ancestry slow?

[Roger The Hat]

As an afterthought....

I'm not using the enhanced viewer thingy. Would that make a difference?
(Still no problems with the Library Edition).

'Hat.

[Birtle]

Hi 'Hat. I don't use the enhanced viewer either. It's all very curious. Maybe the Library Edition is immune to these connection issues for some reason. 
But if the cause should be server overload it's a shame, because the ancestry site is so useful most of the time (try not to be toooo discouraged yet, Sallyduk!).
 

[Redroger]

A connected tree of my relatives on Ancestry showed there was some new information there, I included it in my tree and was on the site for 45 minutes with no problems earlier.

[Birtle]

The search product manager at ancestry reports that they are aware of random slowness and are trying to track down the cause, but because it is sporadic it's a bit of a challenge. One possible workaround ftb, he suggests, is to refresh the browser.  It doesn't make eg an image load any faster  but it might produce results moreso than just sitting glumly looking at a blank window! (My words, i hasten to add, not his)

[Redroger]

Rather like my experience on Rootschat last night with Firefox. Very slow, taking 5 minutes approx to refresh a page, tried, more in hope than expectation , using IE8 again, surprisingly this worked and the whole thing is much fast so far.

[Wharfrat]

The search product manager at ancestry reports that they are aware of random slowness and are trying to track down the cause, but because it is sporadic it's a bit of a challenge.

Interesting! Knew it was them!

I contacted their helpdesk and got the following reply. I did try all the stuff on the suggested page and it did appear to make a difference, however we have subsequently still had issues not just on images:

We appreciate your message.

As I understand it the situation may be because we recently did website maintenance and when this happens some customers need to sign out and clear all cache and cookies to allow for the updates to be in effect on your computer.

Answer Title: Optimizing your Ancestry experience
Answer Link: http://ancestryuk.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ancestryuk.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5253


Thank you for yur patience in this matter.

If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.

Laurie-Ann
Member Solutions
Ancestry.co.uk
http://ancestryuk.custhelp.com/

Re: earlier points about the enhanced image viewer, I've got two machines, one running Firefox 3.6 which works with the viewer, and one with Firefox 7.0, which doesn't, and I had the same problems with both.

[Wharfrat]

Because I've nothing better to do and am fed up with Ancestry, I have spoken to their tech support. I am told that they are aware of the problem, and it is down to large numbers of people uploading trees following a new release of software.
The guy told me the situation does seem to be getting better, and they are trying to rebalance their servers to cope.
Kind of sounds to me though that it may be a little while before things get back to normal...

Definitely their fault!

[coombs]

The FamilySearch org site is also slow. Ancestry is still sluggish for me.

[Birtle]

Yep, familysearch has been pretty sluggish (though it quite often is), but ancestry still takes the biscuit. As for clearing out caches, logging off, etc etc. Well, regarding the latter, ancestry often logs me out between sessions whether I ask for it or not, and my cache etc is regularly cleared out. I also vetted my entire system thinking it was my pc playing up. It might be in some ways but it's now clear - and thanks for all the supporting input - that I'm not a voice in the wilderness over ancestry's being so unsatisfactory at present.
Refreshing the browser does seem to help, especially if you allow some time for the page to attempt to load (hah) before justifiably losing patience. That's not just for images; I've found the search pages, community etc v slow to load as well right from the start of this fiasco.