#1: S Stahl (sastahl) on Sep 2, 2018

I have found the site much slower for the last month or so. Sometimes my browser times out before the puzzle is served. Can someone tell us what the story is, or if some kind of help is needed?

I love these puzzles, I feel very grateful to the person who took over from Jan.

Sarah

This has been happening off and on since 2013. Jan fixed it for a while by putting both the webserver and the mysql database on the same server. Then as the user count went up, he further improved server time by changing the front page to lessen the database fetches, and then he actually put the database into the same directory as the programs.

That worked well for a time, but then the host upgraded the system and deleted the program directory to install the new version, unfortunately deleting our database for several years.

Now I'm sure the database is no longer in the program directory for obvious reasons, and it could be that the webserver and mysql are on different servers again (this being the default). There are many reasons why it could be slowing down from increased traffic to many different kinds of software interaction. Jan's partner Valerie takes care of the site now, but her life is full even without this.

My advice is to take the time to pause and relax.

Thanks very much for the response, Joe. I am not a web programmer and therefore I can't do anything to help, but if contributions were needed than I would be willing to chip in. I've gotten many hours of pleasure/frustration from the site.

Surely someone with the skills to help our small community will step up. They would be our hero...I love this very, very special site...someone who also loves it needs to know its history...and then be a knight or damsel in shining armor or skin-tight gold lamé. One's life would be the better for it. I so wish I had the skill set. Sigh. As Blanche Devereaux says (with panache), "Ah hayev always depended up-awn the kahnd-ness of strangahs." Although, if someone helps, they will no longer be a stranger to our community

I believe that was Blanche DeBois, not Devereaux. Although Deveraux may have plagiarized it for some Golden Girls episode.

I just found this thread. I don't check the forums very often, but I am here and actively maintaining the site. If you need something, or if the site is slow, please do let me know.

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