Do large threads slow town the average forum speed?

[Eagle Creek]

At my forums there ar threads with more then 17000 posts.. Is it possible these threads are slowing the complete forums down?

I have about 170 users online now, only 3 of them are using the search function.
But my server loads vary from 1.20 - 3.20.. And the forums are extremely slow.

[COBRAws]

Well, I really dont know, but I've had discussions over this subject since I started using board software.

[Ntfu2]

They shouldnt unless you're users are viewing that thread constantly or in large groups.

Either way it should still only retrieve the number of posts you have it set to display per page.

[Eagle Creek]

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 46 (39 members and 7 guests)
==> that's for the 18.000 replies thread, 30 posts a page.

So imagine (it won't happen but say) al thse users where accessing a different page. That means 46*30 = 1380 posts requests out of the database.
That's a big number.. But propably most users are only browsing the last few pages of it.

Still.. My server loads are higher then I want them to have.

Very likely, especially if they are popular threads and getting views, vBulletin has to count all the posts in the thread before it splits it into pages, so if you've a lot of users reading those threads then it'll be doing a LOT of processing just to display it.

Take a look at your slow queries log and you'll get a better idea of what's causing the forum to take it's time. Out of the box vB uses the myisam table type which will lock the post and thread table while the thread is being generated so this will slow down all the other thread display requests that are pending.

Aha! That sounds interesting.

[Erwin]

The answer is yes.

I limit all my threads to 1,000 posts (automatically split and linked). Reduced my load about 3 years ago when I started doing this by a lot.

[Eagle Creek]

Sounds great!

How do you limit threads to 1000 posts? Is that an option or a vB hack?

Option would be great! Aldough I have enough moderators, it would be nice if it would go automaticly.

[Shazz]

Any luck with the code that "makes your forums seem faster" . Anyone try it? :rolleyes:

[Eagle Creek]

Exactly what it says it does, it SEEMS to make your forums faster.. When you're waiting about 5 seconds for a page to open that hack is useless.

[jilly]

The answer is yes.

I limit all my threads to 1,000 posts (automatically split and linked). Reduced my load about 3 years ago when I started doing this by a lot.

i would be interested in how to set this up too! Can you share the secret with us,, erwin?

[Shazz]

Exactly what it says it does, it SEEMS to make your forums faster.. When you're waiting about 5 seconds for a page to open that hack is useless.
Ok lets say your forums were faster..
Whats the difference between "it seems faster" or "its faster"
Can you tell?

[Karri]

The answer is yes.

I limit all my threads to 1,000 posts (automatically split and linked). Reduced my load about 3 years ago when I started doing this by a lot. I would love to see how you did this as well. It would save my mods sooo much time if that was done automatically.

[rossco_2005]

I've got a thread that has almost 47,000 replies now (like 100 or more posts per day in it so it's pretty busy).
It doesn't seem to slow my forums down any but viewing the thread does take a while.
It takes about 2 seconds to load while any other thread would take 0.4 seconds...

[Eagle Creek]

Ok lets say your forums were faster..
Whats the difference between "it seems faster" or "its faster"
Can you tell?

Of course!
This hack removes the flash between pages. That works when a page loads in about 1-2 seconds.

When it takes more then 10 seconds to load a page, this flash isn't going to help ANYthing.

I want to have my forums faster, not to seem faster. And.. Not all my users are using the same browser.

I've got a thread that has almost 47,000 replies now (like 100 or more posts per day in it so it's pretty busy).
It doesn't seem to slow my forums down any but viewing the thread does take a while.
It takes about 2 seconds to load while any other thread would take 0.4 seconds...
Ok.. I see. But how many users do you have online? And how many of these threads you have? And how many post per page?

[rossco_2005]

Ok.. I see. But how many users do you have online? And how many of these threads you have? And how many post per page?
"Currently Active Users: 667 (91 members and 576 guests)"
This is about the average.

There is only 1 thread that large, there are others around 4,000 posts.

We would have more but only in the last year started allowing over 1000 posts.:)

[Erwin]

Check your slow_query log and see which threads show up most often in there.

[Eagle Creek]

Where can I find that log?

[Erwin]

Where can I find that log?
You need to enable slow_query logging in my.cnf. It would be on your server.

[Eagle Creek]

I don't have an item called 'slow_query'.