I've got a bog standard BT 2Mb pipe for work. Usually OK. But every so often, I go through spells where certain sites just fall off the net - or so it seems. Mainly BBC and TheRegister ... I click on a link and it takes ages to load, or just fails completely. However, my ping to google stays rock solid at about 30ms. Also my connection to works Citrix server never fails, so I am definitely connected.
Or is this just me hitting underpowered servers ? Or something to prevent a DDoS attack ?
The symptoms suggest a DNS problem. What DNS servers are you using? Switch to Google or OpenDNS and see whether that cures it.
What nameserver do you use, from what you say it sounds like the server has lost the data connecting the name to its number so to speak. Next time try finding an ip address and go there via the number and see if that works faster. I'm using open dns and it seems better than the Virgin ones for this, but that might just be coincidence.
Brian
I was using BTs ... I'll try google for a while.
its probably some site they are linked to that causes the issues.
There is a horrible habit for sites to be written with the equivalent of:
INCLUDE this image from centralisedimageserver.bollocksmedaiacorp.com INCLUDE this bit of javascript from clickcentral.com INCLUDE this bit of flash shit from wemakeyourlifehell.com INCLUDE this video from crapvideohostingscorp.com and so on.
Any one of those sites (which are natural targets for hackers) that fails to respond cripples the whole page load.
That only one of many reasons why pages 'hang'
All it means is that at some IP level an expected response has not happened. That could be during a DNS lookup yes, but it could also be connecting to any one of up to thirty or forty sites which form the 'whole page'
- Any given page can comprise any number of frames which need not be hosted on the same machine.
- Any given frame can have a stylesheet that is not necessarily on the same machine.
- any given frame can have an infinite number of images, none of which need be on the same machine.
- ditto flash videos and sound files.
- ditto javascript libraries for people too lazy to create or download their own.
- and we haven't even got to ajax and so on where javascript engines create calls to yet further servers to build the web page from live data.
The fact is that my own servers load ten times faster on pathetic hardware and bandwidth than a typical large corporate site, simply because its all on the one machine, and I keep connections down to the bare minimum and where ever possible, compress the data, and I don't use other people bloated libraries or a huge amount of javashit.
And when I do run into issues, its nearly always because, at some level, I HAVE called up some external server.
You've missed;
INCLUDE sending tracking information to trackandspame.com INCLUDE getting tracking information from trackandspame.com INCLUDE sending tracking information to irrelevantads.com INCLUDE getting ads from irrlevantads.com
Nothing like enough. The last tracking Javascript I looked at loaded over 30 cookies.
It's going to be interesting to see what's going to happen with the EU cookie directive (the law says people have to consent to these cookies.) The marketing dweebs are whinging that it will destroy their business, to which my response is "good".
Are you sure its the connection that is failing or could it be name resolution that is suffering?
As an experiment, make a note of the IP address of one of your popular destinations. Next time it seems to be inaccessible, try pinging that. If that still works ok, then it may be time to try an alternate DNS like OpenDNS or Google's DNS
Installing Adblock in the browser helps greatly with many of these... also when you see a site with the status bar indicating a long pause on some less than obvious external site, you can add that to the block list.
Yep. I'll take that as fair criticism. :)
cookies are not internet calls.
trouble is you cant build a stateful site without cookies
Indeed. Adblock and Flashblock make for MUCH faster loading sites that actually have more information content of the sort you want.
It also avoids you having to pay for bandwith you never wanted or needed anyway.
I wonder if my default position of 'I wont buy anything advertised on TV on the basis that it will necessarily cost more than it needs to' will become the social norm.
I nearly had to stop shopping at Waitrose. I won't go near Tesco's except when all other alternatives have failed.
Possible temporary errors in the global routing table. If a circuit goes down, and its an important one, it can sometimes take a few minutes for all the routes in a number of routers to get updated to reflect this situation.
There is no "global routing table".
You can do it with fat urls for single sessions on one site... preserving context between visits is harder though.
No-one's saying you can't use cookies, just that you have to ask before installing them.
These days with stuff like Ajax, Adobe AIR and the like, they're getting less relevant.
Quite.
seconds rather than minutes.
More usual is that links get congested.. rather than break entirely. TCP/IP is not so adept at handling that, and very slow responses are still 'legal'.
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