wxWidgets Discussion Forum

It's weird being only 12 hops away from the server that these forums are hosted on, but still seeing 5-7 second page load times normally, and getting as bad as 20-30 second page load times like right now (and especially odd that right now should be off-peak time). If it's bad for me, I can't imagine what it's like for everyone in Europe.

This has really been a constant problem for years now, and I bring this topic up every year or so hoping we can find a better solution. Finding new hosting has been impossible in the past, but I'm always hopeful that another year will bring new possibilities.

My server could handle the load perfectly fine, but I won't host the forums now since I'm hosting the main site, the wiki, and the official online manuals, and adding the forums to that would be putting too many eggs in one basket (I already wish I could move one of the other ones off to a different server).

If we put aside the issue of other hosting for the moment, I have to wonder whether this issue has been brought up with our current hosting provider. They really should be aware of this issue, and should have had it fixed years ago.

Is there some caching system we could be using that isn't configured correctly? If this isn't on a shared hosting provider, is Apache really configured correctly? It doesn't seem like it is.

Hi Tierra,

Apologies for my absence, life is just too busy. I know the site is slow at times. Jason Sheets did his best to make it better, but something is lagging. I am fine with re-hosting it somewhere else, but I kind of depleted my efforts trying to get it faster in it's current configuration. I can't configure anything that is relevant in Plesk, so it is either the hosting service, unlucky position, or something else that makes it lag.

In any case, I can provide the PHP code and a dump of the SQL database and we can ask the wxWidgets guys to reconfigure the DNS to the new hosting.

But I do not own a hosted site, I am not going to pay for one, so if we can figure out a hosting service and someone to actually maintain it there, I am willing to hand it over...

With regards,
- Jorgen

Is this forum running on a dedicated server? My guess was always that the slowdown is caused by another site being hosted on the same machine, because i whenever i notice a big lag, i don't see a higher number of users online. It can even happen in the middle of the night when i'm the only user.

And i hardly ever see more than 6-7 users online at the same time, this really shouldn't be a problem.

This forum is hosted (for free) by Idaho Web Hosting. A company (I believe) ran by a former forum member, Jason Sheets. So I think it runs in a virtual server environment, and I have no idea about the HW it runs on, or how busy the server is due to other sites running on it.

Grtz,
- Jorgen

Well, as a last resort, and maybe if Jason (or Idaho Web Hosting) would rather not host the forums anymore seeing as how he is no longer actively involved in helping run it, we could move the forums over to the wxWidgets SourceForge web hosting, which is no longer being used for anything right now.

SourceForge has made a number of improvements with the web service now that makes it possible (it can actually use email now, and there's no longer a security loophole to gaining access to the DB).

I still have some hesitation to host anything there considering SF.net's history. It might still be better than hosting with Idaho Web Hosting though. If that's a route we would like to take, just let me know. I can arrange to have everything setup.

tierra wrote:Well, as a last resort, and maybe if Jason (or Idaho Web Hosting) would rather not host the forums anymore seeing as how he is no longer actively involved in helping run it, we could move the forums over to the wxWidgets SourceForge web hosting, which is no longer being used for anything right now.

SourceForge has made a number of improvements with the web service now that makes it possible (it can actually use email now, and there's no longer a security loophole to gaining access to the DB).

I still have some hesitation to host anything there considering SF.net's history. It might still be better than hosting with Idaho Web Hosting though. If that's a route we would like to take, just let me know. I can arrange to have everything setup.

sourceforge also supports PhpBB officially now, this may need to be considered (only thing annoying, when you use their built-in app support you get an ad banner)

I won't recommend which is better though since I don't quite know

I don't know either. I can however send over the PHP scripts and the MySQL database dump (will habe to put some effort in that) to any person who knows a spot that will relocate the wxForum. I contacted Jason a while back about the forum and got no reply. So I think he just doesn't know what else might be the reason, or we (as freewheelers) spent up our last bit of support credits

With regards,
- Jorgen

Auria wrote:sourceforge also supports PhpBB officially now, this may need to be considered

They do, but either way we most likely would need to run our own version since we have custom mods installed. That's not a problem though, you still could run phpBB even before they added it as a launchable service.

Jorg wrote:I contacted Jason a while back about the forum and got no reply. So I think he just doesn't know what else might be the reason, or we (as freewheelers) spent up our last bit of support credits

That's not usually the kind of "reply" I look for from someone hosting forums with 10k+ registered users. I hope that isn't what happens when the issue is not a minor one.

In this regard, I do know that at least SF.net would be better about looking into an issue and getting it resolved one way or another.

I would like the complain that the site performance is again intermittent and poor. Sometimes the site simply fails to respond, other times it's very slow to respond.

Once again, I am too busy to maintain this forum. On a daily base I hardly get around to do anything constructive next to work. I have a little girl, a busy family life, and sometimes I wish I had more time, unfortunately I don't.

Also, times change. I loved developing in C++ but I lost touch with wxWidgets a few years ago after I stopped my hobbying at home. I am now a JAVA developer at work, and I just stick to what I do best at that moment, and there is no need to develop in C++ / wxWidgets anymore. If I would make something with wxWidgets it will be wxPython, but that also will be very rare.

Like I said, I lost touch with this forum and the people and I regret it. We had great times and we helped a lot of people that must count for something?

I was just close to dropping the password and URL to the plesk / web interface behind this forum right in this message, because I am getting frustrated with all this.

However, I receive complaints, but I do not see any people willing to take over the wxForum, I did ask a couple of times.

So once again, if you wish to be the new maintainer, send me an email and I will send you the link to the plesk interface and the password that goes with it, and that will be fine.

Once again I hate leaving this forum just 'rot' away and criplle under it's load or performance problems, but I simply can't get myself to maintaining it any further.

With regards,
- Jorgen

Hi Jorg!

Same here
Although I still do code using wxWidgets for my personal projects, I use Qt for the major part at work.
My family life doesn't leave much time for maintaining, let alone extending or updating, the forum.

I, just like you, have the feeling that some others should take over, who can devote more time on maintaining the forum.
I still visit every day, by my postings have become rare. Apart from general forum administration like deleting or ponifying posts I'm not of much help...

There has to be a solution for this. There has to be someone that could take over.
I would really hate to see this place going down. There are still many regular users, we still get more members, so this forum is not worthless.

This may be the fact it's 4am talking......

Sumthing at the host level appears to be borked to me.

I could set this up on my server(s) as a virtual server and host it if need be. However, I only have a 3Mbit up pipe and don't have UPS past 10 minutes.

I'd rather not lose the forum though.

Hi All,

I just handed over the login and password information to David Hart, who will together with UpCase move the wxForum to a new location eventually. I hope in the future this will resolve the performance problems.

For all who sent me a private message to offer to take over the forum, this is much appreciated.

With regards,
- Jorgen

Hi!

Please note that this might take some time, as it is not only
about moving the forum, but also upgrading it.

For now everything is "as is", but I do hope to find the time
to start moving and upgrading shortly. I'll do this in my spare
free time, so please don't expect light-speed performance
during this transition.

David volunteered to take over the day-to-day admin business
(thank you for that!), while I will focus on getting it running
properly. Cross fingers that we do not have to drop features
(as I fear the awards system might be hard to transfer to a
never version, maybe I find some replacement).