why is the page taking an age to load? WordPress

Jens Filipsson comments:

Looking further at it, it looks like you´re low on memory. Maybe you should talk with your host about assigning more memory to your site?

Dave Smith comments:

both sites have memory limit set as follows:

php_value memory_limit 256M

Jens Filipsson comments:

Here's what you can try:

1. If you have access to your PHP.ini file, change the line in PHP.ini
If your line shows 32M try 64M:
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)

2. If you don't have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:
php_value memory_limit 64M

3. Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:
Increasing memory allocated to PHP
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

4. Talk to your host.

Jens Filipsson comments:

Oh sorry, I missed your reply there... You might wanna try step 3 in the guide I gave you, and see if that helps... Otherwise, I dont know.

Dave Smith comments:

pretty sure it's not to do with these errors, as i'm not getting them on the other site... take a look at that one, as i've just managed to completely break the other install!

Dave Smith comments:

ok i've just managed to somehow completely break that demo install by trying to update the includes/functions.php file. lets work on the live install at www.techcityinsider.net

i've already added the new feed.php file with the fix, what next?

Gabriel Reguly comments:

Hi Dave,

Surely you could start by solving the not found issues:

http://www.techcityinsider.net/wp-content/themes/seven-five/images/reply.jpg

Then load cf7 and fancybox only where they are needed.

This is for cf7, add it to your functions.php file:


// remove contact-form-7 overhead - cf7 is used only for page slug = contact
function my_dequeue_styles() {
if ( ! is_page( 'contact' ) ) {
wp_dequeue_style( 'contact-form-7' );
}
}
function my_dequeue_javascript() {
if ( ! is_page( 'contact' ) ){
wp_dequeue_script( 'contact-form-7' );
}
}
add_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'my_dequeue_styles', 100 );
add_action( 'wp_print_scripts', 'my_dequeue_javascript', 100 );


Regards,
Gabriel

Gabriel Reguly comments:

Hi Dave,

Seems to me it could be not WordPress, but a server related issue.

http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.techcityinsider.net/n3Z01q3D

Check the timeline tab, that is more than 8 seconds waiting for the first content.

Maybe if you just put a static html page for testing this.

Regards,
Gabriel

Dave Smith comments:

Hey Gabriel, implemented the code in functions.php, no major change unfortunately. in terms of it being a server issue, that's what i also thought, which is why I set up the clone on a completely different server. This one is with Gandi: http://92.243.24.134/ and this one with Rackspace: http://techcityinsider.net/

in both instances, it's the HP and the TCi Aggregator pages which load slowly, which leads me to believe that it's not a server issue and must be theme related. All the other pages on the site load within a couple of seconds which is what i need for these two pages.

Dave Smith comments:

ps no, not running multi-site, and have fixed the reply.jpg issue, thanks for the heads up.

Gabriel Reguly comments:

Hi Dave,

Wow, homepage now is 7x faster. Jurre Hanema did provided you with the right directions.

Regarding images, what Jurre is saying is that you should have image files like http://www.leedsunited.pro/ldn/dollar.png
hosted at your server. (This one took 6 seconds to load)

For the AJAX RSS Reader, http://www.toptut.com/2010/04/26/how-to-display-rss-feeds-with-ajax-javascript/ seems a good solution.

If you ask another question about an AJAX RSS Reader, surely someone will suggest one that would be good for you.

Regards,
Gabriel

Dave Smith comments:

I've turned off debugging, and as per Gabriel's post above have stopped cforms and fancybox loading on the hp (although I will eventually need fancybox back).

Luis Abarca comments:

You should change all the JS in the header to the footer.

Also change the conditional styles to this http://paulirish.com/2008/conditional-stylesheets-vs-css-hacks-answer-neither/

Luis Abarca comments:

You can change your theme to use http://html5boilerplate.com/, this site create a wordpress theme with HTML5 Boilerplate for you http://codekickoff.com/

Try to compress and minify your CSS and JS files too

Luis Abarca comments:

try to use a separate the html code in a template instead of using ob_start().

Using output control functions slow down a lot the display of the page, you can also flush the content early.

I notice that ou are still using the short tags, "<?" and "<?=", maybe theres nothing wrong with that, but its a lot better to use the standard tag "<?php"



function widget_sf_feed($args)

{

ob_start();



if ($args) extract($args);



if (!get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_order")) {

add_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_order", 2);

update_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_order", 2);

}



$more_url = get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "feed_site");



if( isset($args["more_url"]) && !empty($args["more_url"]) ) {

$more_url = $args["more_url"];

}



$args["description"] = '';



if( isset($args["description"]) && !empty($args["description"]) ) {

$description = $args["description"];

}



// Get RSS Feed(s)

include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/feed.php');



// Get a SimplePie feed object from the specified feed source.

//$feed_url = get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "feed_url");

//$rss = fetch_feed('' . $feed_url . '');



$abbr_array = array();



if ($args["feeds"]) {

$abbr_array = explode("+",$args["feeds"]);

}



$show_excerpt = 1;



if (isset($args["excerpt"])) {

$show_excerpt = intval($args["excerpt"]);

}



$feeds_arr = array();

$feeds_logo_arr = array();

$feeds_title_arr = array();



$feed_order = get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_order");



for ($i = 1; $i < $feed_order; $i++) {

if (((sizeof($abbr_array) > 0) && in_array(get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_abbr".$i), $abbr_array)) || (!sizeof($abbr_array))) {

array_push($feeds_arr, get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_name".$i));

array_push($feeds_title_arr, get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_title".$i));

array_push($feeds_logo_arr, get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_logo".$i));

}

}



if (isset($args["columns"]) && ($args["columns"] >= 1) && (count($feeds_arr) > 0) ) {

$i = 0;



foreach($feeds_arr as $k=>$feed_url) {

$rss = fetch_feed('' . $feed_url . ''); ?>



<div id="rss-feed-columns" class="rss-feed-columns">

<div id="rss-feed-columns-header">

<h3><?php echo (empty($feeds_title_arr[$k])?'RSS':$feeds_title_arr[$k]) ?></h3>

<?php if (!empty($feeds_logo_arr[$k])) : ?>

<img src="<?php echo $feeds_logo_arr[$k] ?>" style="border:0; background:none; padding:0;" />

<?php else: ?>

<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url') ?>/images/rss.png" style="border:0; padding:0;" />

<?php endif; ?>

</div>

<?php

// Figure out how many total items there are.

$rss_num = get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_num");



if ($args["count"])

$rss_num = $args["count"];



if (!$rss -> errors)

$maxitems = $rss -> get_item_quantity($rss_num);



// Build an array of all the items, starting with element 0 (first element).



if (!$rss -> errors)

$rss_items = $rss -> get_items(0, $maxitems); ?>



<ul id="feed">

<?php if ($maxitems == 0): ?>

<li>No items.</li>

<?php else: ?>

<?php foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) : // Loop through each feed item and display each item as a hyperlink. ?>

<li>

<h2<?php echo (!$show_excerpt ? ' class="excerpt"' : '') ?>>

<a href="<?php echo $item -> get_permalink();?>" title="<?php echo (!$show_excerpt ? strip_tags($item->get_description()) : 'Posted '.$item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a'))?>" target="_blank"><?php echo $item -> get_title();?></a></h2>

<?php if ($show_excerpt) : ?>



<p>

<?php echo strip_tags($item -> get_description());?>

</p>

<?php endif ?>

</li>

<?php endforeach ?>

<?php endif ?>

<?php flush(); // show the content ?>

</ul>

<div id="feed-last-item-columns">

<!-- nothing to see here -->

</div>

<!--<a href="<?php echo $more_url?>" title="" target="_blank">View More</a>-->

</div>



<!-- feed-feed -->

<?php if( $i && ($i%3==2) ) : ?>

<div style="clear:both; border-bottom:0px solid #CACACA;">

&nbsp;

</div>

<?php endif ?>

<?php

$i++;

} // endforeach
<?php flush(); // show the content ?>

} else {

$rss = fetch_feed($feeds_arr); ?>

<div id="rss-feed" class="content-item">

<div class="content-dets">

<h3>Related on the web</h3>

<?php if (count($feeds_arr) == 1 && !empty($feeds_logo_arr[0])) : ?>

<img src="<?php echo $feeds_logo_arr[0] ?>" align="left" style="border:0; background:none; padding:0;" />

<?php else : ?>

<?php if (!empty($more_url)) : ?>

<ul class="dets">

<li class="rss-link"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url')?>/images/rss.png" style="border:0; padding:0;" /><a href="<?php echo $more_url?>" title="" class="rss-link" target="_blank">View More</a>

</li>

</ul>

<?php else: ?>

<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url')?>/images/rss.png" style="border:0; padding:0;" />

<?php endif ?>

<?php endif ?>



<?php if (!empty($description)): ?>

<p><?php echo $description ?></p>

<?php endif ?>



<!--<ul class="dets">



<li class="rss-feed-link"><a href="<?php echo $more_url?>" title="<?php echo get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "feed_name"); ?>" target="_blank">View More</a></li>



</ul>-->

</div>

<div class="content-body feed-container">

<?php

// Figure out how many total items there are.

$rss_num = get_option(THEME_PREFIX . "rss_num");



if ($args["count"])

$rss_num = $args["count"];



if (!$rss -> errors)

$maxitems = $rss -> get_item_quantity($rss_num);



// Build an array of all the items, starting with element 0 (first element).

if (!$rss -> errors)

$rss_items = $rss -> get_items(0, $maxitems); ?>



<ul id="feed">

<?php if ($maxitems == 0): ?>

<li>No items.</li>

<?php else: ?>



<?php foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) : // Loop through each feed item and display each item as a hyperlink. ?>

<li>

<h2<?php echo (!$show_excerpt ? ' class="excerpt"' : '') ?>>

<a href="<?php echo $item->get_permalink() ?>" title="<?php echo (!$show_excerpt ? strip_tags($item->get_description()) : 'Posted '.$item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a'))?>" target="_blank"><?php echo $item -> get_title();?></a></h2>

<?php if ($show_excerpt): ?>

<p><?php echo strip_tags($item -> get_description());?></p>

<?php endif ?>

</li>

<?php endforeach ?>

<?php endif ?>

</ul>
<?php flush(); // show the content ?>


<div id="feed-last-item">

<!-- nothing to see here -->

</div>



</div>

</div>

<!-- feed-feed -->

<?php } ?>



<?php if (!$args["widget_name"]): ?>

<style>

#rss-feed {



padding-left: 0px;

width: 660px !important;

border-bottom: none;

margin-top: 15px !important;

}

#rss-feed .content-dets h3 {



margin-top: 0px;

}

/*#rss-feed .content-body {



width:440px !important;



}*/



#rss-feed .content-dets {



width: 200px;

margin-left: 30px;

}

#rss-feed .content-body {



width: 490px !important;

}

#rss-feed li {



width: 490px !important;

}

</style>

<?php endif ?>



<?php

$result = ob_get_contents();



ob_end_clean();



return $result;



} // end function



register_sidebar_widget('Seven Five - Feed', 'widget_sf_feed');



Dave Smith comments:

hey Luis, sorry my coding ain't good enough to be correcting this php myself... are you able to correct it and provide me with a revision to test please?

Luis Abarca comments:

Yes i can do it

Luis Abarca comments:

umm,m i install the theme and install the plugin, but it shows a lot of notices, because the theme use deprecated functions, i think that your best bet is install a plugin like this one http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/better-rss-widget/

Rebuild your current Rss Widget gonna takes more time than expected.