• Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 9

Topic: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

Hi guys,

I just upgraded SimpleViewer Pro to version 2.3.1 and am running it with the WP-SimpleViewer WordPress plugin (v2.3.2) on a client's website. The only other plugin I am using with it is Meteor Slides (v1.5.1), but I don't think this is the cause as I have run the two plugins together (with no issues) on a previous site using slightly older versions.

While the plugin is activated, the website load time is drastically increased to about 25 seconds (which is ridiculous). When the plugin is deactivated, the load time is practically instant.

Any idea what the cause might be or if there is a known issue regarding this? I have done a bunch of research, testing and have been in touch with their hosting with no luck so far.

I'm stumped, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

  • Registered: 2008-07-06
  • Posts: 6,329

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

Please post the URL to your web page so that I can take a look.

There are several factors which might be contributing to slow loading:
(1) The speed of your web server
(2) The speed of your own internet connection
(3) The number of galleries you have on your page
(4) The filesize of the images used in your galleries
(5) The location of the images in your galleries (for example, in a Flickr-sourced gallery, your images will need to be fetched from Flickr's servers)
(6) The values set for the imagePreloading and thumbPreloading configuration options (and the number of images you have in your galleries)

Steven Speirs
SimpleViewer Support Team
  • Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 9

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

Thanks for the suggestions Steven.

I can pretty much rule out all of those (except maybe the first one). Which pretty much confirms for me that it probably has something to do with the host/server.

I'm still testing a few things, but at the moment it seems to be loading a lot faster and I haven't made any significant changes. Strange...

I'll keep an eye on things and let you know if there are any changes.

There is another issue I've come across though. SimpleViewer seems to be defaulting to the Javascript/mobile gallery, despite having Flash enabled. I am using the latest version of Flash Player, have tried multiple browsers on different OS's and cleared the cache.

I'm currently testing the gallery at http://aussiewidecaravans.com.au/test. It seems to load the Flash version initially, but once refreshed, it shows the (unstyled) js viewer.

  • Registered: 2008-07-06
  • Posts: 6,329

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

It looks like you web page combines all the required external JavaScript files into a single file and this might be causing the problem. The 'simpleviewer.js' file references the 'swfobject.js' file in the 'svcore/js/' folder and this may not be found if the 'simpleviewer.js' file is not loaded from its original location.
If you are using PageSpeed or a similar service, try temporarily disabling it to see it if makes a difference.

Steven Speirs
SimpleViewer Support Team
  • Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 9

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

Hmm... I haven't modified the plugin, other than adding the pro files as per http://www.simpleviewer.net/simpleviewe … iewer/#pro and went from there.

The host would have installed the mod_pagespeed module whilst testing speeds. I added '?ModPagespeed=off' to the end of the URL to disable it and that seems to have done the trick. Once again, it was the hosting's doing. I'll uninstall it as it doesn't seem to be affecting the speed at all.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Gabby

  • Registered: 2012-04-21
  • Posts: 42

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

I am having a similar problem, they seemed to be loading fine but have now really slowed down, I noticed you said one of the things affecting it could be "The values set for the imagePreloading and thumbPreloading configuration options"

Is there a setting that I should put it to that will make them load faster? Right now I most of them set to "page"

Thanks in advance,
Kathleen
www.creativestitchesdesign.com

  • Registered: 2008-07-06
  • Posts: 6,329

Re: WP-SimpleViewer & SimpleViewer Pro - Website loading time

they seemed to be loading fine but have now really slowed down

If images seemed to be loading quickly but have recently slowed down, then something must have changed for this to happen.
If no gallery files (or configuration settings) have changed, then the most likely factors are either your web server or internet connection. You could try contacting your web host to see if they have changed anything recently which might be affecting your gallery's performance.

As long as you do not have too many thumbnails per page (and your main images are not too large), setting imagePreloading="PAGE" should not be a problem.
However, you could try setting imagePreloading="NEXT" (so that SimpleViewer preloads only the next image in the gallery rather than all the images on the current thumbnail page) to see if this makes a difference.
It may speed up the initial loading of the gallery a little.

I see that some (all?) of your galleries are sourced by Flickr.
I have noticed recently (in the last few days) that it seems to be taking much longer than usual to fetch images from Flickr's servers so I suspect the issue could be with Flickr.
It looks like other Flickr users are experiencing similar problems (see this forum post) so it looks like the source of your problem may be Flickr.

Steven Speirs
SimpleViewer Support Team