Where is the idle setting that is driving me crazy?

[Dwev]

I'm working on a forum that will soon go live.

Everything works like a charm, except one thing: if I'm idle for a little bit too long clicking on anything results in a very, very long waiting time.
The only thing that resolves it is logging out of my Wi-Fi and logging in again, so it's clearly to do with the IP address.

I have another site on the same domain that doesn't have this problem at all, so I'm pretty sure that it's a setting within SMF that's driving me crazy, but I can't find it.

Does anyone know where this setting can be found, and how to set it so that I can keep working without going mad?

[Kindred]

There is no such setting in smf nor have I ever seen the behavior that your describe, and I have run smf sites for over a decade.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

This forum sometimes stops working in Android Silk, links do nothing.  Usually can get it working again by closing tab and opening new one.  Nothing to do with ip, more likely an Android problem.

[DarkAngel612]

I am having this problem with all my forums I handle...they go comatose for awhile I either have to quit browser totally or open a new tab.....not a mobile connection either.

This happens on both pc and mac and with all browsers, IE,Safari,Chrome and FF (which s driving me crazy of late with its bells and whistles and nothing working right)

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Sounds more like a session problem, likely server side.  Have you asked your host about it?

[DarkAngel612]

I haven't yet, thinking it was my computer acting up or my net/browsers.

[Dwev]

Hmm, strange.

I even installed another test-version of SMF on the same server, no problem at all.

Is there the possibility of a complete reset of all settings within SMF?
Maybe that would do the trick...

[Steve]

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

[Dwev]

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

If I understand this correctly this does a lot more than a complete reset of all of the settings, this also removes all of the other stuff that we've done to our forum (in both css and php).

What I meant was just reset all settings that can be done in the Admin-section, not a complete reset of all of the forum.

[drewactual]

in your php settings on your server for server side scripts there is a setting for sessions- where the system will abandon data idle for more than X seconds... Apache2.4 and 5.6~7.1 php default is 1440 seconds.  this can be changed to whatever... i wager your hosts reduced it to a much shorter period.  ask them (or if you have access check it yourself) to extend php sessions to at least 1440 seconds. 

[DarkAngel612]

hmmm, I found that in the php settings (dedicated server) and it is set to 1440 so I can set it higher also and see if that helps the stalling and slowness. thanks

[Sir Osis of Liver]

If you're on a shared server, some hosts will let you change some php settings, but they may revert to previous value, they do this to conserve resources.  Log out of cpanel, log back in, see if the new setting stuck.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

If I understand this correctly this does a lot more than a complete reset of all of the settings, this also removes all of the other stuff that we've done to our forum (in both css and php).

What I meant was just reset all settings that can be done in the Admin-section, not a complete reset of all of the forum.

Uploading a clean set of files removes all mods and customizations, but does not affect settings.  Admin settings must be reset manually, they're in the database, not the files.  I would do a clean install in a new directory, copy Settings.php and Settings_bak.php from your production forum to the new forum, run repair_settings.php, see if the problem persists.  If so, it's probably a server issue, if not, the problem is in the forum files, but I'd bet against that.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

If I understand this correctly this does a lot more than a complete reset of all of the settings, this also removes all of the other stuff that we've done to our forum (in both css and php).

What I meant was just reset all settings that can be done in the Admin-section, not a complete reset of all of the forum.

None of the settings should cause behavior like that, at least I haven't heard of such a case. I would be tempted to point towards the host side of things. Perhaps, as suggested, some session related settings?

[Dwev]

Forum member Sir Lurkalot suggested through a PM to turn off all caches in SMF.

That didn't cure it completely, but it's certainly less annoying now.

Guess I'll have to look into the settings of the server when I have time on my hands...

[DarkAngel612]

I have a dedicated server and have upped the session in php up to 2880, cleared all the sessions tables of thier "stuff" in the database and still no matter which browser I use, PC/Mac, all forums living on my server are doing the stall thing.

When in FF I need to go to properties/security and clear the cache for it or flush dns of computer to get at least another 10 minutes of speed after rebooting the computer.

I too tried turning off the cache and still it will stall, like when it is really trying hard to catch up on a very graphic intensive image site.

I will try to reinstall the update again to see if something just did not work right, the only item that gave me an install error was the stop spammer mod - but that is expected for a bit with this update.

I may even try to reinstall FF from scratch but as I said no matter the browser it still does it so it is either the server (host checked and found nothing amiss) or the forums themselves.

All I can say is that this new FF update is not making me very happy, not the previous one nor this "faster" one...LOL

Merry Christmas to all and your families/friends and be safe.

[Dwev]

the only item that gave me an install error was the stop spammer mod - but that is expected for a bit with this update.

Which spam-mod are your using?

Another thing I noticed, that might be pertinent to what's helping here: for a while changing settings in the admin-section wouldn't 'take' right away, I often had to click more than several times to get a news setting to register.

This problem has gone away, no clue what made it go.
With the disappearance of this problem the stalling on the forum became less as well.

All of this seems to suggest that the problem can be within SMF itself, no clue what it is though...   

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Another thing I noticed, that might be pertinent to what's helping here: for a while changing settings in the admin-section wouldn't 'take' right away, I often had to click more than several times to get a news setting to register.

This problem has gone away, no clue what made it go.
With the disappearance of this problem the stalling on the forum became less as well.

All of this seems to suggest that the problem can be within SMF itself, no clue what it is though...   

From the top of my head, all that would rather sound like possible database issues to me.
SMF settings are basically just a user interface for stuff kept in the database, and each page load goes through a whole heap of stuff from the database.