I'm just trying to get the hang of drupal on localhost (windows XP and wamp - drupal 6.8)

Most of the admin options are really slow - I've had to increase my timeout to a tedious 90 seconds to avoid timing out. The administration>SiteBuilding>Modules and saving module configuration are the worst offenders. I've disabled the Update Status feature, but it's still really slow.

I've tried seaching forums, but haven't come up with any answers. Any ideas anyone?

Marg

Comments

Screenack’s picture

Have you run Firebox/Firebug to watch script-related activity or results?

cog.rusty’s picture

If you have ZoneAlarm, try disabling it temporarily to see if this is the problem.

tryitonce’s picture

the new release of Xampp (1.7.xx) looks great and it now supports clean URLs - so I tied it and replaced my apache2triad installation.

Great interface, setup and encouraging for newcomers. But it was so slow. I tried all sorts of suggestions, but had to go back to a2t. With Xampp loading modules and saving changes timed me out all the way. So, good-by Xampp.

I use Online Armour as Firewall and lots of add-ons in Firefox - to me it seems there is no difference if I disable Online armour or the add-ons in Firefox. I use also a no-frills Safari browser for testing and while it might be a little bit faster as a browser, it suffers the same slow response times as Firefox on the local installations for various Drupal 6.8. - 6.9. sites.

By the way with a2t I never had to change the [C:\Windows\]php.ini default exec. time that comes in at 30 secs - "max_execution_time = 30".

I have to say, that once I install the sites on a host server (I have 2 years of great service from 5quithosting in the UK sofar) Drupal runs faster, but not fast enough to the point that some clients wonder about the slack response times.

Some improvements would be greatly welcomed.

tryitonce’s picture

I just got WampServer 2.0.f going and it is also so slow that I increased "max_execution_time = 60".

(look for the relevant php.ini file and change it there - then you have to restart Apache).

------------------------------------------------------------

Months later - I increased "max_execution_time = 90". and eventually to 180.

The php.ini file in WampServer can be found here - C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8\php.ini [php5.2.8 is my current version - yours may be different].

hedac’s picture

I have the same problem... xampp localhost so slow in the modules page... and sometimes fails.
but running fine on online servers. I wonder why is that. disabling update status didn't help either.

tagawa’s picture

1. This won't make Xampp any faster but it should prevent so many failures.

Add the following line to your main .htaccess file:

php_value max_execution_time 300

2. Another thing to try is changing the following two entries in apache/conf/httpd.conf from OFF to ON:

EnableMMAP on
EnableSendfile on

This isn't suitable for all environments but worked well for me.

Hope that helps.

tryitonce’s picture

Well, I have WampServer 2.0f running now for a week and one thing I found is that all Wamps need a bit of time to "warm".

Using WampServer is convinient for the interface and ease of use. It is a little slower than Apache2Trial - which was doing well on standard drupal settings. For WampServer I had to increase the "max_execution_time" to 90 secs in the php.ini.

Please note: The php.ini file might be in different locations depending on which wamp is used (A2T is under Windows / WS2f is under :\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.11\bin\ and under :\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8\ or whichever php version and there are more ".ini" files in use such as phpforapache.ini under :\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8\. So one might have to fidle a bit to see where the variables are that need adjusting.

Opening or saving the modules page is always slow as it checks all modules. Sometimes it helps to just activate or deactivate only a few models at a time and not the whole parade of goodies at once.

So, testing the ideas of tagawa will be next.

einsteinsboi’s picture

I'm using WAMP on my laptop with firefox as default browser and faced the same problem as you. My initial solution was to increase the max execution time and other stuff on php.ini

This solved a few of my problems, but then the admin options were still running ridiculously slow.

On a whim I decided to switch to Google Chrome browser to do the admin stuff on my local Drupal install and VOILA!! My speed troubles on the admin backend vanished! It's a pity that Google Chrome doesn't yet have all the bells and whistles that firefox has, and I don't want to disable my firefox addons, so for now I'm running the two side by side.

Hope this helps.

tryitonce’s picture

Yes, unfortunately .... Google Chrome so rather fast - it is just too much google - everywhere - mircosoft looks like a pansy next to them now.

So, until someone else comes up with a lighting fast browser - Google Chrome should solve some of the speed problems at least.

tagawa’s picture

Opera is a better (IMO) alternative if you've had enough of Google.

tryitonce’s picture

thanks tagawa - I tried Opera a little while back and it worked well. But I haven't used it again.

What is your experience with Opera regarding speed when workin on / with Drupal?

Regards

tagawa’s picture

Absolutely fine. I don't see much difference with page-loading but I find start up speed and memory usage to be better than other browsers. A bonus is that it has a good built-in email client so I don't need to run email software separately in the background. I also like its synchronise feature so that you can access your bookmarks and notes on various PCs and devices.

Sorry to take this thread off topic, by the way, and no, I don't work for them.

shaunak’s picture

Increasing the Php relpath_cache_size to 2M gave me a huge speed increase.

Drupal loads a lot of files in the modules page. Increasing the relpath cache improves this performance.

Off-topic: I recommend Opera anyway.

espirates’s picture

I don't have a relpath_cache_size in my php.ini, where did you get that ?

cog.rusty’s picture

Dokuro’s picture

I added realpath_cache_size= 24m to my php.ini file, its like night and day!

Do this, and you will have no problem at all.

I am running xampp 1.6.8 inside of windows 7 (7100)

1.7 xampp does not like windows 7, but its all good.

aldebaran’s picture

realpath_cache_size=24M

This works for me ! about 2x speed improvement with xampp 1.7.1 with XP Pro

kolade.ige’s picture

Thank you, It made a whole lot of difference for me.

zoo’s picture

Hi all, and thank you for your contributions to the discussion.

Same scenario here: Drupal on localhost through Wamp and experiencing unbearable slowdowns in loading some crucial admin pages (as modules, status report, available updates, cron, update...).

Tried to set "realpath_cache_size=24M" but without enough significant speed improvements.

In my case I've started to suspect it could depend on a DNS related issue (IPv6 ?), since I've investigated pretty much all other possible solutions I've read...

2ninerniner2’s picture

Bonjour,

First post in the Drupal forum from a "dyed-in-the-wool" Joomla! type :) 300 + Joomla installs to date so not a complete "noob" to the CMS scene :) Sure do like a LOT of what Drupal has to offer (now that I am more experienced with this type of environment) but there are some things here that I am still trying to "wrap my head around" ... it'll come though :)

I was experiencing the same issues as those in this thread; Modules were especially slow. I am using the latest version of The Uniform Server (4.1 'Mona') running on my old "boat anchor" COMPAQ Evo N600c laptop, Win XP and a paltry 512 MB RAM. Works just dandy for all of my Joomla development, but with Drupal 6 core or the Acquia Drupal package, this combo was painfully slow. Did the realpath thingy to the php.ini and in Google Chrome, I have to say that the performance is borderline "snappy" :)

I have used numerous (W)AMP packages, including XAMPP, WAMPServer, Ravenswood, MAMP (when my Mac was working) but have to say that my best experience to date is The Uniform Server. Runs on a USB "stick" and additionally, for those that would require this, can be used in a production environment :)

Cheers!
Lyle

Youdaman’s picture

I reduced my Module page loading time from 15 seconds to less than 1 second, merely by configuring MySQL to use MyISAM only. I did this by choosing "Non-Transactional Database Only" on one of the steps of the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard.

Hope this is of help to someone out there. I'd tried all the other suggestions regarding memory limits for MySQL/PHP/Apache, but it turned out to be (for me at least) a matter of choosing MyISAM over InnoDB for MySQL when the localhost machine runs Windows XP.

Anonymous’s picture

Youdaman's solution worked for me. Firefox is snappy with Drupal as well. I also reverted back to Multitransactional after I tried this and my DB remained in MyISAM.

SirClickalot’s picture

Could you please tell me specifically Where you went in order to chose this option. I am using local MySQL Administrator and there are a host of configuration tabs, much of which I understand but I cannot find the "Non-Transactional Database Only" option that you mention. I cannot, by the way, find a configuration Wizard, just lots of tabs...

General Parameters
MyISAM Parameters
InnoDB Parameters
Performance
Log files
Replication
Advanced Networking
Security
Advanced

Thanks

gourd1’s picture

I am running the Bitnami Drupal WAMP stack and it was running very slow. Some tables were InnoDB and some were MyISAM.

If you sub in your db info and run this as a php script it will convert all Drupal tables to MyISAM. My site now flies.

// your connection
mysql_connect("localhost","db_user","db_pass");
mysql_select_db("drupal_db_name");

// convert code
$res = mysql_query("SHOW TABLES");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($res))
{
    foreach ($row as $key => $table)
    {
        mysql_query("ALTER TABLE " . $table . " ENGINE=MyISAM");
        echo $key . " =&gt; " . $table . " set to MyISAM<br />";
    }
}

Source

DRIVE’s picture

Didnt pay attention when setting up mysql in a hurry. Had InnoDB set as default and wound up with a mixture of innodb + myisam tables. I set the default engine to myisam but do have three large innodb DB's on localhost that perform well with the various tunings that are mentioned here in this thread.... thanks to all!

Biggest benefit of the conversion script was speed, and ease of transporting local dev stuff to production servers which must run myisam tables. Cut down the overall devel-to-production pushing bigtime... thanks much!

arnoldbird’s picture

Changing tables to MyISAM using gourd1's script seems to have roughly doubled the speed of the modules admin page. I'm on ubuntu, unlike a lot of the posters in this thread, but the benefit is the same.

woop_light’s picture

This table conversion code is great. For anyone confused on how to implement it, here's a way that worked for me for my project. (I didn't understand gourd1's implementation instructions. Please let me know if there's something wrong with this approach.)

1. At the root of your project, create a blank php file called tableconvert.php and paste gourd1's code into it.
2. In your browser, navigate to the file. For example, localhost/exampleproject/tableconvert.php. It may take a while to load. If it worked, you'll see pages of output describing which tables were converted.

Are there any problems with this approach? Will I need to continually run the table conversion code as I add modules that use the wrong type of table?

quarshie’s picture

I know this is quite old, but I'm farily new to Drupal, and I just found this.

Converting the tables worked great. Thank you.

I did change realpath_cache_size in php.ini, before converting the tables, but if anything I saw only a slight improvement. But after converting the tables, I could immediately see the difference. That is what did it for me.

I wonder if, and how I can force all my tables to use MyISAM from the get go. I think that will be a MySQL config, right? Or do I have to reinstall MySQL? Because then, all my subsequent installs would run as fast as this one is now. I am very heavy on modules, by the way, so this is important to me.

Thanks again.

tz_earl’s picture

I'm running Drupal 7 on Windows 7 using a WAMP stack for which I installed and configured the different pieces manually.

Tried half a dozen different fixes and found this one to produce the most significant speedup. For instance, saving a View went from about 12 seconds to about 7, consistently. Refreshing a page after an edit like this went from about 6 seconds to 3. Some page loads stayed the same.

Thanks a lot to gourd1 for posting the script to convert all the tables. The php functions used there are now deprecated, so I wrote a more current version which is object-oriented and uses the mysqli package.

I tested this on my own db and used it to convert back and forth. I found it's pretty easy to exhaust php's max_execution_time, especially when I converted to InnoDB.

<?php

// Convert all of the tables in the database to MyISAM.

$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "your_username", "your_password", "your_db");

// Check connection
if ( $mysqli->connect_errno ) {
    print( "Connect failed: " . $mysqli->connect_error );
    exit( );
}

// Get the resultset
if ( $result = $mysqli->query( "SHOW TABLES" ) ) {
    print("Number of tables: " . $result->num_rows . "<br />");
    
    // For each table, convert to ISAM.
    while( $row = $result->fetch_row() )
    {
        $table_name = $row[ 0 ];
        $mysqli->query( "ALTER TABLE " . $table_name . " ENGINE=MyISAM" );
        print( $table_name . " converted to MyISAM<br />" );
    }
    
    // Free result set
    $result->close( );
}

$mysqli->close( );
?>
kernelobject-1’s picture

Your script worked perfectly. I created a php file, pasted your code and ran it - worked right out of the box with no problems.

Two things worked for me:
a. Php.ini --> rbealpath_cache_size = 24M --> palpable benefits, got snappy
b. table conversion to MyISAM with tz_earl's script --> even faster

So, it is looking rosy now and I wish I had taken the time to do this 6 months earlier - could have saved 15 days of accumulated waiting for the page to load on my localhost dev env!

elsayed’s picture

it works for me well.

Guido Forks’s picture

Can't believe how much of a difference this has made, saving a view was taking about 42 seconds, it's now down to about 12 (reconfiguring MySql to use Non-Transactional Database Only)

WebJohn’s picture

I had the same problem and this worked for me (running lampp) - I ensured that all tables were MyISAM, changed the default engine to MyISAM in my.conf and then commented out all the InnoDB stuff.

Many thanks!

khanz’s picture

i am also using wamp and even it is slow... i use a workaround bye using admin menu module. I feel google chrome is faster on wamp compared to firefox, but using firefox is unavoidable while development.

------------
Volvo, Video, Velcro. (I came, I saw, I stuck around.)

Jordash’s picture

I agree, Chrome is for some reason so much faster on Localhost but in order to develop I need Firebug otherwise I can't really use Drupal to it's full potential :( ... Why is localhost so slow with Drupal, I'm even using Drupal Aquia Stack in Windows local.

kbell’s picture

Actually, Chrome's just as good for development - just enable the Developer tools (View -> Developer) - just as good as Firebug and faster-loading, less overhead. It's pretty awesome. Webkit-enabled browsers are a real improvement, IMHO.

-Kelly Bell
twitter: @kelly, @gothamdrupal
http://gothamcitydrupal.com

ussher’s picture

I also found drupal to be very slow localhost. The localhost was running ubuntu linux desktop natively. I tried many of the tweeks around to try to get the localhost to speed up.

The one thing that fixed it for me was to load ubuntu server into a virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) then access that from the main pc.

It makes a world of difference. drupal is no longer slugish.

http://nethackz.com/how-to-install-ubuntu-server-in-virtualbox/
http://nethackz.com/how-to-quickly-set-up-a-web-server-environment-with-...

zoo’s picture

Hello ussher,

I'm happy this works for you.

I've read firewalls/proxy configs could sometime be a possible cause... I admit I don't know very much about firewalls settings.

I'm wondering if anyone using ZA (Zone Alarm) have never had "to tweak" or add some rule in order to get Drupal to load faster on local server.

zoo

SocialNicheGuru’s picture

thanks for the tip :)

http://SocialNicheGuru.com
Delivering inSITE(TM), we empower you to deliver the right product and the right message to the right NICHE at the right time across all product, marketing, and sales channels.

zoo’s picture

Hello,

ZA user? do you know the tip and want to tell howto? :)

Thank You. Bye

zoo

danreb’s picture

Enter in the URL field of Firefox this:

about:config

Then hit enter - Note:Firefox will give you a warning message saying this This must void your warranty!

Just ignore that and click the button saying I'll be careful, I promise! after hitting the button, Firefox will show you a Filter field and all it's configuration.Don't change anything in the configuration instead search for ipv6 in the Filter.

Firefox will return a value of network.dns.disableIPv6 with status of default and a type of boolean and a value of false

network.dns.disableIPv6 default boolean false

just double click that configuration to change the value from false to true and it will also change it's status to user set

network.dns.disableIPv6 user set boolean true

just close that tab after you set the configuration.
restart Firefox and done.

Try if it will speed up your http://localhost browsing experience.

Source - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.dns.disableIPv6

danreb

SocialNicheGuru’s picture

thanks for this!

Chris

http://SocialNicheGuru.com
Delivering inSITE(TM), we empower you to deliver the right product and the right message to the right NICHE at the right time across all product, marketing, and sales channels.

rrgandy’s picture

Thanks! That worked for me!

bassam’s picture

Thanks man.

vonFrakas’s picture

Wow! Lightning fast. Thank you!

purna_dey’s picture

It's working perfectly. Thanks a lot!

DRIVE’s picture

You found a needle in a haystack! Good find. Was on a mission to speed up my local env and this was the first thing I tried. Confirm it works WELL. Tested it on D7 with 150mb database with 187 tables. Instantly performed probably 80% better on local env. Thank you very much... amazing that such a small thing had such a huge impact. I read the docs on this at mozilla and there definitely was no "placebo" effect for me. What I tested it on is simply too big to suddenly perform like speedy gonzales "out of the bluie" thanks man!

sl33tz0r’s picture

Its been bugging me for months, slowing me down on whatever I was doing on localhost. The problem seemed to dissapear when I disconnected from all networks. The slowdown was caused by the browser trying to DNS "localhost". just use 127.0.0.1. easy as that

wwalc’s picture

While working in Firefox, Drupal was running terribly slow (XAMPP @ Win XP) when using local IP (http://127.0.0.1/) instead of "http://localhost/".
It turned out that in IE I did not have such problems.

The solution was adding:

127.0.0.1	127.0.0.1

to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

make sure you have also there:

127.0.0.1	localhost

Wiktor Walc
http://ckeditor.com
"Support Open Source Software"

zoo’s picture

Hello Wiktor,

may I ask You how did you find this solution...

I'm interested to know. I struggled with this problem for months, your hint worked.

Thank You very much

zoo

brks’s picture

I set realpath_cache_size= 24m, but it made no difference; and I changed the config of Firefox as following
network.dns.disableIPv6 user set boolean true
Still no difference; and then I tried to use http://127.0.0.1/ instead of "http://localhost/". It works perfectly and the admin menus work very fast. I didn't change any configuration except using http://127.0.0.1/ directly in Firefox.
Later I changed back realpath_cache_size, changed back Firefox configuration, and continue to use "http://localhost/", it still work very well.
I don't know what happened, but thank you everybody who gave the above advice!
WAMPServer 2.1/Drupal 7/Windows Vista/Firefox

hedac’s picture

my solution was to install a linux server locally in a virtual host... and it works very well ! And also I get total compatibility with the host I have using linux.
http://drupal.org/node/657600

Cherrybark’s picture

ussher and hedac,

Thank you very much for the Virtualbox / Linux server tip and the article link. I was very frustrated with my unusably slow WAMP local host and had given up on Drupal. Your posts led to this article http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/10/27/build-your-own-dev-server-with... that walked through the steps to create a Virtualbox / Linux server.

One of the comments suggested using a turnkey appliance to install a Drupal server in Virtualbox, see http://www.turnkeylinux.org/ The Drupal 6 Appliance was painless to install.

I encourage everyone to spend a couple of hours exploring this approach. Installation takes 30 minutes or so and the speed from your local server will delight you. 3-4 seconds to load a Modules page. Big grin!

deng17’s picture

Even Modules page only takes 5 secs to load.

pratikk’s picture

I've been plagued by what seems to be a common problem -- FF 3 crawling when developing a Drupal 6.x site on a Windows localhost. I tried all the solutions suggested on the forums with indifferent success. Then I tried something I discovered on the Net while researching a non-Drupal issue. Logically, it should have no effect, but it speeded up response time from my install on XAMPP by 30-50%, depending on the page being accessed. Here it is, hope it helps other sufferers:

In Firefox, browse to about:config, promise not to break anything and then search for network.http.keep-alive. The default value is true, toggle it to false and restart the browser.

Cheers

Pratik
www.littlemag.com

tryitonce’s picture

thanks for confirming this works for you as well - see above - http://drupal.org/node/348202#comment-2176710

muratsalma’s picture

Problem: Slow Drupal 6.x on windows with over 30 contrib modules enabled. On Mac OS X and Linux, Drupal runs very fast but when i try to run same site under windows, it makes me cry.

I've tried hundreds of solutions but finally zend server ce was the correct solution. I was using xampp 1.7.3, then downgraded to 1.7.1 because of php 5.3 incompatible modules (such as imagecache). All problems fixed but performance. I prefer a portable server because when i have to reinstall windows, i don't want to backup my data, reinstall server software, reconfigure them and import/export databases. Zend sever is not portable but you won't need it to be portable, here is what you need to do:

  • If you have a working xampp stop apache server, if you don't, setup a new xampp server (possibly in D: drive or somewhere else except system partition)
  • Only mysql server must be run from xampp (mysql as service is preferred)
  • Download Zend Server Community Edition from http://www.zend.com/products/server-ce I prefer PHP 5.2.x version for compatibility with some modules.
  • Install Zend Sever into default location and default installation options (don't include mysql)(maybe you can include phpmyadmin)
  • If Zend Sever is running stop it. To do this, look at apache system tray icon
  • Edit Zend server httpd.conf to point your xampp htdocs folder. To do this change "DocumentRoot" entry in httpd.conf into your full xampp htdocs path. You can use backslashes.
  • Scroll down httpd.conf file and seek for an entry which starts with <Directory "C:\Program Files\Zend\Apache2\htdocs">. Change this path to your full xampp htdocs folder.
  • Under this Directory entry seek for "Allow Override None" line. Change this to "Allow Override All" for clean url's support.
  • Your sever is ready to go, mysql is running from xampp and you can start Zend server from apache system tray icon.
  • You can configure zend server from its own control panel which can be accessed from http://localhost:10081
  • Zend server hides php error messages and displays a HTTP500 internal server error page. To output php errors you must change a php directive. You can do this via Zend server control panel. Just go to Server setup > Directives > Error handling and logging. Just click on to output all php errors and warnings.
  • You can enable/disable all php extensions, and modify all php directives from this panel.
  • Don't forget to click "Restart PHP" button after you changed something.

That's all. After migrating Zend Server you will see a noticable performance boost. My last Drupal installation have 38 contrib modules enabled and admin/build/modules page loading time reduced to 1.5-2 seconds from 5-6 seconds. My machine is Core2 Duo 2.13 GHz, 2GB DDR3 RAM.

Don't worry about your server's portability. Mysql is still portable and you don't need to import/export or reconfigure your database server. When you want to reinstall your server, just install Zend Server with default options and change httpd.conf or replace with a preconfigured httpd.conf.

Good Luck

ericpai’s picture

Thank you, I just installed it and my drupal sites run 2-3 times faster than xampp for my local testing sites.
I had a problem of clean url's not working though after installing Zend Server CE.
I had to change AllowOverride none to AllowOverride All in file:///C:/Program Files/Zend/Apache2/conf/httpd.conf.
I was also getting this warning:
warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for '-5.0/no DST' instead in C:\xampp\htdocs\drupal_shared\html\sites\all\modules\token\token_node.inc on line 40.
Solution:
date.timezone was not set in C:/Program%20Files/Zend/ZendServer/etc/php.ini in
Changed it to date.timezone = "America/New_York"

wfx’s picture

@muratsalma

XAMPP + Zend Server rocks! Thanks so much for this tip.

I was running WampServer before on my aging PC (Dual core AMD Athlon 64, 1.5GB Ram, Windows XP). Sooooo slow.

Zend Server makes a big difference. I've never seen Drupal load so fast!

Elvin - Albania Drupal Developer’s picture

If anyone who is searching for a faster Drupal Performance on WINDOWS this is a must. Install msql from Xampp and Zend Server CE. It makes drupal run so fast, because probably apache does not go through the firewall anymore (it actually did on wamp).
Now it takes me 1-2(the most is 3) seconds on every page load vs. 5-10 sec on crappy wamp.
This post should be made a documentation topic itself.
Great Job Muratsalma

Elvin Xhimitiku
Drupal in Albania

jwaxman’s picture

Got this working.
I was curious re needing to use MySQL from XAMPP.
Tried installing MySQL as part of Zend and couldn't get Drupal to install.
Anybody know why this would be?

prabhatjn’s picture

I removed xampp completely and am using only zend ce with mysql and phpmyadmin that they allow you to download from their installer. It is working faster than xampp. I think he discussed mysql with xampp because there are many people who already have their database with xampp.
but yes on my windows 7 64bit machine i needed to do some tweaking in order to make mysql work...
Perry.

Toxid’s picture

I thought this was going to be another failed attempt at making drupal faster. How wrong I was! I couldn't believe my eyes, it's loading in an instant! I'm so glad those days of waiting for the page to load after 15 secs are gone. Thanks alot!

xaa’s picture

Thank you, it's running really faster with Zen !
I tried a lot of solutions before and this trick is definitely the best.

I waste 5min because I copied my http-vhost.conf file but forgot to uncomment it on the httpd.conf
(Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf)

yosisays’s picture

I’m running into the same problem however the weird thing with my slow down is that it was working fine one day and then suddenly slow the next. I did not add any new modules make any significant changes to the site nor did it change anything on my computer to warrant the dramatic slow down. I tried nearly everything noted on this thread with no results! I even deleted nearly 10 gig of files from my HD but still nothing! Any ideas what to do?

nibo’s picture

I had also the same problem with very slow localhost on Win XP with XAMPP 1.7.1. Some pages took about 12s to load. The "best" performance I had was maybe 7s ... Than I read the post on Fast Drupal Server Running on Localhost: The Solution to WAMP and XAMPP Slow Execution Times and switched to The Uniform Server and suddenly my performance was better. The sites, that took 12s now needed "just" 7s. That was 5s faster :)
Going further I switched CSS and JS aggregation on, enabled eAccelerator, used Memcached, Block Cache Alter and Authcache (since I have only authenticated traffic Boost and other caching techniques won't help me at all). I also applied some PHP, MySQL and Apache optimization suggestions found on the web. It got little better, but not enogh!
Finally I tried the realpath_cache_size suggestion and my site was working a lot faster, thanks a lot :)
Yes, it's maybe not as fast as it would be on a Linux machine, but I can live with a maximum of 3s !!!

muratsalma’s picture

i think zend server ce on windows is as fast as linux or mac os x server if it's not faster than them. try and see huge difference.

nibo’s picture

Thanks for the suggestion! I guest I will give Zend Server a try for my permanent running server.
For the portable version I'll maybe stick to the USBWebserver since it's very lightweight and in the PHP and Apache config files all paths are saved relatively.

nibo’s picture

Have just tried the Zend Server CE and must say that with the default config settings it is working very fast :)
Thanks!!!

zoo’s picture

@Nikolay Borisov,

glad to know! Xampp or Wampserver?

zoo

Sagren’s picture

I spent about three hours looking for a solution to Drupal 6.x running really slowly on my local machine. I had been using WAMP V2. I was getting timeout errors when doing "admin" stuff.

I tried,

1. Disabling the update module -- no change
2. Disabling ESET Smart Security -- no change
3. Uninstalled ESET Smart Security and made sure Windows firewall is off -- no change
4. Using a version of Uniform Server that uses PHP 5.2 -- no change
5. Tried XAMPP -- no change

Finally I downloaded and installed Zend CE (the PHP 5.2 one) and used it with the SQL server set up by Uniform Server's install. I had to disable Apache that was installed by Uniform Server as per a post earlier here. I then installed phpmyadmin to Zend's installation directory.

Now it all works beautifully -- no timeouts . And the module page loads in under three seconds now!

Oh and for those that are wondering, I am running a really ancient notebook PC i.e., 1.8GHz P4 with 768 MB of RAM and less than thirty percent free hard disk space.

espirates’s picture

The ultimate solution I found was to create a subdomain on your hosting and use it for testing. There's no need to develop sites locally on your computer anymore. You can also use the secure site module to make it private for your eyes only.

zoo’s picture

Sorry but I think the need to develop sites locally remains.
And thanks everybody for your suggestions

zoo

Hari’s picture

Hey wuzel109,
I used to have the same issues when I was using PCs. Even when I built a new computer with great specs I still had issues. I modified php.ini files and apache files to give both more memory and timeout time but all in all it was still not up to par with response time.

I have had much better experiences with drupal since switching to Macs. I know it shouldn't be that way, but I tried everything. Even built my own apache/mysql/php server. I used this tutorial for windows 7 but i'm sure you could find something similar for XP. Anyways I never got the performance improvement I was hoping for.

MAMP PRO on the MAC has been great.

Hari

brekele’s picture

Try download the virtual machine here:

http://bitnami.org/stack/drupal

download, extract, and you have a running vm with ubuntu and drupal...

pitxels’s picture

Thanks

Adding

127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1

To the host file worked for me. I will try the zend server later...

--
Drupal Theming at
www.pitxels.com

Alauddin’s picture

updating the hosts file in

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

worked for me.

here are the local host entries in my file

127.0.0.1 localhost127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1

Nikit’s picture

This also help for my windows 7 ultimate. Much faster now...

pratikk’s picture

Hi, after XAMPP and WAMP (on XP SP3) ground my local production to a halt, I tried Universal Server 5.0 Nano and got a huge speed increase, and portability besides. But a strange problem developed -- every now and then, pages are rendered without the CSS in Firefox 3.6. A shift-reload solves that, but after a while that stops working too and Drupal shows the site offline page. I can still get the real page back with several shift-reloads but soon after, even that stops working.

Since the other tabs in Firefox also stop (re)loading about that time, I suspect it's a browser issue but I don't know how to solve it. FF doesn't behave like this unless local pages are being loaded. Clearing the cache solves the problem very temporarily. All the recommended tweaks for speeding up Firefox are enabled (IPv6 off, pipelining on, etc). And the server is set up correctly with MySQL on 3306 and Apache on 80 -- nothing there to confuse the browser.

I've tried developing in IE7 and haven't encountered the problem so far -- CSS is read and the site does not go offline. But I use it so rarely that I can't be sure that the problem will not develop over time.

I'd like to continue working with FF, whose add-ons are very helpful, and with UniServer, which has saved me after months of mind-numbing slowdowns. Perhaps there's a simple solution in FF's config? Grateful for any ideas.

Thanks

Pratik

parasox’s picture

I'll add that I started using Drupal on a VMWare Ubuntu running on Windows 7, and also found it was ridiculously slow. Google Chrome helped, but not enough. I have over 100 modules, and one of my node types has over 100 fields, plus I use the DisplaySuite module, so dragging/re-arranging fields in a 100-field node was a task and a half. It still is if I use Firefox, but Chrome handles it effortlessly.

I found the best performance increase I had was when I moved my install to Linode by using their Mercury/Pressflow/Pantheon install script. That loads ubuntu, latest 6.x drupal and a bunch of advanced caching and PHP optimization through the mercury/pressflow/pantheon additions... With a single click. Nice.

Also should add that caching my views has helped speed up page rendering times a lot too (this install uses varnish)

Then I used the backup and migrate module to move things over, fixed a few other issues here and there, and voila I was moved and it was fast again. My VPS did cost $19.95/mo (and I upgraded to the $29.95 package as it seemed it was maxing out on physical ram all the time) but for me it was well worth it.

I thought localhost would be faster, but it wasn't, at least for a noob like me.

edwinyn’s picture

Hi, I faced some problem running very slow with XAMPP 1.7.3 on Windows 7 Basic. After trial and error, I try to enable IPv4 only on XAMPP (by default XAMPP use IPv6). Just simply run "setup_xampp.bat" and type "5" to toggle between IPv6 and IPv4.

On firefox I also try to set "network.dns.disableIPv6" value into "true". See http://drupal.org/node/348202#comment-2176710

It works for me. Hope it helps.

Edwin Yulianto

Alric’s picture

I added this to the bottom of sites/default/settings.php
$conf['drupal_http_request_fails'] = FALSE;

This fixed >30s timeouts, turned it in to normal load times. I guess it stops Drupal worrying about the fact that it can't connect to external websites.
Drupal actually gives this tip in the log, but I had to increase php execution time before I could get to it.

brunorios1’s picture

i tried everything...

now i have just configured a lamp server with ubuntu/virtualbox in a windows 7 host. but still during 20 seconds to load modules page in chrome...

i don't know what to do...

rockallite’s picture

The only thing that dramatically improves my localhost Drupal site performance:

In my.ini, or MySql configuration file, add the following line:
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 0

Here's a contrast:

Operation Time before tuning Time after tuning
Open module list >5s <1s
Save theme settings >30s <5s

BTW, I'm using WampServer 2.1 on Windows 7, with Drupal 6.20.

Stomper’s picture

I will give this a go, is this the same procedure for a live server? I have root access to my VPS

rockallite’s picture

According to this article:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/11/01/innodb-performance-optimi...

...and this:
http://drupal.org/node/817398

On a production site, maybe we should change the configuration to this:
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2

solobobo’s picture

Thanks ! All the above methods do not work for me except yours ! :D

Dane Powell’s picture

Wow, I'm absolutely amazed that such a simple solution worked so well - page load times were reduced by about 90% after adding innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2 and restarting mysql.

bstrelec’s picture

This works, thx m8, you are time saver.

xbery’s picture

Works fine on windows 7 with Zend Server CE!!!

Thanks to your solution my Modules page loading time DECREASED!!

From 200s to 3-5s.

Saved my sanity.

Thanks.

Edit: Just to point out - I use InnoDB engine for drupal DB tables :-). It is obvious but.. :-)

zeezhao’s picture

Please has anyone got any explanation as to why zend + apache configuration is so much faster than xampp apache on windows 7?

xbery’s picture

Nope. Maybe it has something to do with Zend caching mechanisms or with the fact that even when using Zend Server CE it is still better than XAMPP :-)

nilashis’s picture

thank you wuzel109 - this one works like a charm. so fast....

johnmcgeechan’s picture

Having tried all suggestions, installing Zend CE, running Apache via Zend but Mysql via XAMPP/ disabling firewall etc. I tried upping my innodb_buffer_pool_size (in my.ini) and my page response went from 30 seconds to about 1 ! I increased it from 16M to 2000M ( just to see if it would have any effect).

You *can* up this to about 50-80% of RAM, but obviously use with caution. It works fine for me as I only spark up the Mysql Workbench and/or Zend server if I *am* doing Mysql/Drupal work, if you use you machine for other processes, you may of course see degradation of performance whilst running Mysql...

Should add then that removing XAMPP , for me anyway, was a complete red herring. The problem was purely MYSQL and how I had it configured, though actually haver grown to quite like using Zend CE over XAMPP....

Nikdhil Mdohfan’s picture

Hi,
You can try various caching mechanisms like

http://drupal.org/project/boost
http://drupal.org/project/statistics_ajax
Firebug, Yahoo Yslow

And more. Try upgrading your XAMPP.

tryitonce’s picture

The final answer seems to me to be:

Go dual boot with Windows and Linux.

I finally took the plunge and set up my machine with Ubuntu and Windows (XP still) and I found setting up Ubuntu (11.10) was a lot easier now than a year ago and certainly than Windows.

With sharing Thunderbird and Firefox settings across the 2 OSs there is hardly a reason not to go dual boot.
...............

Lars Bo Jensen’s picture

I chose Zend Server CE with its MySQL and phpMyAdmin after having tried XAMPP, Uniform Server and the Zend-XAMPP-combo explained at #3349704. That one seems a little complicated, but is aware of portability. Anyway, it all only almost worked entirely, and I wanted it to work. Zend did. Setup explained at http://sebastianklinge.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/developing-drupal-websit... He recommends PHP 5.2 for Drupal 6. See http://drupal.org/requirements for your needs.

If you want high performance, you will have to change the MySQL settings: edit the my.ini file. In my default install, it's in C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\MySQL51.

Back up your .ini files.

Right click and run your text editor and file browser as admin in order to rename files and/or edit them.

Restart MySQL for changes to take effect and to test if you have messed things up: Control Panel > System and security > Administration > Services > MySQL. Or a command prompt.

http://tiger-fish.com/blog/wamp-server-and-drupal-running-slowly explains how to rename other .ini files in the directory to my.ini, but not how to set up paths and stuff right. I ended up editing my.ini instead of renaming one of the others, using these settings: http://drupal.org/node/259580, except for innodb_log_file_size = 10M, which killed my server. I left it at 52M.

I left innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1. #4473280 recommends 2, but on my system that's a lot slower.

On my system (i7-2677M 1,80 GHz, 4GB RAM, SSD), a Drupal with 81 activated modules now runs fast as hell in any browser, with many opened browser tabs and other programs running, and I haven't even touched my firewall or anti-virus or tried the many other tweaks and tricks on this great page. Thank you for sharing, guys / Drupal community!

akki123’s picture

I applied all trick on my XAMPP , win7
- cache real size
- $conf['drupal_http_request_fails'] = FALSE;
- change firefox ipv6 ( but it is slow on Chrome too )
- use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost.

All failed, very disappointing.
Joomla is running quite fast on the same system.

The same Drupal code is running fast on Linux host server.

akki

hazit’s picture

Hi all

Tried all of the settings changes above - none of them worked for me.

The next step would be to switch from Acquia dev desktop to Zend to run my new D7 site.

Beyond that - abandoning installing and configuring the whole thing on linux!

These are both daunting prospects after already spending two whole days on this with no results.

I am reluctant to do the whole Zend instal and switch over just on a punt that it might work, only to burn through another half day.

I guess I will have to go the Zend route - just tough as Drupal seems to burn up so much time just to get it to the stage of being functional...

tryitonce’s picture

... that's the way to go - I didn't like the dual boot and thus came up with this solution two hard-drives one computer - interrupting the bios boot run at start-up to chose one or the other hard-drive - http://www.sds-i.com/content/linux-windows-dual-boot-or-why-not. The other hard-drive for Linux could be an external one ...

Good luck ....

arvigeus’s picture

It's never too late to participate in this topic, especially when it hits the top google results. So here is my EXTREMELY stupid issue. After a PHP update my site ran like turtle on a quicksand. I knew the update caused it, but I thought I did it correct. To save you the frustration:

Try a fresh instalation of drupal somewhere in your site. The idea behind it is to let the installer check if your system is Drupal compatible. Since I overwritten the php.ini, the gd extension was missing. My main Drupal site did not complained about it, but it was the killer that turned my site into turtle.

(maybe there is a better approach, but this one is the easiest)

Asogan’s picture

I'm no expert but I initially tried XAMPP with Drupal 7 - painfully slow.

I then used the Acquia Development install, which is an 'all in one' install (includes AMP). It's hitting lightspeed compared to my previous experience. Install was much, much easier too.

hwi2’s picture

I use WAMP and have increased my realpath_cache_size in php.ini from 16 to 2M. That made it much faster, but Acquia Dev Desktop is great as well (which I use on another machine).

Bruce

drupalshrek’s picture

If you're trying to get the hang of Drupal, why Drupal 6.8? Drupal 7 is the latest version and has been for a few years now.

drupalshrek

fuzzy76’s picture

Dude, the post was from 2008...

Nikit’s picture

After count of Windows Apache/Nginx Mysql PHP variations (these work nice first time, but then these will slow and slower, errors and bugs), I came back to the Linux, using VirtualBox.
For this,
1. I am install Ubuntu 14.04 (you can install any other, but this is the most famous and friendly for non-linux users, so more help on the internet) as guest computer on my master Windows 8.
2. On guest computer I add 2 network adapters (one is NAT, for accessing internet from guest, other is VirtualBox Host-only adapter for connecting master and guest via static IP). So I can access my guest as http://192.168.1.XXX or SFTP/FTP.
3. Also there I am install free Vesta Console Panel (other nice is Ajenti), that install for me Apache+MySql+PHP, and in future used for preparing site folders and DBs in "one click" :) Of course, you should add manually on "hosts" file in Windows, for accessing guest domains, like: http://drupal7.local
4. Additionally installed OpenSSL for using Putty, and Drush 7 for running drush commands in putty.
5. For development on Drupal Netbeans installed on my master that see guest sites code via SFTP.
6. For running guest as windows service I am VmServiceTray software, that run only on my demand, so windows loaded with virtual PC only at coding time.

So now I got:
a. No slowness as Windows AMP/NMP for big sites with big DBs - even it run as virtual machine, it will faster!
b. I can fully use Solr, Drush commands and any other Linux and Drupal useful tools without problems.
c. I can continue use Windows softwares/games without switching to the Ubuntu :)
d. For the Internet static IP I can safely provide own computer as server for dev/tests.