Cards

[Kotsu]

Originally Posted by White Ice

If it does come down to refunding points, how do you know how much you'll refund to a member? If you're going to trust that a person will be honest, that might become an issue. (i.e. a person might lie that they bought so-and-so amount of cards when the only really brought so-and-so.)

Though then again, I don't see the point in trying to get a couple of points back just from lying.... haha, word play.

There should be a way - I can see a partial transaction history as is, but I think there's a way to pull all transactions.

Originally Posted by Bunny Rabbit

Screencap a picture of all our cards as an insurance? o.O

If there is nothing that can be done as stated above, then this might help.

Originally Posted by Brera

i asked the same thing and was ignored D:

mind you if this was in fact true... then why does it only lag sometimes?
shouldn't it do it all the time?

I honestly couldn't tell you - I'd have to look at the code, but even then I'm not too familiar with php (more like not at all) so I wouldn't be able to tell you what the source of the problem is. However, it's most likely what Bu said with the large amount of data being loaded per thread. The way it's stored, I'm sure not only does it load each icon, it also loads the postbit settings for each user, which could potentially involve a lot of data/table access, and so on.

Originally Posted by Fade_Kiry

ok so i guess if we get a refund latter if its all lost does that mean we get the full price of what we paid for them back.

Yes.

Originally Posted by Bu-Chan

I wouldn't know unless I saw the script. But I think its entirely up to the Admins on whether it stays or not. There are a things things that could change. Even if you reduce the number of images there still isn't any certainty that it would stop the lag when loading some pages.

It's possible to change the script, but the issue might be resolved if we switched to another system (ex. iShop).

I'm keeping my responses short since I've been busy & I'm completely exhausted at the moment, so will update people soon.

[+White Ice+]

Another opition, although it might not be favored, is to completely get rid of cards and do something else. In exchange, for something that wouldn't require multiple pics loading on a thread.

I for one like the small gifts we could purchase and send them to other members on the old domain. Maybe we could do something similar to that. The small pics were small enough that even though there were several loading at the same time, it didn't cause a lag.

Trial and error with the cards.

[bladez]

Originally Posted by Bu-Chan

Your a "web designer" right? So you above all people should realize that having to load a lot images can cause the page to take longer? I mean isn't that common knowledge for anyone in web creation. The more images found on page, the longer the loading time. Its only natural that it would lag as much as it has done. Now if you say that "awww but they are only small images, its not like it would really make a difference". Then maybe you need to think logically about it. If each member has 6 images, then the pages needs to loads those six images in a certain order. So there is about by default 10 posts per page. It has to load 10 different sequence of images. Thus creating more lag because the images have to appear in a certain order. It's going to take a long time to get the sequences right and then to load that image. I don't think it would load the same repeated image any quicker because each member set it individually. To answer the question of sometimes? - Easy - not every member has 6 cards. In fact some members don't have any. Making the page quicker to load.

In addition, there is the fact that if the script that is being used is set so that all the images must be loaded before the page then viewed. Then of course its going to take ages. All of of those small images do create a lot time to load. Especially with signatures images and avatars to take into consideration.


Thus concluding what I think about the matter.

I think you're mostly right about this. It would explain why most of my pages 408'd, while for other people it loaded after a really long time (I have set 40 posts per page). But I don't think it's to do with image files taking long to load (most people have the same icons and images as themselves shouldn't take too long to load), but I think it's with the script itself loading that could be the problem. Maybe problem with the script loading specific icons, or messing along with it some tables.

[Bunny Rabbit]

Originally Posted by bladez

I think you're mostly right about this. It would explain why most of my pages 408'd, while for other people it loaded after a really long time (I have set 40 posts per page). But I don't think it's to do with image files taking long to load (most people have the same icons and images as themselves shouldn't take too long to load), but I think it's with the script itself loading that could be the problem. Maybe problem with the script loading specific icons, or messing along with it some tables.

yeah.. I was guessing on that too actually but thought that I had missed something, that's why I asked if it was fixable by simply changing the script.

Anyways... To resume.

The overload of information isn't cause the pictures have to load but the script itself.
As I said before... I understand the basics but honestly, I don't understand how the point system work and as for the cards, I guess it depends on what program you're using.

Point is that I've got the general idea, but I don't know how to actually solve it.

Either way.. I'm pretty sure it's within the script and not the pictures.

[PedoBear]

Too lazy to read through the whole thread currently but let me just throw in what I want to say.

First it was my ideal to turn off the cards to see if it speed things up, which it did, so the only thing I can think of is that the cards is putting too much queries on the database and high queries to the database will cause problems so the code isn't optimized correctly (bad coding). Has nothing to do with having too many images as long as the images is small in size (which it was last time I checked), it's all about the number of queries is all that matters.

[Kotsu]

Originally Posted by White Ice

Another opition, although it might not be favored, is to completely get rid of cards and do something else. In exchange, for something that wouldn't require multiple pics loading on a thread.

I for one like the small gifts we could purchase and send them to other members on the old domain. Maybe we could do something similar to that. The small pics were small enough that even though there were several loading at the same time, it didn't cause a lag.

Trial and error with the cards.

Honestly, as stated above, it definitely is a problem with the code - a simple change in resolution isn't going to do much. However, what that exact problem is is still unknown. My guess, as scsa stated, is that it's hammering the database with too many queries at a time. But who knows, it might just be the total number of queries per thread access that is causing issues.

[Brera]

i'm still getting the same amount of random lag.

it was random then and it is still random for me. this hasn't solved anything for me.
cheers.

thankyouverybloodymuch for 'you're a retard' comment and trying to say that a forum setup is exactly the same as a website. Also note cards work w/o issues on other forums.

how about joining the sotw instead of attacking ppl?

[Bu-Chan]

Originally Posted by Brera

i'm still getting the same amount of random lag.

it was random then and it is still random for me. this hasn't solved anything for me.
cheers.

thankyouverybloodymuch for 'you're a retard' comment and trying to say that a forum setup is exactly the same as a website. Also note cards work w/o issues on other forums.

how about joining the sotw instead of attacking ppl?

I can call you a retard properly if you wish so. But I never said such a thing. If you deal with web site construction forum or personal website then the fundamentals are still the same. The less images on a page, the easier it loads. Simple. Any web site has script involved to load certain contents.

If you look at my post, please tell where I said that a forum set up is exactly the same as a website? I only mentioned the similarities between the two. But please again, feel free to put words in to my mouth just so you don't seem bad.

But of course I could just be completely wrong. I mean its not as if I have never had any administration experience dealing with skinning a forum and constructing a website from scratch. I'm just someone who doesn't really have a clue what I'm talking about. [/sarcasm]

[Bunny Rabbit]

Originally Posted by Brera

i'm still getting the same amount of random lag.

it was random then and it is still random for me. this hasn't solved anything for me.
cheers.

thankyouverybloodymuch for 'you're a retard' comment and trying to say that a forum setup is exactly the same as a website. Also note cards work w/o issues on other forums.

how about joining the sotw instead of attacking ppl?

Stop interpreting things as if we're all trying to offend you, this isn't about you at all.

So just take it easy.

[Kotsu]

Thought I would update people on this situation. As of now, vbCommerce's developers have not resolved this issue, which means we either switch systems or wait until their 2.0 versions are out - however, I'm almost 95% sure we are not going to be using their add-ons after the next big forum upgrade (as I've said before).

Therefore, we can either:

1. Switch over to another system temporarily. Most likely purchased cards will be lost again eventually.
2. Wait for the upgrade, or for the new vbCredits/vbCommerce stuff to come out.

Thoughts?