Vanity Request: Please no photos or graphics today, it just slows the server down

Vanity

[Chet 99]

Vanity Request: Please no photos or graphics today, it just slows the server down

I would urge everyone to stick to plain text posts today. Things are running very slowly as it is.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

Okie Dokie! FR is running very slow as it is.

All I wanna hear tonight is “McCain WINS”!

[Yo-Yo]

Graphics aren’t stored on the FR servers. Links are downloaded to your browser, which goes out to the linked image and brings it in.

Linking graphics may slow down your computer, depending on the server that hosts the image and the speed of your connection, but it doesn’t slow down FR.

[perfect_rovian_storm]

I think either the database or something to do with load balancing is what’s causing the slow downs. It might be a DDoS too, but the traceroutes look clean.

I don’t think plain text will help any. The photos load from external servers anyway, since nobody here uploads them to FR itself.

[Old Grumpy]

I thought something was wrong with my computer here at work. I bet at home tonight, it will be even slower. Sigh.

[diverteach]

I’m finding the overall web to be slow today. It’s not just FR.

[allmost]

The time stamp for the posts still hasn’t been corrected yet from the earlier issues. Pics shouldn’t affect what looks like (from here) a denial of service attack.

[JennysCool]

Sounds like it’s time for an upgrade at the Chet 99 household!

[usmcobra]

It’s a server attack obama’s people are trying to limit our conversations by clogging the server.

It has happened before during the political conventions.

[justlurking]

A clarification:

Images do not not slow the Free Republic Server down, unless they are hosted on it.

If a poster adds an IMG link to embed a photo in their reply, the reader's browser requests that image from the source -- which is almost always another server elsewhere, specified by the poster of the image.

However, it DOES slow down the loading of a particular thread. If you are unfortunate to have slow Internet access, it may take a long time to load all those images.

But otherwise, Chet is right: let's keep the image posting down, OK? A lot of people will be following the election results on this site, and it will be much easier on them if you stick to text tonight.

[Gamecock]

Seems that all the vanities are slowing things down as well...

[Brown Deer]

Graphics will not slow the servers down because they come from other sources.

It might be a DDoS too

Seems like it to me...
I have also been unable to get into the Fox Strategy Room.

[Vigilanteman]

I think Jim Robinson or one of the moderators would be the proper person to make a request such as this.

We should do as they ask because if bandwidth is scare, we should limit posts to things like news of fraud, intimidation or other stories which might either (a)help influence the election outcome or (b)keep our troops working hard until the last polling place closes and the last voter votes.

[Responsibility2nd]

Is it photos or graphics that is slowing down FR today?

Or just a hundred vanities per hour? (lol - no offense Chet)

Or... Is it the video links that FR has between the article and the comments. These things are annoying and they slow down my computer at work. In fact. My work computer wont allow flash videos so I can’t view them even if I wanted to.

Are these FR videos a part of the FR slowdown problem today? Can you suspend them for the next 24 hours?

Or am I blowing it out my hat?

[TomGuy]

It is not the posting of graphics that is causes the sluggishness and potential crashes.

Threads that are text threads are just as sluggish.

The problem is in the program that runs FR. They can’t seem to find or correct it. It has been recurring for months. The 3 new servers didn’t correct the situation.

[Glenn]

Have you asked the mods to suspend the donation videos on every thread?

[Clint N. Suhks]

Any idea why FR is so slow today?

Election? Server problems? Somebody forgot to feed the gerbils? All three? ;o)

[Joe 6-pack]

Smaller fonts will also travel through the internet more quickly.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I agree!

I turned off photos in IE 7 now and FR is still very slow.
I have DSL, speed test says 581.287 KB.
Other sites running seem to be running normal.

[TomGuy]

Have you asked the mods to suspend the donation videos on every thread?

They used to remove that donation section (video/graphics) after the donationathons ended.


Regardless, that isn't the problem. Whenever the browser returns a "can't find the page" error (which I am getting frequently), that means the server is glitching. In the past, they have said that was the result of a bad database. If so, the database is getting more and more corrupted.