Re: [flasher] RE: Stalling in Download

[Jason Nugent]

> My understanding of web servers (anyone with greater knowledge, please

> correct me) is that a web server tries to complete a request as quickly as

> possible and therefore - on a general load - pumps out as much data as your

> browser /internet connection can manage.

>


That is correct.  In addition to this, the webserver also loads the entire

request into memory before serving it to the client. If the webserver is heavily

bogged down with other requests, or is running low on memory, the webserver

could be going into swap.  The only real way to notice this from the client's

end is to examine other sites or pages on that particular webserver and see if

they ever load with broken images or take a long time to fill in.


If you have administrator access to the server, you can examine the output of

various admin commands like "top" or "w" to see what the current process

situation is like.  0% idle CPU coupled with lots of swap memory usage is not a

good thing.  Load averages are a bit harder to compare but routinely high

numbers (say, ten or so) could indicate that the machine as a whole is a bit

overloaded.


Hope some of that helps.


Jason


PS: It's great to be back on the list.  I've been off of it for the last year

and a half or so, and have just now gotten back into doing Flash content. Nice

to see you all again :)


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Jason Nugent, BSc(hon)

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