Ewww running when loading frontend pages?

EWWW normally only runs in the manner that you described. However, some plugins/themes will generate images dynamically on the front-end using the WP_Image_Editor class (which is normal). With parallel optimization enabled, there should be no slow-down, but that is not feasible on all sites.

The other possibility is that you are using the Alt Webp Rewriting and have hit a glitch with the xml parsing functions.

If you’re not using the WebP option, then I recommend you turn on EWWW’s debugging setting and load a few pages (load each one several times). Then on the back-end, go to Media->Dynamic Image Debugging and see what shows up. I would expect to see several images listed there, with multiple re-optimizations. Post a couple of those via pastebin.com (unless you can decipher them yourself), and then we’ll know who needs to fix what (hopefully).

Hi,

Thank you for your help with this issue. I turned off parallel optimization, but it didn’t make any difference. Alternative WebP Rewriting is not ticked, so we shouldn’t be using it.

When I have debug turned on, then the problem goes away, the home page loads quickly like it should.

Here is the debugging info: https://pastebin.com/UTSNhgh2

These are all Flatfolio images that are showing up.

Thank you again.

Yeah, flatfolio is regenerating images like crazy, that’s causing your load issues. Report a bug with them, and reference that pastebin you posted, as it will show them where the images are being generated. They should be caching any images they generate to disk, and then checking to see if the image exists before generating a new one.

However, EWWW shouldn’t make the page load slower with debug turned off, but here’s my suspicion on why it is:
Enabling debug mode turns off background optimization, which uses asynchronous requests. Those background requests can be stalled if a plugin is using sessions improperly (WP core doesn’t use them at all), as it will “lock” the session in the background bringing all processing to a crawl until all of those background requests timeout.

So we’ll leave the flatfolio issue to their devs to cleanup, but here’s what we need to do:
Can you search through your entire WP site codebase for any instances of the session_start() function and let me know if you find any?
If you have command line access, you can use rgrep (or ‘grep -r’), otherwise see if you can find a way to recursively search through all the files for that command. Your webhost might be able to run a quick search for you also.

Try this fix and turn off debugging to see if it fixes the delays a bit: https://downloads.www.ads-software.com/plugin/ewww-image-optimizer.zip

Please do let me know, because I don’t want to push that ‘fix’ out if it doesn’t improve things at all.

Hi,

Thank you for your help. I tried the new version, but it didn’t help. With Ewww disabled the home page loaded in less than a second. With Ewww 2.9.3.3. enabled it took over 15 seconds to load.

We are just going to leave Ewww disabled for now.

Thank you again for all your help on this.

Ok, that at least rules one thing out, thanks for checking. If you can post a list of your plugins, I can check them (at least the free ones) to see if they are using session_start improperly.

Hi,

Here is a list of our Active plugins:
Advanced Custom Fields
Akismet
Better WordPress Minify
Contact Form DB
Enhanced Text Widget
Exclude Pages from Navigation
Fast Secure Contact Form
FlatFolio
GC Testimonials
Google Analytics by MonsterInsights
Include HTML and PHP
jQuery Colorbox
ManageWP – Worker
mobble
myStickymenu
Nextend Smart Slider 3 Pro
Page Links To
Post Snippets
Post Type Switcher
Post Types Order
Random Text
Revision Control
Shield
Simple History
Simple Page Ordering
StripTease
Superfly Menu
Toolset Types
Widget Context
Wordfence Security
WP Masonry Layout Pro
WP No Category Base
Yoast SEO

Hope that helps.

hmm, been unable to replicate it so far, tried all the likely suspects, can you contact me here: https://ewww.io/contact-us/

I’m having the same issue, though with a different theme; enabling debug mode took care of the slow loading problem.

Plugins using session_start():

• Broken Link Checker
• Product Customer List for WooCommerce
• WP Affiliate Platform
• WPMU Dev Maps

Is there any downside to leaving maintenance mode on?

[moderator note: Please don’t post duplicates… deleting them now.]

The main downside is that it creates a debug log that will keep on growing, plus if you’re having this problem in the first place, it means something on your site is generating images excessively. With debug mode on, every one of those is going to start storing large trace-logs in the database. Short term, not too bad. Long term, could get ugly.

So next thing to do is find the culprit to the image regeneration. Once you’ve had debug on for a half hour or so, check under Media->Dynamic Image Debugging to see what you have for trace logs, and post a couple via pastebin.com

Here’s part of the log: https://pastebin.com/RkQ7vScR

Looks like it might be part of the theme?

(Sorry if you got a bunch of duplicates earlier…apparently I had too many links and it was flagged for moderation, but looked like it didn’t post at all.)

Wowzers, yeah it’s part of your theme. Send your theme developers that information and ask them to fix their image regeneration bug.

@ljkeashly, I think we lost track of it when andrew hijacked the thread. I believe I was waiting for you to contact me directly via https://ewww.io/contact-us/

Hi,

We have determined that Flatfolio is the issue and can deactivate Ewww on this site using it, so we are all good.

Thank you so much for all your help.