IS SC RUNNING SLOW?

[Flash Harry]

I have no difficulty with the site at the moment. I use Sky as my ISP and currently have about 4 meg down according to my router.

[Burtog]

My ISP is talk talk, I've tried 3 differnet browsers all poor. Sometimes I am unable to even get the next page up, I have to come out of SC and try again, then I can seem to navigate pages almost normally but always unable to play music.
There is some up and down in general speed of the site tho.

I do not have any problems with any other internet site as of yet.

This is frustrating

[Burtog]

blue host link is taking ages to open too .lol.

Yup,..................................waiting for a response..............................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[64Guitars]

Could you try contacting your ISP and ask them why you're having trouble with bluehost.com when other people, including one on Sky, are not having any trouble. They'll probably try to tell you that the bluehost server is overloaded or something. But stress to them that other people are having no troubles at all at the same time of day that you're experiencing extreme slowness. Surely, if the bluehost server were overloaded, it would affect everyone. But that's certainly not the case. I'm usually on the site almost 16 hours per day and haven't seen this problem even once.

Hopefully, your ISP may be able to provide some clues. They should be able to reproduce the problem and trace where the slowdown is occurring.

[64Guitars]

blue host link is taking ages to open too .lol.

Yup,..................................waiting for a response..............................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Try this link:

http://67.20.126.71/showthread.php?24121-Bluehost-intermittently-slow&s=96f95f2b6c5b3e537125b777b5cee575

If that link opens reasonably fast but the other link to bluehostforum.com is still slow, then you probably have a DNS problem. DNS is what translates "songcrafters.org", for example, into a numeric IP address. In the link above, no DNS translation is necessary because I've put the IP address of bluehostforum.com (67.20.126.71) in the link.

[Oldrottenhead]

that one opens straight away, but im confused as to what dns is.

[Oldrottenhead]

all of a sudden, site seems to be back to normal speed. i'm with virgin media and they had some "non specific" service disruptions notices on their web page. but i have had no problems other than connecting with songcrafters, but like i say it seems okay now.

[Burtog]

all of a sudden, site seems to be back to normal speed. i'm with virgin media and they had some "non specific" service disruptions notices on their web page. but i have had no problems other than connecting with songcrafters, but like i say it seems okay now.

Improved here too but not 100%. I got a song to play but it stuck first time and played once page refreshed, this is the first time I manged to play a track in two days.

64 - the link worked first time too!!

Thanks

[64Guitars]

I haven't changed anything at Songcrafters, so if it's working now, it must have been something along the route from your computer to the bluehost server which someone has fixed today. Let's hope it lasts.

Every computer and router on the internet is identified by a unique IP address such as 67.20.126.71. The only way your computer can connect to another computer on the internet is if it has the IP address of the site you're trying to connect to. But numeric IP addresses are incovenient for human beings, so we give sites more relatable names like "songcrafters.org". When you try to connect to Songcrafters, the first thing that has to happen is that the IP address of Songcrafters must be looked up. This is usually done at your ISP on their DNS server. DNS stands for "Domain Name System". The DNS server translates domain names ("songcrafters.org", "bluehost.com", "bbc.co.uk", etc.) into IP addresses. It then passes that IP address back to your ISP's web server so that it can connect to Songcrafters.

If your ISP's DNS server has a problem, it may be very slow at translating domain names to IP addresses. Some ISPs farm out DNS to a third party. So it's possible that all of the people who were having trouble happen to be using the same DNS server. The first link I provided to the bluehost forum contained the domain name "bluehostforum.com" which would have to be looked up by your ISP's DNS server. But the second link had the actual IP address instead, so your browser could connect to the bluehost server without going through the DNS server. If that was fast, then it could indicate that your ISP's DNS server had a problem. On the other hand, it could just be a coincidence that the problem (whatever it happened to be) was fixed by the time you tried that link.

If the problem returns, try both of the following links:

          http://74.220.195.50                   http://www.bluehost.com/

If the first one loads quickly but the second is extremely slow, then your ISP's DNS server is probably not working right. The IP address of bluehost.com is 74.220.195.50, so no lookup is required on the first link since the IP address is specified. But the second link doesn't include the IP address, so the DNS server must lookup the domain "bluehost.com" to find the IP address.

If the problem is indeed DNS, then you should complain to your ISP. If they don't fix it or the problem keeps returning occasionally, you should either consider a new ISP or a different DNS server. You can use the free DNS server at the following site:

http://www.opendns.com/home/basic

You have to sign up, then change two settings in your router or computer. The following video guides you through the whole process:

http://www.opendns.com/support/videos/basic/

Before you change any settings in your router or computer though, be sure to write down the old setting so you can put them back later if you want to switch back to your ISP's DNS server.

If using OpenDNS solves the speed problem, then complain to your ISP and tell them to fix their DNS server. If OpenDNS doesn't solve the speed problem, then set your router back to its original settings so you can continue using your ISP's DNS server. OpenDNS is ad-supported, so you probably won't want to use it permanently. But trying it for a short while should tell you if your ISP's DNS server is the problem.

[Burtog]

Thanks 64, quality advice!