value. I think folks would be doing both themselves and their audience a big favour if they were to take more care with, or learn to optimise their pics and constrain the proportions of the pics to the limits I mentioned above. That would save bandwidth, speed loading times, and for anyone on a metered connection, it would save them money. :)

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Mike, speaking as a fully paid up member of the "Dinosaurs are alive and well" club, I didn't understand 99% of what has been said on here, but the 1% that I did manage to get a handle on was the bit about photo size. If this is what's causing some of the problems, then I'm afraid that it's going to continue. New members come on here and straight away try and post their images without knowing about thee need to reduce them (not all I know, but enough to continue to be a problem). I've looked at the images that I've posted on here and to me they are more than big enough. I use a Lumix bridge camera and the images come out at 4608x3456 which I then reduce down to 20% which gives a size of 922x622 and are all around the 135kb mark. If I might suggest, would it not be possible to install a system similar to the one that only permits people to sell items after they have posted 100 times. If people wanted to post images, they would need to visit a page that explains exactly how they can do that, telling them about the need to reduce the size of the image. If that became a mandatory route for them to take, then at least nobody could say that they were unaware of the procedure. 

 

John.

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@Robert Stuart @Bullbasket @Mike G'day Chums,

Give this thread a go.From the photo size point of view all of these were made into low KBage using MS Paint before they were uploaded to Photobucket.

This might establish a point of reference.

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234975318-tamiya-m4a3-sherman-in-135th-scale/

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19 minutes ago, Alex Gordon said:

Give this thread a go.From the photo size point of view all of these were made into low KBage using MS Paint before they were uploaded to Photobucket.

This might establish a point of reference.

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234975318-tamiya-m4a3-sherman-in-135th-scale/

Those guys all loaded up fine.  As I was scrolling down at my usual "reasonable rate" there were a few fractions of seconds where the grey placeholder comes up, and pinging the particular Photobucket server (i870) gave a good low latency, so I consider that a pretty normal thread in terms of load speed.  If it's still happening to you though, first reboot your devices, including your router if you're at home and see if it speeds up.  If you're on Wi-Fi, check your connection strength, and if it's poor, move to a better location and try again.  It's also possible that the last time you looked at that thread, Photobucket and that server in particular could have been experiencing heavy loads, and were a bit sluggish.  These sort of things happen all the time on the wider internet, as servers crash, chug, get overloaded, and the infrastructure can also have a bad day. 

 

From what I'm being shown so far, it's looking unlikely that it's us that's causing any delays, but large file sizes load slowly, and we have to take the speed at which the photo hosts are responding to our/your request to view those pics.  These flashy grey-boxed URLs seem to have been all to do with a badly formed URL, aka, the pictures weren't there.  If we find a thread or instance that's genuinely causing issues though, I'm happy to take it to Support, as we already have a ticket open and on hold regarding the matter :)

 

Don't forget - and this is important - previously, if photos were slow to load, you'd just see the thread contents jumping about as it finished loading the whole lot, and you wouldn't be able to reliably participate until it was finished.  You also wouldn't have got much of a hint as to what was really going on in the background, whereas now you see the placeholders.  All it's really done is show you when things are loading, and I think that's just going to take a little while to get used to.  Previously, you might scroll past a bunch of pics that hadn't loaded, then experience that jarring re-arrangement of the screen (which I hated), whereas now you can see there's something coming, and it's not a train ;)

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1 minute ago, Robert Stuart said:

I'm not sure what you did, but the flashing while waiting for images has gone,

 

Thank-you

Me neither, but whatever it was must have been very difficult and I clearly had to really work hard on it, so you're welcome :lol:

 

Seriously though, I'm glad it cleared up, although we'll never fully know why with 100% clarity.  We did remove a bottleneck from a last lingering (background) issue in another place yesterday however, which may have been playing some part, but I would have to ask so many people to explain the real guts of the machine to find out, so I'm just going to go :yes: and move on to the next thing ;)

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Same for me as well @Mike, no issues now, thanks for looking into it :) 

Maybe it was all to do with the issues Flickr were having recently with their upgrade, as it's been very slow uploading and downloading pictures for me

 

I never noticed whether all the issues I was having were Flickr links, I'll take more attention if it happens again

 

Ian :) 

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5 hours ago, Redstaff said:

Maybe it was all to do with the issues Flickr were having recently with their upgrade, as it's been very slow uploading and downloading pictures for me

Could have been, and very likely was.  There's an off-chance it was the issue I was talking about, but I somehow doubt it, as they were disparate and seemingly unrelated.  Meantime though, I didn't realise Flickr were having issues, which would have been my first port of call for the blame game :shrug:

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To be fair to flickr, I got banner warnings on my home screen that they would be down for maintenance on 22/5 every time I logged on for at least a week - maybe longer - before their shutdown....

 

Keith

 

 

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Hmmm, sorry to be a spanner in the works, but this image loading delay is starting to take the fun out of my BM experience. Especially with build threads, I'm used to just scrolling down rapidly to check if there's anything of interest to see. This is all really slow and sputtering now, like back in the days of dial-up modems. I'm on a wired desktop, so no WiFi or mobile issues there. Connection is quite fast I'd say, about 100Mbit/s. I did the ping test mentioned earlier and got 188ms for BM.com 

 

Jeffrey

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On 30/05/2019 at 11:57, Mike said:

Oh well... at least we know the real reason now. :shrug:

 

Actually Mike I don't think you do - I recalled I was trying to read w.i.p. threads on the new Eduard Tempest when I posted about the problems on the tablet - I've just found three of them again, and only one poster was using Flickr, the other two used imgur and i.ibb.co. No pictures from any of these hosts would show for me back then. I've now cleared the cache and refreshed everything on the tablet and they do now load - after a while!

 

Keith

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2 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I've now cleared the cache and refreshed everything on the tablet and they do now load - after a while!

Have a shufti at the size of said pictures and the quality of your Wi-Fi if you have time to go back to them.  I saw a thread with slow pics that had 800kb+ pics, which although load a damn sight quicker than they used to back in the day, still leave a sizeable lag in loading when compared to one of 200kb or less.  Around four times, according to my fingers multiplied by 10. :smartass:   never heard of i.ibb.co - it's a URL that seems to have been chosen during a hiccuping fit :blink:

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5 hours ago, Mike said:

never heard of i.ibb.co - it's a URL that seems to have been chosen during a hiccuping fit

 

:rofl2:

 

It's a new one on me too Mike!

 

The problems viewing pics on the tablet were both on Travelodge wi-fi (which I admit is generally pretty naff!) and then on my daughters home Sky fibre unlimited which is pretty good.

 

Anyhoo, it's working ok(ish) now, so all good (ish!) :)

 

Keith

 

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