Partial pages/lockups in webspeed

[ScottW]

We are having a difficult problem and looking for some suggestions. Our setup is:
Webserver: Windows Server 2003/IIS 6.0
DB Server: Progress V9.1D on Unix

We have recently started having some terrible performance issues. Internally, our web pages load quickly and without issue. Externally, we have intermittent performance problems that will lock up the browser and eventually time out. I don't see any error messages in the log files(IIS or Webspeed logs).

The odd thing is that you can go to a page 10 times and most of the time, it will be fine, but a few times it will lock up and just spin. So, it's not that one certain page is a problem, because it could be any page. Usually when it locks up, if you just refresh the page, it loads fine.

I've loaded httpwatch to see what components are loading, but it never seems to be the same component slowing down.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour? Or does anyone have any suggestions where to check next? Been a Progress programmer for many years and it doesn't appear to be a coding issue, but can't put my finger on the cause.

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Rob Fitzpatrick]

At the time of the "lock up", have you looked at the DB log or promon to see if there are any issues there? Does this DB have only WebSpeed clients or a mix of WS and others?

Also, at the time of the issue do you have available agents? Could the delay be the result of all agents being busy?

You said the performance problems are recent. Obvious question, but what changed in the environment (OS config/patches, IIS config, network design, DLC SP, etc.) between then and now?

If this issue is reproducible you may want to have your network specialist, if you have one, trace the links between web server and WS server, and between WS server and DB server, assuming they are separate boxes.

And finally, as you know, your IIS, Windows, and Progress versions are all very old.

 

[ScottW]

Thanks for your response.

I have checked the db log and don't see any errors in there. We do have in-house users on the db, but I was able to lock it up today when there are no users working.

I have checked the agents and show that all of them are available. Every once in awhile, it will lock one of the agents up and we'll have to kill it, but not every time.

We did recently re-vamp our website. We are considering putting back all of the original code, but wanted to try to resolve this without going that far. That's obviously a smoking gun, but the issues we're seeing don't seem to be related to the changes we've made(but definitely could be).

Unfortunately it's not easily reproduced. It doesn't break in the same spot every time. We have had it lock up while loading the main css file, but other times it loads it just fine. Today, I got it to fail when it was importing our footer file(which is an include file). I did a View Source on the page and could see where it stopped loading. But it stopped loading mid-line and it wasn't even doing a DB call there.

I know this is incredibly difficult to help troubleshoot, but the things that stick out to me are that it doesn't break in the same place every time and that if you just hit the F5 button, it will load fine. Seems to me that the webstream is getting interuptted, but not sure how to prove that.

We are using htm files to make PROTAG calls to the .w file. I have put messages around all of the progress statements in the .w file to show the amount of time each of the procedures in there take when they are called and none of them go out of control. So, it seems like it's in the rendering of the page. Does that make any sense? But, obviously, all of the HTML is not getting to the client since the View Source file is not complete.

Yeah, I know this is old stuff. But Progress jacked their pricing up between V9 & V10 and we haven't been able to afford the price hike.

Thanks again!

 

[TomBascom]

Upgrading should actually save you money. Maintenance on old versions is more expensive than new...