I'll first explain what kind of host I have, it's a virtual private server from Verio on Sun Solaris.

The problem I have is when I look at one of my websites, it comes up directly (what's normal) and then a few images also load directly but some others keep 'hanging', after about 30secs all the images are loaded.
This is very annoying!

I looked at the server conf. files, changed some numbers, but that wont help, I think that it's limited because it’s a virtual server?
I currently host about 30 websites (most with quite low traffic), the total number of pages/images is around 5000. And the total traffic/month is only 3GB.

What can I do about it? Also when I do a 'top' command in Telnet the server is never idle, its most of the time 0% idle! Is it a memory/swapping problem?

Does someone has any solutions or experienced the same problems?

Maybe I need to change my host company? I currently pay 150$/month for a virtual Sun server? Are there any hosting company's who are offering a dedicated Sun server for the same price? The only thing I really need for a server is high access speed, cgi, perl and mysql support.

Thank you,

Btw: great forum (I'm new here)

Is this a new problem that has just started this week, or something you've been having trouble with for a long time?? Have you contacted Verio directly to ask them what they think the problem is, or if they have any ideas how to fix it? Have you tried connecting to the sites in question using a different service provider, or asked people in other geographical areas if they are having the same problems? What are the filesizes of the images that load w/o problem vs. the sizes of the images that hang? Are the "hanging" images located inside tables, but the quick loading images outside of tables?

Your question has many variables, and is one of those things where the problem could be the files themselves, page layout, the server, their backbone, your ISP, or even something to do with your own computer. If the problem is directly with your host, then changing hosts might help. If the problem is anywhere else in the process, a change of host really isn't going to help. Maybe the questions I ask above will help lead us to the root of the problem.

It's not a new problem I have, it's already happening for months.
I have contacted Verio with this problem, but they say that if performance is getting lower, we need to upgrade our server (and pay more)!
I already tried connecting to the sites with other computers and other isp's, but the same problem still exists!
The filesizes of the images are very small, max 3kb for a total of 30 images, so the total page load is maybe around 100kb. There is no difference whether the images are in tables or not.
The problem isn't the page layout or my ISP, it's just the server, because I tested some sites on another server and there it worked well!

I asked a unix expert what the problem could be and he told us it could be a memory problem with the server, where some images are loaded in the 'real' memory and other (the one's who are hanging) are loaded into the 'swap' memory.

Any idea's on how I could resolve this?
I hope it will be solved, because it's not good for my customers.

If you want I can mail you some website addresses so you can experience it yourself?

Hello new guy,

Your sites may be resolving slow because of many images on the default page. This is the answer most received by your question.

When choosing a host you should trarcert in a command prompt window. You will see the amount of hops their located away from the backbone. Not only do a lot of hops slow you down but your site may be stopped at any of the hops because of a router problem. Accordingly, each hop is a router transfer so each must work perfectly for you to resolve quickly.

You need a host that has a gateway on the backbone which will always provide you high speed connectivity to your site, which will be only two hops off the backbone. The gateway router being the first stop and your website or server the second hop.

In order to be located on the back bone you must own your network and operate on a BGP 4 level. There is simply nothing faster and more reliable because you must be multi home to operate at this level. Resellers can not afford this type of connectivity.

:edited due to blatant self promotion - posts removed elsewhere on the forum - read the rules

The diagnosis by the unix expert sounds good. The thing to measure on a unix system is the load average and the amount of swapping it is doing - which the top command will tell you.

If it has 1gig of physical memory and 2 gig of virtual memory in use and all sites on the server are active, then you are getting thrashing where everything is trying to be in memory once but I would expect the problem to extend to ALL sites on the server.

I don't think the host should insist that you pay to upgrade - since clearly it sounds like an overloaded server so they should spread sites out a bit and ease the load.

Also, Have you tried removing the images from the site or replacing them with, say, 30 tiny icons and see if that loads ok. Then start putting back the images and see if a particular one is causing a problem ? I would confirm that the server is not overloaded and thrashing first.

Reading your post (while doing a google search on something not related) reminded me of a problem I had. Many virtual hosting companies limit the number of web processes that you can have. Similar to the Apache MaxClients setting.

If you are limited to 'x' number of processes and you have the Apache KeepAlive setting on you can easily use all the 'x' number of processes. If your KeepAlive is set to 20 processes and times out after 5 seconds, then depending on how your page is served you could easily tie up all those 20 processes with even only one user. That's assuming that you're serving your page as individual requests.

The other thing I thought of, that has nothing to do with swap space or anything root (you'd need to contact your hosting support to find out about that) is that database queries can cause similar slowness. If your databases need to be indexed or have become corrupt then queries can become extremely slow.

Perhaps one of those is the problem with your site.

Some providers will install trottle modules into apache, which that could cause problems. Also it could be the server config, each spawn of httpd can handle a certain amount of requests (however many you put in your httpd.conf), and if you limit yourself to say 5 child and 5 requests per and have a timeout of 10 seconds, you'll have atleast a 30 second delay. Just a thought!

Something I've ran into before is with most hosts, they will build a nice system, and put a POS ethernet card in the system, or even worse put it on a POS hub instead of a switch! Check for collisions and packet loss.... that could be a major issue! Or it could just be the line your on is hitting it's peak...

That's my 2 cents!

Depending upon the account plan you have, you most likely have reached the limits of the Solaris VPS. The Solaris Standard has a 64 process limit of which 20 process limit for httpd

There are many things that can be done to optimize your site, if you are loading lots of images, big no no, even on a dedicated server. remember lots of people still have 56k dialups.

Most likely cause of what you are experiencing is you are hitting your "Process limit" however without looking at the server itself and watching the processes, I would not be able to give a final diagnosis.

** self promotion removed - read the rules please

Hello,


It's generally happens when you have many images on the default page of your web site.

You need a host which provides high speed.

Chin, Thanks, but the question the gentlemen had was related to a very specific account plan. The problem in this case is not related to speed of connection. The Verio Backbone is made up of OC48 connections that are not even near maxed.

Please read my origaly post which describes what is the issue as it relates specifically to the account plan in question.

Thanks for the input though.

Woww! Al those reply's

Thank you all, but for now the problem is solved, I just ordered a new vps server and moved some domains over.
Maybe it's also because they upgraded the servers real memory from 512MB to 1GB?
And not, I dont think it would be the connection (Verio has a good backbone).

Oh maybe just one more question, so now I have 2 vps, one solaris and one freebsd, but why is the download speed from the solaris higher (x2)? Better connections?

BTW, great forums!