I've installed a new website for a client on their dedicated server which I manage.

The DNN version is 4.05.05, (almost) bang up to date.

The speed of the site varies considerable and I cannot for the life of me find out why.
   
    gzip compression is in place
    the site is being pinged regularly
    the speed issues occur with every page load - not just on first load for a while
    I have given the site its own application pool in IIS
    I have tried adjusting the recycle setting on the App Pool
    the server has adequate resources to server an asp.net website, and is not struggling on page     requests

You can view the site here
You can view a speed report for the site here

Now the speed report points out that the page is quite heavy - there are issues I can tweak here eg style sheets and optimising images, but I don't think this is the issue, I think it is caused by IIS or the application itself. You will notice the download time on this report for an ADSL connection is about 4 seconds - in fact it can take 20-30 seconds and sometimes more to load each page.

The pinging service regularly reports that the site is 'down', (actually it is probably timing out)

Very occassionally if I go in and fiddle with some settings the site springs into life (yes I have tried this with an empty cache and with caching turned off in my browser). Some things that have made a difference and the site has become very quick:
    recycling the app pool manually in IIS (this doesn't always work)
    restarting the app pool
    logging in and re-saving the host settings page (with the compression settings - and without actually changing the settings)
   
When I first turned on compression for the site it sprang into life and I thought the problem was solved but the issues keep occuring. The site report above always reports that compression is turned on.

I have also found this issue from different locations, so it isn't a issue specific to my broadband connection. I am also quite sure it isn't an bandwidth or connection issue with the server as pages for a static site on the same server load no problems.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I am beginning to regret having chosen DNN for content management for this project.

The real issue is that your site will time out and be unloaded. Then it will take 20 or more seconds to reload. The solution is to keep the site from being unloaded.

host-tracker.com and other sites will keep a site from being unloaded by pinging it at regular intervals. There are also utilities that you can purchase to do the same thing.

If you have access to your site's server settings, you can change those to keep the site from being unloaded.

Note that this initial load and unloading issue is somewhat different than performance issues. Whenever I'm not sure how to configure my site for best performance, I'll go and review John Mitchell's suggestions in his DotNetNuke support forums at snapsis.com.

If you'll browse this forum, you'll see other discussions of this issue.

Thanks for your reply.

I thought I made it quite clear this is not a case of the site being unloaded from memory!

The speed issue happens with every page load, and the site is already being pinged!

I will review the forums at the site you recommended, but wondered if anyone had some more specific suggestions for my problems. I gave quite a detailed account of what appears to be happening.

I've taken a look at your site. For me -- 30 seconds ago -- the site loaded in a few seconds. The pages loaded in a second or so, too. In other words, I didn't see the issues that you've identified.

Unfortunately, I am receiving the same problems as dajabo. I am using the pinging service "www.siteuptime.com" and it's scheduled for every 5 minutes. The site works wonderful and is very fast until out of the blue, a request just "hangs" and I get a dreaded DotNetNuke page that states:

"The site is currently unavailable."
"Please check back later"

It then has to totally reload the website. I have no idea where this page is being generated because I've nuked it from the /Install/UnderConstruction.htm. That file doesn't exist, and I have cleared all of my temporary files in both IE and FF and it still appears. There is no specific module that causes it. I have made no changes to the core and it just happens totally random. I too get the "Site is DOWN" warning from my pinging service, even though it hits it every 5 minutes. Somethings very wrong and I can't figure out what it is....Any ideas?

My BETA site URL is: http://ntgcsa-org.si-eioswww4.com

I have noticed that it tends to occur the most when committing stuff to the database. Is there a specific type of error that may be triggering the "This site is currently unavailable?" What triggers that response?! Thanks.

-AngryGerbil.

That is a DotNetNuke error, and I saw it when I first tried to visit your site. The message comes from code in the Install directory. That, coupled with your observation that it happens when the site is trying to write into the database, would lead me to conclude that there is an issue with connectivity between your DotNetNuke site and your database.

dajabo, the site is loading quickly for me at the moment.  It may also be worth keeping a track of the event logs in your DotNetNuke installation and see if any errors are occurring in there.