Forums slow with IE but fine with FF

[gabrielt]

Hi guys,

Does anyone around here faced this problem or can give me any suggestions where to start looking for what is causing this?

Our forums (http://www.clubedohardware.com.br) is running slow with IE but fine with FF, especially during peak time (over 3,000 users online).

Here is a brief description of our configuration:

Three identical web servers (Dual Xeon 3 GHz with 2 GB RAM):
vBulletin 3.6.8 patch 2
Apache 2.0.63
PHP 5.2.5 with Xcache 1.2.2

One MySQL server (Dual Xeon 3 GHz with 4 GB RAM):
MySQL 5.0.37

The load balancing is being made using haproxy.

Thanks in advance,

Cheers,
Gabriel.

--------------- Added 1201666601 at 1201666601 ---------------

Hi there,



I just make a quick test here and found out that if I disable haproxy and of course use just one web server, the forums becomes lightning fast (of course I did this in the middle of the night, when almost nobody is accessing our forums; during the day keeping the traffic in just one server would be insane). Otherwise the forums are very slow.



So I will play with haproxy later; since it uses cookies to track down which server each user is using, maybe it is a problem the way it sets cookies or some configuration with haproxy.



Thanks

Gabriel.

[gabrielt]

Just a follow up to this problem.

This problem was really being caused by the software we were using for load balancing. We replaced haproxy with Pound and now our forums are working just fine with IE as well...

Since with IE it is a little bit slowen than with FF, we decided to order a hardware-based load balancer. I believe this will solve all our problems and also make our forums faster.

Cheers,

Gabriel.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Please make sure that IE is really slower. Difference in how pages are rendered can IE seem to be slower.

[gabrielt]

It is hard to explain using words, but believe me, it was REALLY slower than FF, it wasn't a matter of rendering (over 20 seconds to open a page vs. 4 seconds).

Gabriel.

[TECK]

Disable all fancy javascript/ajax code you added on the forums. Use only the stock VB one.
Sometimes IE does not like code that is to evolved.

You should also use Nginx as server/load balancer, it will speed your site like you would not believe.

[BillP]

It is hard to explain using words, but believe me, it was REALLY slower than FF, it wasn't a matter of rendering (over 20 seconds to open a page vs. 4 seconds).

Gabriel.

Gabriel-

I'm just looking into haproxy as a web balancer. Would you mind sharing your settings with me? I can do the same for you. I haven't yet turned on a big load on the balancer yet, it would be a shame for it to fall apart as soon as I change my DNS!

I am running 1.2.17 and on an unloaded balancer am seeing no appreciable differences between IE7 and FF. Did you only see your issues under load, or even in mild testing?

I'm glad I found this thread. I forget to test with IE a lot of the time since I stopped using Windows as my primary machine!

[gabrielt]

Hi there,

I had problems with haproxy (forums was slow with IE but fine with FF), moved to Pound and the problem was almost solved. The real solution was to install a hardware-based load balancer. For a big forums like ours this was the best solution and worth every penny. Now we see more than 4,000 users online everyday and the forums is ultra fast. Ou pageview count doubled.

Cheers,
Gabriel.