Connection timeouts...

[Armitage]

One of my users is complaining that he can't get the results of a query on my site. He hits submit, waits a few minutes and then gets the message "The page cannot be displayed". Even big queries ussually return in < 30 or 40 seconds.

This guy is at a fairly remote location, and may have a somewhat dicey internet connection. Any ideas what can be done on either end to make this work for him?
Thanks

 

[Armitage]

Anyone? ... Anyone?

 

[kamper]

I suppose you could test to see if he's even getting to your server. See if you can get his ip address, have him try, and then watch logs or do a packet sniff.

Is this a web server on top of a database server? If he's got firefox maybe get him to try LiveHTTPHeaders, or do a packet sniff at his end.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: kamper
I suppose you could test to see if he's even getting to your server. See if you can get his ip address, have him try, and then watch logs or do a packet sniff.

He's definitely getting to our server - he's loading the form, and other parts of the site fine. Just this page doesn't load for him.

Is this a web server on top of a database server?

Yes, apache & mysql on RHEL

If he's got firefox maybe get him to try LiveHTTPHeaders

What is this?

or do a packet sniff at his end.

 

[kamper]

LiveHTTPHeaders is just a plugin that captures all the http headers that go to and fro. I sometimes find it useful for diagnosing web server problems. I suppose the only thing it'd really tell you is that he sent a request for a page and whether or not he got any response.

Is it always a particular page that doesn't give anyone else any problems? Is there anything about the implementation of if that may cause delays? Can you do some kind of trace to see what is being done on your side when the request comes in?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: kamper
LiveHTTPHeaders is just a plugin that captures all the http headers that go to and fro. I sometimes find it useful for diagnosing web server problems. I suppose the only thing it'd really tell you is that he sent a request for a page and whether or not he got any response.

Is it always a particular page that doesn't give anyone else any problems? Is there anything about the implementation of if that may cause delays? Can you do some kind of trace to see what is being done on your side when the request comes in?

It can be a somewhat slow page - a largish request can take about 30 seconds to load over my companies moderatly rfast internet connection. Has to hit a big database to pull it up. But I haven't had any other complaints on this particular page, and we've got users all over the world.