Anyone else getting long delays opening Free Republic pages? (VANITY)

https://freerepublic.com ^ | 9/9/2026 | rlmorel

[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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TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: internet

[goodnesswins]

Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters

[goodnesswins]

Yes...in Oregon here...if that matters

[goodnesswins]

And, I waited a long time!!!

[bobrlbob]

YES

[Magnum44]

I did a network trace and observed my path was going to an unlisted router in Langley, VA before going back out to FR.

[salmon76]

YES (It took me about two minutes just to post this)

[SunkenCiv]

Yup, for a week or so at this point. I got one just now, trying to post a reply. I'll click on a different tab to see if the motion is going on in my working tab, means it's loading, loading, loading. If it goes on too long I'll get a gateway timeout. If I'm posting (new reply or new topic) and it fails, I double check in a different tab, to see if it worked, because it sometimes does then gives me the failure. Has to do with the order.

[Justa]

“Sad to say, but FR seems to be slowly dying.”

That’s what a lack of content moderation does to a website. No content, no character. You can get that off of CL chat rooms, FB or any other public forum.

FReepers used to pay JR for his moderation which retained the focus and value of the site while chasing out bots, spammers, disruptions, paid political advertising, nefarious, unscrupulous posters etc.

Without moderation it’s like going to a homeless camp behind a flea market for civic discussion.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Yep. Same here in SW VA.

[central_va]

TDSers are part of the problem.

[goodnesswins]

Test

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

I just posted to a different thread. Fast as ever.

I'm running Windows7 on a very old laptop, wireless connection. You would think I'd be the one complaining about speed.

[goodnesswins]

Solution...I just deleted all my history and cache (on phine) and FR woeks fine now!

[Responsibility2nd]

TDSers are part of the problem.

______________________________

I agree. Angry Trumpers with TDS.

(see tagline)

[rlmorel]

It is an interesting thing-I have a 16 year old Mac laptop, and it normally does just fine surfing the internet. And I kind of expect that.

I am going to try again to delete all my history and caches...there are computer things that just don’t seem to take, and it takes multiple tries, so I am going to try a shot at at that. And rebooting everything from scratch.

The old “Turn it off and turn it back on again” has some truth in it.

[rlmorel]

Yes! I did that as well, and saw that too to trace an email. At some point, the tool I used omitted those locations, even though I was pretty sure it was still going there. They just didn't want us to see that.

[rlmorel]

Hmmmm! Guess what? I had done all these things, rebooting, cache deletions, etc. in the last couple of days to no effect.

And up until about a half hour ago...I was still getting that same delay on all devices.

But after I took a half hour to do something else, I came back and logged on, and it works just fine.

Hahahahaha....personally, when I saw things like this in my former life, it was because some process that was stuck or problematic resolved itself, or admins knew about the issue and had been trying to run it down, and fixed it (such as rebooting a load balancer or stopping and restarting some process)

So, for me, after going on a week, it started performing as it should sometime in the last hour or so.

Is it working fine for anyone else now?

[rlmorel]

Heh, the one everyone used about 10-15 years ago, I can’t even remember the name, stopped showing those specific locations. I recall there were three of those locations, then they stopped appearing in the trace.

Programmed out. You didn’t need to know that, apparently.

[Mark17]

Yes, but it only seemed to last minutes, then back to normal.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

Now I’m on my mainstay office laptop running Debian 13 Trixie. It’s lightning fast. Wired internet.