Dave Burke - Well, my first CS 2.0 Site Update pretty much sucked

Well, my first CS 2.0 Site Update pretty much sucked

My gut instinct told me that the first time I updated my dbvt.com CS 2.0 site it might not be pretty, and it wasn't. I was down for over an hour afterward--with a SQL Server Connection error!

Now whether that was due to the update, the extremely long initial load time of CS 2.0 on the server, or just good old fashioned WebHost4Life network instability, I don't know. It finally hit me that I should try loading the CS 2.0 binaries a second time to see if that fixes the SQL Server Connection error. And the site did load afterward. Yes, weird, seemingly no logical relationship between CS binary updates and SQL connection issues, and it IS a WH4L server, so who knows, right?

Seriously, there could be something going on with CS 2.0 in a shared hosted environment. I really can't say. I advised WH4L Tech Support to monitor and document their experience with CS 2.0 users to look for any unusual problems and commonalities, but I'm most likely asking too much of them. Yeah, I know I am.

CS 2.0 does take a lonnnng time to load into the server's memory. There's no way around it, CS 2.0 is massive. Look at the binary directory below. Maybe we are pushing the shared hosting environment with this app? There sure are a lot of binaries working behind the scenes of my little ol' blog. Ya know, I've always dismissed guys saying "CS is too bulky with too many features for my single user blog!" I say, "keep bringing on the code and the cool features, fellas!" But still, this is the first time I'm starting to feel the full weight of Community Server.

Achh, it's just my imagination.

[tags: Community Server]

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Posted on 3/24/2006 7:06:00 PM by Dave Burke
Categories: Community Server
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3/25/2006 3:17:59 PM Permalink

Geez man. I'm one of those dudes thinking it may be too much for a single blog (2x) for my wife's too.

Erik Lane |

3/25/2006 4:20:55 PM Permalink

Erik, yeah...spin-up time can take a bit, but a properly configured app pool should alleviate most of that. It's actually only ~5 megs of assemblies, there's just a ton of them. CS2.0 compiled under asp.net 2.0 performance is incredible though, leaves 1.1 in the dust.

jayson knight |

3/25/2006 4:42:59 PM Permalink

JayPatrick, how is it you always know all of the details???? 5 megs, eh? I was wondering what the size was. And I think you're onto something with the performance boost with CS 2.0 under ASP.NET 2.0. Full agreement with the Vermont CS Contingent. Loved "spin-up time." Something else to steal from you.

Erik, sorry if I caused you some hesitancy. Using CS 2.0 is like the world of technology at large: there's no turning back, dude! (I wonder if there's a CS 2.0-to-subText SQL migration script out there?..... JUST KIDDING!

Great hearing from you guys!

daveburke |

3/25/2006 4:49:18 PM Permalink

I have had the same thoughts lately. I am using WH4L for danhounshell.com, too, based on many developer's recommendations - one of them probably being yours - after hosting some other sites at discountasp.net. WH4L offers a bit more for quite a bit less money.

However, I think you may be right - maybe these CS2.0 sites are just too much for this shared hosting. Sometimes it can take 10-15 seconds or more (and sometimes much much more) to finally display a page. Like you, sometimes if it goes on too long I have to stop the page and then reload it - then it will load up. I thought maybe it was just me - not sure if I am glad or not that it is not the case.

Dan Hounshell |

3/25/2006 5:00:02 PM Permalink

Dan,  Thank you for your thoughts.  Yeah, I still don't know.  Tell you what, I was upgraded last night to new servers for both my web site AND database.  (I'm blogging about the move now.)  For the moment, now some 16 hours after the move, the site seems to be faster than ever and I haven't experienced any "spin-up time" or load problems.   I'm also using WebMon to hit the site every 2 minutes to keep the DLLs in RAM.   You can search "webmon" on my site if interested.  I think it may be helping my site avoid lengthy load times.

So maybe CS 2.0 is too much for EXISTING shared hosting environments, and we all need to request a move to a new server to use it!

Then again, it's only been 16 hours with CS 2.0 on these new servers, so time will tell the tale.

Thanks again for adding to the conversation.  And you're right, Dan, I don't know if whether we should be glad or not that we're having a shared CS 2.0 experience.

3/25/2006 5:03:30 PM Permalink

btw, Dan. Did you want your comments to be turned off on you CS 2.0 site? I wanted to comment on your upgrade post that you were definitely right to nuke the existing CS 1.x site and start fresh with CS 2.0.

3/25/2006 7:18:02 PM Permalink

Dave, between me setting my expiration for allowing comments for only 7 days to avoid comment spam and the way the skin I'm using shows the link to "Post a comment" above the fold when jumping to the "Comments" anchor it can be confusing. Thanks for reminding me - you are the second person to mention it in the last couple of days. I just went ahead and changed the expiration limit to 90 days and I'll do some work on the skin tomorrow. If I start running into comment spam problems then I guess I will just have to implement a Capcha solution.

3/25/2006 7:22:24 PM Permalink

Ah, that explains it, Dan. Thanks for getting back to me.

Hey, CAPTCHA is REAL easy to implement (even in CS 2.0) and is 100% effective. Let me know if you need any CS 2.0 source.

3/26/2006 7:43:34 PM Permalink

Jay, thanks for the information. That does help out.

Dave, I understand the no turning back piece and that's one of the drivers to use CS 2.0. However I'm no longer on my own server and my host is providing it to me for free so I want to be careful with his resources.

3/27/2006 5:16:13 AM Permalink

Erik, if your hosting situation works for you, then I'm happy about it. A Web Host is one of those services you don't want to have to think about though. I just checked through WebHost4Life's $9.95 a month plan (I happen to be doing the $19.95, only because at one point I needed 3 SQL databases), and it easily supports a CS 2.0 environment. Jayson probably has more detailed stats up his sleeve on CS 2.0 so you don't have to feel like you're using too many resources on your free host.

On the hefty side of the argument, I'm surprised at how large my CS SQL database has become. The backup file is now around 75 megabytes. To me, that's a lot, especially when considering my dotText database backup file size with two years of posts is 4 megabytes!

Guess I have to let go of those Old School philosophies, like smaller is still better.

3/27/2006 1:30:28 PM Permalink

Dave, I've seen weird update problems with ASP.NET projects at times as well. I'll be uploading the bin folder straight across and it won't work with a non-trappable failure (not handled through Application_Error) right off the bat. Try again local to make sure and it works. Send the same set of assemblies back up and lo and behold and it works.

My guess is that updating assemblies on the server while the server is live is somehow corrupting the shadow copy directory in some way. A restart probably would have fixed this as well.

Rick Strahl |

3/27/2006 4:50:17 PM Permalink

Rick, Great to have you around for a visit!  btw, I think every .NET developer should have a picture taken of themselves and stuffed animals writing code together!

You're right about the reloading.  I've noticed the exact same behavior but never articulated it as well as you just did.  Corrupting the shadow copy directory in some way, eh?

I'll keep this in mind the next time I update my binaries.  Cheers!

3/28/2006 12:59:23 PM Permalink

Wow, great conversation here! Maybe I'll hammer out a post on getting the most bang for your buck (performance wise) out of CS2.0. I do realize that in hosted scenarios you don't have as much fine-grained control over your AppPool (or maybe you do...who knows), but these settings mean everything.

If you don't CoCo enable your blog soon...

3/28/2006 1:06:51 PM Permalink

Hey, I CoCo my blog and then I'll have to add one of those cool sidebar widgets like at JK.com. It never ends. No, you're right. There's no excuse for no CoCo support on the commentform.ascx. Sorry to dissappoint.

Dave Burke : Freelance .NET Web Developer specializing in Online Communities

Well, my first CS 2.0 Site Update pretty much sucked

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