Transfer of the various messages.properties files takes 2 to 3 seconds of walltime

[nickdos]

From @ansell on February 16, 2017 22:33

Search result page loads have a component of time totalling about 2 to 3 seconds where there are sporadic requests for a range of messages.properties/messages.en.properties/messages_en_US.properties files. If this process were streamlined it would increase the usability of the website.

Copied from original issue: AtlasOfLivingAustralia/ala-hub#16

[ansell]

See this screenshot of the timings (possibly not all of the time around messages.properties are related to them)

[ansell]

The messages.properties files are unable to be cached due to the cache-busting parameters, so the extra time caused by these calls impacts every page load on biocache.ala.org.au and the thin hubs.

[nickdos]

FYI, commit f84b317 added a 'cache' option that fixes the cache-busting issue. I also fixed the double loading of messages.properties on search pages and added the async option to stop modern browsers from complaining and to speed page loading.

[ansell]

The messages.properties files are not cache-busting anymore, based on testing this on biocache-test.ala.org.au, but they aren't marked as cacheable by browsers. The other js resources are successfully using If-Modified-Since and Last-Modified headers for browser level caching.

The duplicate queries have been fixed and the total page is down from 2.4MB (749KB gzipped) to 2.04MB (620KB gzipped) so overall definitely an improvement

There was a reference to cache: false in the commit above, was that meant to be cache: true?

f84b317#diff-86d6a358349ac5abf2c98b5331271472R65

The main difference since the last timing analysis, is the dependency on s3.amazonaws.com for the freshdesk widget. This website seems to have a close to 0ms TTL on their DNS, which in effect seems to require a DNS query for an average of 2 out of the 3 resources, although it seems like they are asynchronous, so they aren't interfering with the total timeframe as much as it looks:

[nickdos]

@ansell not sure where the reference to false was but it should be cache: true.

EDIT: async should be true as well. Will fix that.
EDIT: done - commit 9478b12

[ansell]

The first messages.properties request is now interleaved, so this issue can be closed. The freshdesk widget is the biggest time factor now, other than optimising the initial page load which is currently at 2.6 seconds for the default search.

Should I open a new issue specific to ala-hub for the freshdesk widget optimisation in the future, given it isn't relevant to biocache-hubs?

[ansell]

Closing this as fixed based on testing. Opened an issue for freshdesk specifically at AtlasOfLivingAustralia/commonui-bs3#2

[sylvain-morin]

Hi,

Caching of message.properties is not (no more?) active.
My browser spend around 5 seconds to download them on each page I see on ALA Portal.

I activated the caching on my portal (openobs.mnhn.fr) and I don't have this issue.
https://github.com/AtlasOfLivingAustralia/biocache-hubs/blob/develop/grails-app/assets/vendor/jquery.i18n.properties.js#L65

Regards,
Sylvain

[nickdos]

Thanks @sylmorin-gbif - will take a look at this regression.