[glok]

The site is very slow quite frequently.

[gayleggg]

Mine does that sometimes but I just thought my internet provider was my problem. Sometime they slowdown on me.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by glok

The site is very slow quite frequently.

I have found that my computer, laptop, tablet and modem need dusting out every once in a while otherwise everything slows down to a crawl. Some virus protectors too will slow things down for me. maybe checking to see whether these will apply and need work will speed things up for you...

also many cable and phone companies, internet providers have a range of "tiers"....how fast the internet is, is based on which internet provider package you have with that internet provider....

example here in NY we have cable, phone and cell phone providers that also provide internet services. they have many packages for me to choose from. when I chose an economical one for my budget I found things to be very slow, when I upgraded a few tiers (paid for a larger, faster internet package) things went back to normal.

Also things like desktop cleaning/defragmenting/ and cleaning cookies, history...can also speed things up for me when I find things have slowed down, lagging.

[glok]

I do regular maintenance.

[DocJohn]

As usual, the more detail provided, the more helpful the feedback. Times of day? Chat or forums? Slowdown present for hours on end, or a few minutes?

We do regular maintenance on the forums -- daily -- to keep the database healthy and to ensure we have minimum downtime (unlike many other online communities). Unfortunately, as we've said in the past, that maintenance means the forums (and to a lesser extent, chat), will slow down.

DocJohn

[glok]

Thanks, DocJohn.

I have high-speed internet. This past week (varying times of the day, forums and blogs, intermittent slowdowns that last for about 10 minutes at a time) I have had continual problems with only Psych Central loading. Prior to this week I never had problems with this site. This week the lag has been very frustrating.

[DocJohn]

Thank you for your feedback. If you can provide any specific dates or times, that would help us look into the problem further. If you don't have them this time, if you could track them in the future when you notice this happen, we may be able to provide a further explanation or do further investigation into the problem.

Thanks!

[guilloche]

I'm having problems with pages loading tonight... The last 15 minutes or so... I had a problem a few nights ago (but don't recall exactly which night, sorry)...

Pages aren't loading. They are timing out. Other websites load fine. The main psychcentral home page loads fine. But the pages for the forums - top level forums, and individual posts - either time out without loading, or (rarely) show some sort of (java? javascript?) error. One wouldn't load and didn't show the error, it just showed a broken page that looked like the error, with no words. (Sorry, I didn't jot down the actual error, I will if it happens again).

Even once this page loaded (the one showing this thread), I was so excited and went to log in and post... and the login took several minutes to process/load (I wasn't sure it was going to make it!).

Thanks!

Same here but now it's very quick.

Originally Posted by guilloche

I'm having problems with pages loading tonight... The last 15 minutes or so... I had a problem a few nights ago (but don't recall exactly which night, sorry)...

Pages aren't loading. They are timing out. Other websites load fine. The main psychcentral home page loads fine. But the pages for the forums - top level forums, and individual posts - either time out without loading, or (rarely) show some sort of (java? javascript?) error. One wouldn't load and didn't show the error, it just showed a broken page that looked like the error, with no words. (Sorry, I didn't jot down the actual error, I will if it happens again).

Even once this page loaded (the one showing this thread), I was so excited and went to log in and post... and the login took several minutes to process/load (I wasn't sure it was going to make it!).

Thanks!

[PoorPrincess]

Originally Posted by Sister Rags

I have high-speed internet. This past week (varying times of the day, forums and blogs, intermittent slowdowns that last for about 10 minutes at a time) I have had continual problems with only Psych Central loading. Prior to this week I never had problems with this site. This week the lag has been very frustrating.

Originally Posted by guilloche

I'm having problems with pages loading tonight... The last 15 minutes or so... I had a problem a few nights ago (but don't recall exactly which night, sorry)...

Pages aren't loading. They are timing out. Other websites load fine.

Even once this page loaded (the one showing this thread), I was so excited and went to log in and post... and the login took several minutes to process/load (I wasn't sure it was going to make it!).
Thanks!

Similar to the above posted problems; time-outs on the site initially loading; slow-loading upon login and opening forum pages.

These occurrences were today August 11th between 6:40 am Pacific time up to present, continued slow-loading.
-----------------------------------
Update 8:35 am PT - Same problems through the past hour.

[DocJohn]

Yes, today's incident was due to a Denial of Service attack against our forums and has been reported to the authorities. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[TheWell]

August 10th 10pm Eastern time. A lot of lag time. The site timed out a few times. This was on the message boards. I could access the main Psych central site without an issue.

August 11th 10 am eastern time. Forums loading very slowly. At some points they time out. Again the main site loads fine this is just the message boards.

[TheWell]

Posted at the same time. Thanks Doc John.

[guilloche]

Originally Posted by DocJohn

Yes, today's incident was due to a Denial of Service attack against our forums and has been reported to the authorities. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks for letting us know... and how awful! Of all the sites out there, why someone would go after such a friendly and helpful place... how frustrating !

(Thanks for getting everything back up and running!)

[-jimi-]

You were DDosed? Well, at least it proves we're a site that is a worthy target. Rare this days with Facebook hogging everything.... We're "popular"!

[MoxieDoxie]

I have been unable to access psychcentral.com at all from Safari or Chrome this morning. I had to use an app I downloaded called Puffin.

Fast Forward: It is back up. I can get on again.

[PoorPrincess]

Problems between ~ 12:00am to present.
In PM, clicked 'send reply'; PC said I was not logged in; PM reply evaporated.
(Yes, had 'remember me' clicked on.)

Problems logging in; said invalid username or password; several times.
Got logged in; no page loaded.

Cleared everything out, logged in again.
Slow to load.

[PoorPrincess]

Originally Posted by PoorPrincess

[Note: Posted this last night. No reply, no response today. ]
Problems between ~ 12:00am to present.
In PM, clicked 'send reply'; PC said I was not logged in; PM reply evaporated.
(Yes, had 'remember me' clicked on.)

Problems logging in; said invalid username or password; several times.
Got logged in; no page loaded.

Cleared everything out, logged in again.
Slow to load.

Hello? Is anyone at home in the tech department?

Additionally, tonight between 8:00pm Pacific time, to present, pages are loading partially at times.

Also, losing logged-in status while moving from one forum to another; 'remember me' was checked upon log-in.

No fun.

Response would be appreciated.

[TheWell]

Hi PoorPrincess,
I've seen DocJohn answer some of these questions himself but you'll have to have a little patience. It's a busy time of year for him.
Thank you,
W

DocJohn's post on technical questions

If you think something is wrong with the forums or chat rooms and can't get them to work right for you (usually it's just one feature that was working in the past but suddenly isn't any longer), please try this first before posting here:

1. Clear your web browser's cache and try reloading the page. (Here's how to clear your web browser's cache: http://kb.iu.edu/data/ahic.html.)

2. Shut down your browser altogether and try visiting the page again when you restart it.

3. Try using a different web browser altogether. If you're using Internet Explorer, for instance, try using Firefox or Google Chrome instead. If it works fine in one of those other browsers, then you've narrowed the problem down to whatever the old browser you were using is.

4. Last, try shutting down your entire computer and rebooting.

Why do I need to try these things first?

Most problems people experience on the forums or in chat are temporary or transitory problems that exist for a short time due to any number of reasons (corrupted data in your cache, data not updating your cache properly, slow Internet connection, etc.). The key is that -- almost always -- the issue is not something we can fix on our servers -- it's something you need to try and fix with your web browser.

We rarely make any changes to the layout or look of the forums, or make any changes to how they work. So it is usually not a problem on our side -- 99.99 percent of the time it'll be an issue with your computer, web browser, or virus/malware software (and when it is a problem on our side, we usually have a dozen emails from people letting us know about it and we will post about it).

Still have a question?

Use a descriptive and helpful subject line in your post to this forum (don't just write, "Help!" or "Site problem" or "Have a question."). Describe as best you can your technical problem or situation. Include helpful information such as:

- What kind of web browser are you using
- What kind of operating system (Windows 8, Mac, Android phone, etc.)
- What forum theme are you using? (if related to a layout issue)
- Have you tried using a different web browser first, and did that solve the problem?
- Have you tried clearing your web browser's cache and restarting your web browser?

If you fail to provide answers to these questions in your posting, you may not get a very helpful response or reply (other than one re-directing you here to read this first).

Have you read the FAQ/Help Section before asking your question?

And you may be surprised, but our help section really does answer a lot of people's questions (such as can you delete or edit your posts, why hasn't your post shown up yet, what do the titles mean, etc.):

http://forums.psychcentral.com/faq.php

Best,
DocJohn

[DocJohn]

We read all technical reports posted here, and review them for problems on our servers and network. When we don't see anyone else report the same problem, and the servers and network don't show any anomalous activity, we can't say that the technical problem was a result of our servers or network.

In short, we don't have any answer for the two reported 4-hour slowdowns, as nothing in our reporting shows that we've been experiencing any kinds of problems on that sort of scale. (Also, while I understand your frustration with not getting a timely response to your first query, it doesn't help anyone to be sarcastic about it...)

Occasionally the forums are slow, and I apologize for that.

If you can answer some of the questions we ask of all people who report technical support issues (in the reply above), that would be great and helpful. What happened when you tried using a different web browser? Same issues?

Last, who's your Internet service provider?

Thanks.

My internet provider is AT&T. The forum has been lagging since late this afternoon. It's still lagging...I just tried to open two threads, couldn't open either one.

[PoorPrincess]

Just FYI: also AT&T home internet here, also.

Out & about in town, e.g. library, coffee shop, and in The City hospitals/medical centers, etc., I have no idea.