website super slow due to plugins?!

HI @fabelei

I hope you’re well today!

If site is performing slow even after plugins are deactivated then it usually means that the issue is either not related to these plugins at all or it is but in a bit more “tricky” way – there was some kind of conflict with other plugins and some affected resources got cached.

That is because neither of these plugins do any “permanent changes” to the site, that would last after they are disabled. If the changes stay there after disabling plugins, they must have been cached in some way (other caching plugin, server-side cache, CDN…).

Having said that, I’ve visited the page in question and it doesn’t seem like there’s currently any asset optimization (so e.g. minification of JS/CSS files) running on site which most likely eliminates one of common conflicts here.

Is there any caching plugin enabled on site (other than our Hummingbird) currently and/or is there any server-side cache active? If yes, could you try clearing it and see if the site performs better after that cleared cache is regenerated?

Also:
– do you know if there were any changes made to server/hosting plan recently?
– did you make any other configuration changes to the site itself (other than installing and then disabling Hummingbird and SmartCrawl)?

Best regards,
Adam

Hi Adam, thanks for your reply. I am not super into the whole topic, so that I try to answer as good as I can:

If site is performing slow even after plugins are deactivated then it usually means that the issue is either not related to these plugins at all or it is but in a bit more “tricky” way – there was some kind of conflict with other plugins and some affected resources got cached.

Indeed, I used a different plugin inbetween to resize the pictures on my page. I guess it might caused the problem?! How can I make the page run better again?

Activating Hummingbird does not help with this issue?!
There are no server-side caches active.

There were no permanent changes besides the fact that I updated the wp-config.php file to the code 0644

Hi @fabelei,

I had a look at your site and can see that the images are having quite a big impact on your site.
All of the reported images are the original sized ones and I’m assuming that the changes you’ve made in the meantime replaced thumbnails with original sized images on the site, which will cause increased load due to two things.

First one is that free version of Smush doesn’t optimize original size images, since most themes/plugins will use thumbnails anyway there’s often no need to optimize those as well.

And since thumbnails are no longer used it means that the image is way larger than its HTML holder.
For example, if I check first image in “UNSERE NEUSTEN BEITR?GE” section it loads original image that is 1440×1440 pixels while the HTML holder is only 370×370.

What this means that the image is almost 4 times larger than it should be, and in addition to that, since this is an original image it’s not an optimized one.

I would suggest checking the changes you’ve made to see if this is indeed what caused the use of original image or check with your theme devs about using thumbnails instead of original images.

In Google Speed test there’s also a report for “Preconnect to required origins” which suggests that there might be some issues with connection to 3rd party resources (images from Instagram for example) that affects loading speeds.

Cheers,
Predrag

Hi Predrag,

thanks for your comment.

First, I have to say that i deactivated Smush again and checked the cashes. So for now, the website does work, thankfully – although it is slow due to the pic sizes. But once I turned Smush on, it collapsed again and stuck instead of being quicker.

So I have a general question: Does this problem now have something to do with the free version of Smush or my theme/ server…?
Also, would it in this case help to work with the paid version of Smush?

Thanks again!

Hi @fabelei,

But once I turned Smush on, it collapsed again and stuck instead of being quicker.

Possible for you to double-check whether you get the same behaviour when you deactivated all the plugins and keep Smush enabled? This would also help to rule out if there are any plugins causing a conflict too.

In general, Smush shouldn’t be affecting how the website loads, however, could you also check the server logs to see if there are any logs related to Smush picked during the time you notice the issue? This would also give a better idea of what might be causing it.

Does this problem now have something to do with the free version of Smush or my theme/ server…?

It’s tough to say at the moment without troubleshooting the issue further where the issue is. Maybe you could try to increase the server resources and see whether it makes any differences?

You can check the following article on how to increase resources:
https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/increase-memory-limit/

Also, would it in this case help to work with the paid version of Smush?

The Pro version of Smush should help with optimizing the original images and with Smush CDN in the Pro version it should also help with loading the images faster. However, if you meant regarding the server load then it isn’t a known issue to fully state whether switching to Pro would make any difference.

I hope this helps in moving forward. Have a nice day ahead

Best Regards,
Nithin

Hi @fabelei

I hope you are doing well and safe!

We haven’t heard from you in a while, I’ll mark this thread as resolved.

Feel free to let us know if you have any additional question or problem.

Best Regards
Patrick Freitas

Hi Patrick,

I am still struggeling with this issue, unfortunately.

In general, Smush shouldn’t be affecting how the website loads, however, could you also check the server logs to see if there are any logs related to Smush picked during the time you notice the issue?

where do I check this?

Somehow it seemed that the problem always appeared in the evening CET while it seemed to work fine in the morning….?!

Hi @fabelei

where do I check this?

Usually you can check logs either in cPanel (or similar hosting/server management panel) or, at least some of them, can be available via FTP but if you are not sure about it, it would be best to get in touch with your host tech support and ask them to check server logs.

You can tell them that you have identified that at certain times of the day the site usually slows down and ask them to check if they can find anything related. I would suggest not telling them upfront to look for anything “Smush related” in order not to “bias” them.

Only if they say they found nothing suspicious then ask them again to check if they can find anything that they think might be related to Smush and performance.

Somehow it seemed that the problem always appeared in the evening CET while it seemed to work fine in the morning….?!

Since there’s no scheduling of anything in Smush, this actually might be important but may also mean that somehting more is involved in this.

– can you confirm that nobody (if there’s more people with admin-access to site) is manually running bulk-smush at around these times on regular basis?

– aren’t there any additional background tasks (like e.g. backups) running around these times?

– what about some sort of “scheduled cache clearing” or other site/server maintenance tasks?

If there’s anything that like that that you can think of, let us know.

Best regards,
Adam