RIP, FREE REPUBLIC, ANOTHER CONSERVATIVE WEB SITE GETS OVER RUN BY THE RATS!?

Grampa Dave | 29 October 2002 | Grampa Dave

[Grampa Dave]

What happens if several hundred of us are waiting 3-5 minutes for those images to appear on our machine.

That to me means a blockage of the system and possible overload of the server.

I don't go to those image loaded threads. Even with a new and very powerful pentium and the special image loading ram, it takes forever for those sites to load and to go to the next thread.

[oldvike]

Daily Dose

Definately need to nuke that waste of space first.

[Grampa Dave]

Let us hope so!

[mhking]

That to me means a blockage of the system and possible overload of the server.

Unless the images in question are housed at FR, there is no extra load on their server. 95+% of all image-laden posts/threads are loading those images from elsewhere.

The problem FR has been having is tied (from what I can see) to inbound traffic jamming the server (potentially from a DOS or Ping attack - or it could be something more innocuous, even), or to overall traffic on the backbone routers that serve FR.

It's definitely not image-based. Actually, FR does one of the better jobs of image-handling that I've seen (and I've worked on several of the busier sites on the web).

[F.J. Mitchell]

Today is 10-31-02 and I notice you posted this yesterday 10-30-02, when just as it had been for a few days, everything was so slow it was maddening. Today however, things seem to be moving along at the regular speed.

I have been wanting to praise the obvious success of John Robinson and his crew, in fixing whatever was broke. Thank you John, for exterminating the rats-exorcising the grimlins, or stomping the bugs, whichever or all you ejected from the premises. Way-to-go!

[justshe]

I went to beta yesterday....and it got slower and slower and finally quit altogether. I then discovered that although beta had died....regular Free Republic was chugging right along. No slow down discernible.

[Grampa Dave]

Even if the server is speed re the images, don't we bottleneck the server when a lot of us are waiting for the images to load up?

I avoid some of the threads because they take forever to load on my new computer and it seems like forever to make a reply.

So am I in some server limbo and not causing a bottle neck while waiting for the these threads to load or to allow me to reply and not placing a load on the server?

[js1138]

The images don't come from FR. The come from whatever server hosts them. A web page is a bit like a shopping list. The list can be short but you have to get the items from several stores.

FR does not know or care how long your computer takes to get the images. they're coming from somewhere else.

[Straight Vermonter]

You know this sort of brings a question to mind. Is there anyway that FR can lease some extra server backup for election night and maybe the week following? I hate to think how slow it will be then.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the thread to thank John and Jim for FR running great today! (Link to thank the Robinson's for todays Free Republic)

[Grampa Dave]

You can go this thread to thank John and Jim for returning our addiction to a fast Free Republic and ask them your question re election night! (Link to thank the Robinson's for todays Free Republic)

[Grampa Dave]

Yeah, but you have the Oregon Remote Umpquah Valley Gopher speed system that works at about 2k per minute. How would you know if the system slowed down? :)

[Grampa Dave]

Please one final time for a kindly ole grampa who doesn't understand these modern things like you do.

So if a hundred freepers or a thousand freepers are waiting minutes for one of the slow threads to even finish loading and coming up and on, we have no impact on the system even in a hundred or a thousand of us are setting on line waiting for minutes for these threads to load?

[js1138]

So if a hundred freepers or a thousand freepers are waiting minutes for one of the slow threads to even finish loading and coming up and on, we have no impact on the system even in a hundred or a thousand of us are setting on line waiting for minutes for these threads to load?

This needs a two part answer.

1. FR ships out everything as fast as it can. It makes no difference to FR whether the delivery to you is by Fedex or bicycle. From FR's point of view it all left on the same truck.

2. FR does not ship images. It ships a list of addresses for images. Once your browser gets the list of addresses it goes to other web sites to actually get the images. Images make forever to load on your computer, but FR does not know about this.

[js1138]

It does, however, make a difference how many FReepers request pages in a given period of time. Too many requests can slow things down.

But your question seems to be about the slowness of your connection, and whether your slow connection can make FR slow.

There has been some speculation that the slowness could be due to thousands of bogus requests made by hackers.

[Grampa Dave]

Thank you!

[twyn1]

Definately need to nuke that waste of space first

I'll bet there are quite a few FReepers who have signed up (and who DONATE) because of the "Dose"...that's what got me interested in FR and it's the first thread I go to in the morning..."Bush Babes and Bucks" are a very loyal group...

There are some sections of FR that I find a waste (the "CAPTION THIS" threads that post the same picture for a week...often funny the first time but since they're not "searchable" we get lots of repeats...the "Bash Ugly Chelsea" threads and the juvenile "Guy Cuts Off (*an important part of his anatomy)" threads...I could even do without the "Evolution" arguments that always end up with flames and never go anywhere....

But we all like different stuff and that's why FR is such a neat website...pick what you like and don't click on the rest...Besides...I doubt the "Dose" is what was slowing down FR yesterday--since it started mid-afternoon and the Dose is always posted (and most comments are added) later at night :)

[F.J. Mitchell]

THanks for the info GD, I'll go do that right now.

[mhking]

So am I in some server limbo and not causing a bottle neck while waiting for the these threads to load or to allow me to reply and not placing a load on the server?

Most threads that carry high numbers of photos (Diogenesis' news threads for example) have their images housed on servers that are prepared for high volume (i.e., Yahoo, CNN, AP and other news agencies).

In other cases, there are images that are housed on servers that are not prepared for the kind of hammering that posting that image on FR would do. In those instances, the server housing the image is the weak link in the chain, not FR. Waiting for those images to load often is the cause behind a single thread taking an intermnible amount of time to load - and often leads to timeouts in many cases.

The situation that is happening here and now is entirely different. There is something else causing this. Whether it's a DDOS attack or a mass ping assault or a router going down, I don't know.

To get back to your question though, you're not causing a bottleneck while waiting on a thread. The content from FR passes with no problem, and in most cases, while you are waiting, your browser (much of the time) has already buffered the rest of the content from FR, and your browser/machine is waiting for the remainder of the content. It doesn't slow FR any in that event.

[Grampa Dave]

Think you sir for your excellent reply here.