hang time while logging in

February 14, 2006 6:32 PM

I'm getting some hang time while logging in. It's coming from dynamic.fmpub.net

It could be a porn-bot that I picked up but I'm only experiencing with Metafilter pages/sites. It's not a huge problem but it looks like I'm being routed through something else before making Metafilter contact. And sometimes it just lags forever.
posted by snsranch to Bugs at 6:32 PM (11 comments total)

Sounds like a personal problem.
posted by furtive at 6:45 PM on February 14, 2006

fmpub.net is the ad server. It's likely that pulling up a page is lagging while it contacts their server.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:48 PM on February 14, 2006

I had the same slowdowns last week pre-massage. Haven't been as active this week to have noticed. Ain't no big thang, of course.
posted by sohcahtoa at 7:18 PM on February 14, 2006

I blocked adserver.fmpub.net in my hosts file. It kept hanging while downloading a .js file but as a logged-in member I don't see any ads so I didn't think it'd matter. I hope that doesn't screw up your stats or anything.
posted by TimeFactor at 7:27 PM on February 14, 2006

I've been experiencing significant lag and delay just loading www.metafilter.com for each proper pageload. Logged in and everything.

I am considering adding fmpub.net to route to localhost in hosts file.

Matt, please advise us how doing this will impact you or your stats? If it's a major deal, I won't block it. If it was any other site I would have blocked it ages ago.
posted by loquacious at 8:53 PM on February 14, 2006

I picked up a porn-bot once. A few drinks, a few laughs, and it turned into the best night of my life.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:58 PM on February 14, 2006

It's not a major deal, go ahead and block it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:11 PM on February 14, 2006

Thanks. Blocked.
posted by loquacious at 10:45 PM on February 14, 2006

I had already blocked *.fmpub.net/*, but I want to understand. Since the logged-on status obviously works to hide the ads, who keeps track of the "show no ad" status ? Since it always contacts them, is it that you signal them "show no ads to this person?"

If it messes with your tracking I'll unblock it; I can deal with a few seconds extra to keep mefaskowie happy!
posted by SpookyFish at 10:50 PM on February 14, 2006

When you are logged in, you can still see small ads on the front pages of MetaFilter and Ask MetaFilter. I recently added some tracking code to track times when there was no ad showing there, which is what was causing the slow loads. The ad company is still working on their server farm so the new script is probably running slow.

It should be fixed now, though, as I've removed the tracking code and left only the actual ad serving code up.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:22 PM on February 14, 2006

Metafilter: It could be a porn-bot.
posted by JeffK at 10:23 AM on February 15, 2006