Slow page load when embedding content

The Hueman theme has problems loading embedded content which results in very long load times.

Symptoms

I have a website with the Hueman theme (WordPress 6.7.1, Hueman theme 3.7.27). A specific page consistently takes about 25 seconds to load. The page is simple, it has 5 paragraphs of text and 5 embedded articles. Other pages load fine.

Steps to reproduce

Create a new post and use the embed Gutenberg block to embed five external webpages.

Troubleshooting steps

The following steps did NOT help:

• deactivate plugins
• deactivate widgets
• try different browsers
• delete cache
• reinstall wp and hueman

Workaround

Changing the theme immediately solves the issue. Other themes also take a longer time to load the page but only on the first load. All subsequent loads are much faster (less then 2 seconds down from 25).

Logs

Here is the entry from the php-fpm log

[10-Feb-2025 15:57:15]  [pool www] pid 26077
script_filename = /var/www/html/wordpress//index.php
[0x00007fbf7aa17600] curl_exec() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/Requests/src/Transport/Curl.php:204
[0x00007fbf7aa17520] request() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/Requests/src/Requests.php:469
[0x00007fbf7aa17420] request() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-http.php:410
[0x00007fbf7aa17290] request() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-http.php:651
[0x00007fbf7aa171f0] get() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/http.php:80
[0x00007fbf7aa17160] wp_safe_remote_get() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-oembed.php:580
[0x00007fbf7aa17090] _fetch_with_format() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-oembed.php:554
[0x00007fbf7aa16fc0] fetch() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/themes/hueman/functions/init-wp-core-filters.php:31
[0x00007fbf7aa16ea0] hu_embed_html() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php:326
[0x00007fbf7aa16dc0] apply_filters() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/plugin.php:205
[0x00007fbf7aa16cb0] apply_filters() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-embed.php:291
[0x00007fbf7aa16b20] shortcode() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-embed.php:466
[0x00007fbf7aa16a70] autoembed_callback() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-embed.php:448
[0x00007fbf7aa169f0] preg_replace_callback() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-embed.php:448
[0x00007fbf7aa16960] autoembed() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php:324
[0x00007fbf7aa16880] apply_filters() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/plugin.php:205
[0x00007fbf7aa167a0] apply_filters() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/post-template.php:256
[0x00007fbf7aa16710] the_content() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/themes/hueman/tmpl/page-tmpl.php:8
[0x00007fbf7aa166a0] [INCLUDE_OR_EVAL]() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/template.php:812
[0x00007fbf7aa16540] load_template() /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/template.php:745

An excerpt from the log indicates that a call to curl_exec—likely part of Hueman’s handling of external HTTP requests—is taking longer than expected. Based on these findings, I suspect that the issue may be related to how Hueman performs or caches external requests.

Summary

The Hueman theme has problems loading certain pages. The common denominator to all the problems is: hueman theme + several block with embedded content.

The solution currently seems to be to either (1) change the theme or (2) don’t embed content (use links instead).