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Posted on 09/09/2026 6:55:32 AM PDT by rlmorel
I have been getting long delays in opening Free Republic pages or threads. It can take up to 5-10 seconds.
When posting a comment, I occasionally get a timeout error, sometimes even with the error it does post, and when I resubmit the post it without checking first by refreshing, I can sometimes get two posts.
Occasionally it times out completely opening a window and I get an NGINX gateway error.
This is happening on no other sites for me. I can ping any other number of Internet sites, and get 20 ms responses. Pinging freerepublic.com gives 60-70 ms responses.
If I ping all other websites, this is what I get:
PING whitehouse.gov (192.0.66.51): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.0.66.51: icmp_seq=0 ttl=60 time=26.331 ms
64 bytes from 192.0.66.51: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=21.056 ms
64 bytes from 192.0.66.51: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=37.691 ms
64 bytes from 192.0.66.51: icmp_seq=3 ttl=60 time=21.747 ms
64 bytes from 192.0.66.51: icmp_seq=4 ttl=60 time=29.494 ms
However, if I ping Free Republic, this is what I get:
PING freerepublic.com (45.79.56.181): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 45.79.56.181: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=71.808 ms
64 bytes from 45.79.56.181: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=68.921 ms
64 bytes from 45.79.56.181: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=68.656 ms
64 bytes from 45.79.56.181: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=62.789 ms
64 bytes from 45.79.56.181: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=62.876 ms
I see this kind of disparity universally, ping times to Free Republic are 2-3 times longer.
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Jim
My guess is that the slowness is database access speed, which will scale with the compute resources regardless of time of day, although heavy user load will make it worse also.
FR has a gigantic database, and it's all accessible to members, but that means if the compute resources are cut back to save money, database access will suffer.
And EVERYTHING you experience on FR requires database access. Some more than others. Writing comments to the database and searching for things like "My Comments" are compute-heavy.
I don't think it's primarily net bandwidth or number of users active, although those wil make it worse.
But like I said, I'm speculating based on my own IT experience.
If I had to guess, it is their own Free Republic gateway they are having issues with in some way, not an ISP or my own hardware.
I agree with what you say. Except the part about begging for money. His father used to post daily FReepathon requests in Breaking News.
Chris does not do this at all. Hell, Ransomnote and other ordinary Freepers post more pleas for money than Chris does.
He has however posted about the problems with the credit card providers, and good news about Venmo now being an option.
But if Chris and John took an active role in running this place like their father did, I bet the finances wouldn't be so severe.
No problems at all here in Occupied Territory of Minneapolistan. Maybe a regional thing.
I don’t think it is the number of users-I am seeing the delay at all times even when the traffic should be slower after midnight.
I envision a server process that is problematic...either on the load balancer if they have one, on the SQL application, a backup that isn’t running in a timely fashion and cascading into subsequent backups, or something like that. It could even be a DDOS attack at some less-than-debilitating level.
Ugh. I hate even thinking about these things.
Hmmm. Things that make you go “Hmmmmm.”
Me too. Perhaps a DNS attack?
For example, if they had a load balancer that had a sticky setting, so that your requests from you or your ISP always end up going to the same functional load balancer, they get put right through.
However, if my requests were sticky to a malfunctioning load balancer, my requests would always go to the bad one, fail, and then get handed off to the back of the line of requests at one of the working load balancers, so it would be quick for you all the time, and longer for me all the time.
Just thinking aloud here. I don’t even know if they have load balancers, how many they have, and how they are configured. The must have a few of them, though, with as much traffic as they get.
Yes.
I don’t think the admins trust try the cloud.
I’m guessing the server runs in someone’s basement.
FR is hosted on Linode. I don't know how extensive or robust their anti-DDoS mechanisms are. They've been around for a long time, but are not one of the "big boys" like AWS or Google or Azure.
You might find this interesting: https://sitereport.netcraft.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreerepublic.com
LOL. They host FR on Linode. https://www.linode.com/
Backed by Akamai. Trust me, that's not somebody's basement. :-)
Yep, it’s as slow as the donation rate.
Sad to say, but FR seems to be slowly dying.
Heh. I remember I had a similar issue back in 2007. I did a network trace and observed my path was going to an unlisted router in Langley, VA before going back out to FR. I could tell only because there was a public router gatewaying with the destination.
Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters
Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters
Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters
Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters
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