Slow load for static assets (TTFB)

Support
1

Hello, as others, I am facing very slow load times for static assets (images). Respectfully, as there seem to be several of these issues with Netlify, even though the UX is good, I registered to try out the performance which is #1 for my criteria… so I’m probably moving to another provider. But I thought it’s worth a shot in case I have something wrong in my setup (although I’m just using the Netlify DNS). Here’s the debug info you need:

Trying “www.gplus.gr”
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 64872
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.gplus.gr.			IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.gplus.gr.		19	IN	A	142.93.108.123

Received 46 bytes from 8.8.8.8#53 in 58 ms
Trying "www.gplus.gr"
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3154
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.gplus.gr.			IN	AAAA

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
gplus.gr.		1799	IN	SOA	dns1.p07.nsone.net. domains+netlify.netlify.com. 1588072725 43200 7200 1209600 3600

Received 111 bytes from 8.8.8.8#53 in 42 ms
Trying "www.gplus.gr"
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 38924
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.gplus.gr.			IN	MX

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
gplus.gr.		1799	IN	SOA	dns1.p07.nsone.net. domains+netlify.netlify.com. 1588072725 43200 7200 1209600 3600

Received 111 bytes from 8.8.8.8#53 in 62 ms

==========================================

x-nf-request-id:e733b40d-7586-4c2e-83ba-a3a6b3b7bd11-21231359

Here’s the HAR: Deleted

2

hey there, thats a bummer that you are seeing load times you weren’t expecting.

I tried to take a look at your HAR file but it seems it has been removed?

If you have another link for us that would be helpful.

3

Here you go, https://filebin.net/odom4dk1o64i3jqe . You’ll see 2 files. The first one is the one originally posted.

The second one ( _cloudflare ) is the most recent one after I enabled Cloudflare and I believe was able to solve the issues. (although I guess you shouldn’t have to do that ?

4

hey @gkatsanos - I’m glad you were able to solve the issues, and thank you for your patience. We will still get back to you with a more definitive answer re: the slowdown you were seeing - unfortunately, the person who knows most about these kinds of things is out on PTO all this week.

We will get back to you and won’t forget, promise!

5

@gkatsanos, I was looking at this topic but the filebin link expired (three hours ago - if only I had checked earlier today).

I am seeing that this site is fast normally, but I also find examples of uncached content being loaded slowly sometimes but overall the site load speed is fast.

I’m curious about the HAR file though as I was checking on a secondary possible root cause.

For this secondary root cause, I often see that some specific DNS resolvers are using cached lookups made elsewhere for all DNS requests instead of making the queries locally from where the client is located. In other words, if you use 8.8.8.8 or your ISPs DNS resolver, you are directed to a CDN node geographically closest to you.

It works like this. If you are in New Jersey, a DNS lookup for a Netlify site will route you to a CDN node near New York. If you are in Melbourne, you will get the Sydney CDN node. If you are in Paris, the DNS lookup will route you to the Frankfurt CDN node.

However, if you use a different DNS resolver (specifically 1.1.1.1) it routes all traffic to the New York CDN nodes. As you can imagine, for people in Europe and Asia this results in degraded site performance.

For example, if you are in Mumbai and being sent to a CDN node near New York (by your DNS resolver not Netlify) the site performance is likely to suffer.

I don’t know if this DNS resolver issue was affecting your site or not. The HAR file would have included the information need to diagnose it though. If it is affected by that issue, then no longer using 1.1.1.1 as the local system’s DNS will fix the issue.

To be clear, the secondary issue I’m mentioning isn’t with the DNS name servers for the domain. The issue I’m mentioning is with the DNS resolver queried by the end user’s computer/phone/tablet. It is a local system resolver problem and not a DNS hosting issue.

I’m just mentioning this as it is a possible root cause because I don’t want to bark up the wrong tree.

If there are other questions about this, please let us know. I don’t want to ask for the HAR file for a third time but if you still have it around, I’d love to examine it so … if you do want to post it again, I’m happy to check it out. :wink: