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What if my site seems slow?

Despite how smoothly it usually works, viewing a page on the internet involves often dozens of requests and files, each making numerous "hops" over servers from your internet service provider (ISP), a number of "backbone" providers, our data center provider, and finally our servers. Failures and slowdowns can occur at any point along the way, so slow response doesn't always mean a slow web server. Here are the steps you can take to narrow down the problem and help us support you better if it does, in fact, appear to be a problem with our servers:

  1. If instead of a slow pageload or a general Microsoft error, you get an error with some reference to "JRun", immediately send an us an urgent email for support -- the problem is definitely the web server.

  2. Otherwise, ignore performance of any individual pageload. There are so many variables involved with getting a page request from your computer to the server and back that it's quite common to have a one-time "glitch" that prevents a timely pageload. If you notice several different pageloads in a row with problems, continue down this list...

  3. Try loading a couple of pages from completely different sites and servers, such as google.com and cnn.com. If these seem slow too, the problem is very likely with your computer, your ISP, or some other upstream provider.

  4. If the problem seems isolated to your site, please note the date, time and page(s) giving you trouble.

  5. Open a DOS window by clicking Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (although your system could vary slightly)

  6. Type the following and hit enter: tracert webonthefly.com

  7. You should get a display of all the "hops" your request takes to get to the server, along with 3 times by each hop

  8. When that's complete and you get a prompt again, hit your up arrow key and enter to repeat this process.

  9. Click the icon in the very upper left corner of the window (which is a picture of "c:\" in Windows 2000) to get a little pop-up menu

  10. Click Edit > Select All

  11. Click the little icon again and then Edit > Copy

  12. Compose an email to Support with the date/time and page info noted above, then paste the info that you copied.