Performance tweaks and fixes.
Posted: 19 Nov 2010, 22:32
We're still having some sporadic performance issues.
I've tracked them down to two optional board features which we've still got enabled.
Firstly there's the marking of the read/unread state of each thread. Currently we track everything in the server itself, storing the last visit time for each user's visit to each thread. As this table is now absolutely huge, looking this up takes some time, and slows the server down when both displaying a list of topics, and topics themselves. If we instead store the same information a user's own browser, it reduces the server load considerably. However one drawback is the fact that you can't move between browsers and keep the same read/unread state.
The other is the tracking of every thread a user has posted to; again this results in another fairly huge table that gets accessed many times whenever a list of topics is generated.
If I disable these, we should see some increase in performance. It may require users of some browsers to delete their cookies for this site.
I've some other performance ideas to try out. I want to run some tests on the main database to attempt to get to the bottom of the problems encountered when deleting posts, but as that will require taking the board down for 30 minutes or more I will have to give adequate warnings before I attempt it.
Another issue is that phpBB 3.0.8 is due to be released soon, perhaps even by the end of the month. This incorporates many fixes, including some relating to performance.
I've tracked them down to two optional board features which we've still got enabled.
Firstly there's the marking of the read/unread state of each thread. Currently we track everything in the server itself, storing the last visit time for each user's visit to each thread. As this table is now absolutely huge, looking this up takes some time, and slows the server down when both displaying a list of topics, and topics themselves. If we instead store the same information a user's own browser, it reduces the server load considerably. However one drawback is the fact that you can't move between browsers and keep the same read/unread state.
The other is the tracking of every thread a user has posted to; again this results in another fairly huge table that gets accessed many times whenever a list of topics is generated.
If I disable these, we should see some increase in performance. It may require users of some browsers to delete their cookies for this site.
I've some other performance ideas to try out. I want to run some tests on the main database to attempt to get to the bottom of the problems encountered when deleting posts, but as that will require taking the board down for 30 minutes or more I will have to give adequate warnings before I attempt it.
Another issue is that phpBB 3.0.8 is due to be released soon, perhaps even by the end of the month. This incorporates many fixes, including some relating to performance.