By zoo on

Drupal 6.12 on XP for testing purpose (WAMPserver)
D/Modules installed: 35
Php 5.2.5
MySQL 4.1.22

PROBLEM:
--------------
Drupal is very slow in loading several admin pages:
- Modules
- Available Updates
- Status Report
- Update.php
- Administer
- and running Cron.

Searched and read the site for hours, tried different approaches/solutions, but still doesn't work.
Almost resigned! :-( ...

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

turn off the status update.module and check.

depending on the combination of modules in that "35" you may be hitting your ceiling. I assume it wasn't slow when you started, as you didn't mention that to be the case.

you don't mention the hardware involved either.

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Thank you VM,
just tried to disable the "Update status" and all the contrib modules and the hardware (2400MHz, 4GB Ram) is fine, but nothing changed.

It is really very frustrating to await just for simple operations.

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

It takes 30 seconds to load the modules list page (35 modules installed).
This with every browser: IE, FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari.

It seems to much to me or is it OK?

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Just installed and tried XAMPP, to see if the slowdown I'm experiencing could be due to WAMPserver setting, but no luck: modules list page and other admin pages remain very slow to load (30 seconds!).

vm’s picture

vm commented

admin pages with 35 modules will likely take longer to show, especially admin/modules. None of those pages are cached. Whether they should take 30 seconds or not, I don't know. I don't use 35 modules at any one time.

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Thank you VM.

Drupal on live site takes only 7sec. to load the admin pages.

I'm wondering why on local site it needs so long (30sec...)

It is almost impossible keep testing locally this way, I'm feeling frustrated...

vm’s picture

vm commented

if its' fine on the server and not on the localmachine, I guess you would have to look at the difference in hardware and the software running on that hardware.

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Thank you for your help.
Some software related informations:

- Apache 2.2.8 - MySQL 4.1.22 - Php 5.2.5 (all both on live and local site, to narrow down the differences)

- Linux on live site - WinXP/sp3 for testing.

As I said, on live site Drupal responds quite fast but locally is pretty much impossible to navigate modules list and some other crucial admin pages (see above).

If anyone has experienced similar slowdowns and wants to tell I would appreciate...

zoo

stodge’s picture

stodge commented

DNS settings? Presumably they're different on the two machines? IP6 - might that cause issues if it's enabled?

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Thank You Stodge,

both on local and remote IPv6 Support is enabled.

What would you suggest to do?

I apologize for my DNS knowledge which is admittedly lacking.

davidseth’s picture

davidseth commented

Hello,

This worked great for me. Just edit your hosts file (located in C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) and make sure you have two lines like:

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 127.0.0.1

That will re-route any IPv6 calls to 127.0.0.1 and Drupal is happy!

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Found "Drupal impacted by limitation of Windows/PHP/IPv6", this among others: http://drupal.org/node/346392

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

For the record: on local I have just tried to install Wordpress, it responds quickly either doing updating or admin procedures (same machine and Apache / MySQL / PHP config).

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

I guess DNS IP6 could be the answer only I feel a bit confused on what to do now.

(I've tried to read something but it's not quite my field)

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

zoo

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

(Sorry to seem insistent, this is my last question on this if I will get no answer)

Is there someone that have experienced DNS issues on localhost which caused the slowdowns of some crucial Drupal admin pages?

I ask because I suspect to have a problem like that (thanks to Stodge for the suggestion).

Thank You in advance

zoo

tryitonce’s picture

tryitonce commented

Hi Zoo,

someone in this discussion pointed to your troubles - http://drupal.org/node/348202.

You might have seen it!?

My experience is that Drupal is a big CMS thing and runs "relatively" slow on a local (windows) host. Tough.

One reason of course is that Drupal runs uncached (most likely) in your development set-up. And while developing your site you are executing complex tasks in Drupal - they take time.

At least I have resigned my self to this "relatively" slow running and often can only activate a couple of modules at a time. When I do some development on a site running on an external server I get slightly better response times, but switching on and off modules also takes 30 secs or so there.

When I put my sides on a server they run pretty fast as desired and just like this www.Drupal.org website.
I am not the expert on any of the inner workings of the OP systems, but I thought I share my experience and that all the expert helping me are ensuring me that all is fine. Of course, they all tell me also to set-up a linux machine for this type of work.

I shall follow this discussion and will try out any good speeding up suggestions.

Good luck -

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Hi tryitonce,

thank you, it was me :))

By now I'm pretty conscious that Drupal is fine here and that the problem should reside somewhere else...

Sadly, my only solution currently is uploading on live server and testing there!

zoo

philippogol’s picture

philippogol commented

hello zoo

i know that was posted on may but anyways.

did you found a solution for the performance problem? im working also locally with wamp and it takes very long (and like you, on the server runs pretty fast)

tell me please if you found a solution for the localhost

thanks!

tryitonce’s picture

tryitonce commented

http://drupal.org/node/348202#comment-2176710

good luck

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

Hello philippogol,

no I didn't find a solution. I found many, many opinions, advises, sort of workarounds, but none of them really worked in my case (missing through the web, it was confusing to relate to all those informations).

After reformatting my OS I noticed an improvement in speed which I ascribed to the fact this time I first installed WAMP and only after that I installed SKYPE (precedence to port 80?).

Drupal isn't double-quick yet, however it is faster than earlier before reformatting the OS.

happy new year

Bye

Zoo

zoo’s picture

zoo commented

So in my case things went better with this workaround (simply in the host file added "127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1" soon before "127.0.0.1 localhost").

Hope this could work for you too.

Thanks to all

bye

zoo

nokelly’s picture

nokelly commented

This worked for me too. So I would say definitely something to do with DNS resolution. It probably doesn't affect our linux cousins which is why they offer up somewhat micky mouse explanations about RAM and processor speed. No doubt they'd blame Windows, but that doesn't pass much muster with me as Wordpress doesn't have this problem.

To be honest, the architectural (modular) ethos is probably the route cause. As a former software engineer myslef, the number of database table in the core alone is frightening! And that's before you even add modules to allow Drupal to actually "do" something useful.

My best guess as to what is going on is that app is connecting to the database afresh for each query instead of just once for the whole transaction.

The phase, "A camel is a horse designed by committee" springs to mind. I guess this is just one of the humps!

carole’s picture

carole commented

Thanks so much for all the advice. I got dramatic improvements with the hosts file change plus changing Firefox's about:config settings. Open a new FF window for the settings to take effect:

network.http.keep-alive to false

network.dns.disableIPv6 to true

muratsalma’s picture

muratsalma commented

check this out:
http://drupal.org/node/348202#comment-3349704

egarias’s picture

egarias commented

I have VPS, small sites are ok, but the problem is in the big one http://empresa.artic-group.net
Mi site has a huge database and some administrative taks run ok, but for example module activation/deactivation takes too long, i cannot do in big traffic hours because of the risk of server down.
The sites are running in a VPS LINUX, any help?

Egarias
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