webmail is sooooooooo slooooooow

[#1]

Hi @Anonymous,

The general performance issues we've been having are within our estate and not related to the OS the customers are using.  I guess there could potentially be a performance issue with webmail for people using XP, but if there is, I'm unaware of it.

How has your performance been over the past few weeks?  Is it consistently poor? Or patchy with good periods and bad periods?

[#2]

Thanks Kelly for your very quick and informed response.

It's been poor for a long while, with occasional bursts of speed at an acceptable rate.  I used to think that it was much better in the early hours but that is not currently the case.

Bob

[#3]

They  don't even agree amongst themselves about what might be the cause, and the stuff about minimum requirements seems to be erroneous. Gee what a company.

[#4]

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@qezeq wrote:

I suggested that maybe it was to do with my running XP.  He latched on to that as being the problem, and said that PN's minimum system requirements were clearly stated on their web site, and that XP was not supported "as no-one supports it these days".

An after thought, XP works perfectly well on the Community Pages, so it can hardly by that XP is at fault.

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Did the agent actually say it is the problem or IF it were the problem then there's no support...?

I completely agree with your after thought - XP implies limited web browser functionality (no upgrades sine IE11 IIRC and other browsers have ceased support for XP) - however that would only (if at all) impact the operation of the webmail application presentation layer ... not the issues we've seen which are clearly 'behind' the web application.

[#5]

Even a Raspberry Pi is capable of sluggish web browsing.

[#6]

I'm on the PN 76Mbps service (which following a lot of problems, now runs at about 69, but that's another matter), which works very fast with ebay, amazon, google, plusnet, etc. So the browsing function is fine, which makes the tardiness of the Webmail even more annoying. 

I think the agent was being careful with his words, and I don't think he actually said "XP is the problem".  But I think he saw it as a great excuse for ending the conversation.  (I'd still like to find the website 'system information' page that says PN do not support XP.)  As the previously mentioned websites all work perfectly well with XP, I think this is a complete red herring.

[#7]

C5:30am and I've just done some test manoeuvres around the Webmail, including searches, sorting lists, etc.  Everything is happening at about 3 seconds to full screen presentation!

Is it possible that my complaint has been acted upon in some way?  Or is it just that no-one else is using Webmail at this ungodly hour?

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@Kelly wrote:

Hi @Anonymous,

The general performance issues we've been having are within our estate and not related to the OS the customers are using.  I guess there could potentially be a performance issue with webmail for people using XP, but if there is, I'm unaware of it.

How has your performance been over the past few weeks?  Is it consistently poor? Or patchy with good periods and bad periods?

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[#8]

@Anonymous Not being an XP user I can't answer your question but there has been a massive upside in the service of late and at 0530 there will be much less traffic so I would judge whether the improvement you have seen remains when you do similar in a few hours time.

[#9]

Your complaint will have had little bearing at all. There has been a substantial amount of effort put into identifying the source of the performance issues and developing resolutions for months. High availability high reliance architecture can some times strangle themselves. This has not been an overnight resolution.

[#10]

You have much greater faith than I, Townman, in Pnet. A large internet provider, who will do you proud, cannot fix this if there were massive amounts of effort. Sorry I really do not buy that for one second. It was a very low priority, IMO, that they have tinkered with when they had some spare time, perhaps wondering what to do with their tea break once a month.

[#11]

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@bazzer wrote:

@Anonymous Not being an XP user I can't answer your question but there has been a massive upside in the service of late and at 0530 there will be much less traffic so I would judge whether the improvement you have seen remains when you do similar in a few hours time.

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Just done a test at 10:12am, and your suspicions are confirmed!

18sec to load Inbox and 14sec for the Sent ones.

This seems to confirm that there's not enough capacity in the system to cope with demand.  I wonder if our cousins on BTMail have the same problems?

[#12]

There is a fine balance between reasonable demand and out right abuse.  No system, no matter how well it is built can absorb unlimited demand.  Some users out there have massive mailboxes and are refreshing them every second ... thereby impacting performance for everyone.

Sometimes adding extra capacity / resilience actually make things worse - for example dual data centre cross coupling of each layer of the architecture can in some circumstances cause massive volumes of inter-data-centre traffic.  Those who think the solution is easy clearly demonstrate they have no understanding of the problem.  That is not to dismiss that they just want it to work the way they want when they want all for free.

[#13]

Where have you got the notion it is for free from, Townman, I pay pounds a month for my Pnet connection with included email in the price. Pnet would never do anything for free, if they could drop email altogether and charge the same I am sure they would, but would also lose customers. Infact it is my view that whilst they include email, they let it stay in this disreputable state so that de facto they do not provide it now and will just let it wither away when all their users have had the  sense to move to another provider, they hope for email only.

[#14]

I agree, Webmail is no more free than is the data that carries info down the fibre.  It's all part of the almost £500 I give PN per year.

[#15]

Interesting views - looking through the home products pages, email is not part of the product offer for residential users - it has not been for a good while.  It is though available for use ... without additional charge. QED it is (certainly now) a free add-on.