Help!... Expert Agent is too slow?

We’re confident that Expert Agent should fly along. We spend a small fortune on servers, bandwidth etc. It should be click, click, click, not click, wait, wait!  Also, it shouldn’t kick you out all the time.

If it is too slow for you or it drops the connection, you need to get it sorted. There's nothing worse than a computer system that goes slowly.

Expert Agent is a web-based solution so, in theory, as long as you can connect to the internet, you are ready to sell. However, life is never that simple and many factors can conspire against you.

In our 2013 customer survey, 32% of customers said Expert Agent “flies along”. A further 52% said that Expert Agent is “fast most of the time – but has its moments” Those that didn’t think it “flies along” were invited to tell us how it runs when they try it at home “Pretty Quick” was the reply from 80%. So, we’re confident that Expert Agent can be made to go as fast as you want it to.

Our Mike Griffiths has put together a video to show you how fast Expert Agent should go and to help you achieve better speed.

In it, Mike gives a short Expert Agent demo using data from one of our biggest customers whilst connecting using a slow 3G mobile phone connection. That sets a benchmark for performance. If Expert Agent doesn't go as well on your office computer as it does in the video, you need to do some work to improve things. Mike makes the point in the video that asking us to fix your speed problems "is a bit like calling the BBC because iPlayer is buffering or calling Channel 4 because you get a fuzzy picture". We're sympathetic but there's little we can do. However, there's lots you or your IT guy can do and Mike goes on to discuss some useful and straightforward fixes. He even deals with the perennial “well, every other website we use is nice and fast!” issue.

 Here's the video - don't forget to maximise it.

However, in case you can't watch the video, here's some explanation - starting with the diagram from the video: 

we'll consider each element in turn

1. Our Servers

This bit is out of your control. We spend a small fortune on servers, routers, RAID arrays etc to maximise the speed.

We have multiple “racks” of equipment. Each rack contains web servers and database servers. When you connect to Expert Agent, you are connected to the server with the least load on it at that point. We have 250 branches per “Rack” of gear.

The only thing that is worth checking is that you have not created a shortcut to one particular rack in error. Manually browse to www.expertagent.co.uk and login OR if you must set a shortcut, point it to http://loadbal.expertagent.co.uk 

2. Our Internet Connectivity

This is literally uncapped. If we need more bandwidth, our service providers give us it instantly – we don’t have to ask for it.

3. Sort Your PCs out

Most PCs have a direct connection to the internet. If you have an older, more complex setup, you may have a Microsoft Server that interferes with the flow of data. Until Broadband became dominant, it was normal to have a server with an ISDN or even a modem connection to the internet. Some businesses have retained this. Get rid of it! Our experience is that the presence of a Server that controls domain access to the web, particularly when configured as a Proxy Server, slows down Expert Agent access by a dramatic amount.

Make sure you have an up to date Virus Checker on your PC – there is a good one, a cheap one and even a free one at www.kaspersky.com. However, if you have Windows 8 or Windows 10, just use the free built-in Windows Defender.

More importantly, make sure you have an up to date Spyware checker. Spyware can be fairly innocuous – a widget designed to track your web surfing habits so as to throw up suitable adverts. However, it can be malicious – looking for credit card details. Either way, spyware will use up valuable upload bandwidth by constantly communicating with its creator. Some years ago, a colleague’s PC acquired a Trojan-type spyware from a dodgy website. It swallowed up all of our upload bandwidth.

If you don’t have a spyware checker – look at www.kaspersky.com – they have a good one, a cheap one and a free one! Again, if you have Windows 8 or Windows 10, just use the free built-in Windows Defender. One less layer to worry about!

Make sure you use Chrome as your browser.

Do CTRL-ALT-DEL and pop up the Windows Task List. Have a look at what else is running - stop anything that seems to hog resources. Make sure you stop these permanently.

4. Check your wiring

Make sure you have modern CAT-5 network cabling to your desk. Replace any network switches with modern 100mbps or 1000mbps units. Only use WiFi if you have one of the latest Tri-Band WiFi routers and modern Tri-Band PCs or laptops.

BT have a YouTube video covering the connection from the modem/router to the wall socket  – see http://youtu.be/D94c6hnstu4  

If there is a problem with your telephone line, or the wiring between your modem/router and the wall socket  or the way you have installed your microfilters, it is very common for your Broadband modem to “lose sync” with your local telephone exchange – sometimes very frequently. This can cause problems because every time it loses the connection to the local exchange your Broadband modem has to try to establish a connection again, and send your username and password again. And if this happens a lot, it can result in lots of “page not found” errors, or for the connection to appear to be slow.

With some routers, you can identify this problem via the lights on the front panel. The “sync” or “connection” light which would normally flash for a few moments after you turn it on then remain steady, will be seen going off, then flashing, then going steady for a while, then maybe flashing again — or at least not staying lit steadily. Each time you see it start to flash it means your router has lost synchronisation with the local exchange and is trying to re-establish a connection.

(NOTE: Although this is true of the majority of Broadband modems, please check the documentation that came with your Broadband modem or router for information on exactly what the indicators on your particular unit mean – some makes and models may have a light that may flash to indicate that all is well, or that data is being transmitted, in which case a flashing light would not mean an error).

5. Stop “bandwidth hogs”

This is huge issue. This alone could solve your problem

Check out whether you or colleagues are streaming music, radio, news feeds, DropBox, have iPlayer desktop active etc. Ban everyone from connecting iPhones and smartphones to your office wifi - particularly those that are running synchronisation services like DropBox, Apple iCloud, Google Drive etc. You will have limited upload bandwidth and iCloud/DropBox/Google Drive will happily pinch the lot!

6. Sort your modem out!

There are a couple of things to look at here

MTU

MTU is Maximum Throughput Units and it relates to a setting on your router. If you get this wrong, Expert Agent will give you “page not found” errors or kick you out. MTU determines the size of the “packets” of data that your router sends to your internet service provider. BT Wholesale recommend setting this to 1458bytes (or just over 1k bytes). If you set it wrongly, you will still be able to download from most websites. However, if you set it too high, data that you send to and from Expert Agent may not reach our servers and will give you the errors mentioned above. Most routers are of US origin. US DSL is normally set to 1500 and therefore needs to be changed.

This single change can make a huge difference to reliability and performance.  The following links to a full technical explanation:

http://www.adslnation.com/support/knowledgebase/ht003.php 

Do a Speed Test

Your broadband speed affects how quickly information is passed to our servers from your machine, a low speed in combination with many users being connected at once, can, in some cases, cause EA to appear to run slower than normal. However, generally, this isn't the issue - 0.5mbps per user is more than adequate so an average 10mbps connection is good for 20 users.

If you want to carry out a speed test on your connection.

- Go to www.speedof.me 

- Click on the "Start Test" button which is situated part way down the screen on the left hand side.

- A speedometer will pop up showing the test running

compare this with what you are paying for

ADSL Broadband is asynchronous – faster one way than the other. The fast direction is down the line from the Internet and that’s ideal for most web browsing. You can make that direction as fast as you want – just by spending more money. However, the upload speed has barely increased. Most modern ADSL broadband connections are 700-1024k bits upload. Fibre connections can be 5000kbits (5mbps) or more. When you save an applicant in Expert Agent there’s quite a lot of data uploaded and it can take 2-4 seconds on the original broadband upload speed (reducing accordingly on a faster connection). If 3 or 4 of you upload an applicant at the same time, you could easily have to wait for 10-15 seconds if your upload speed is poor. Expert Agent can’t move on till it receives confirmation that your data has been saved. That's why other websites can appear to go fast - you are just sending single keystrokes up the line - a button click, a back button press etc. Rightmove Live is similar to our product - lots of data uploads necessary - that's a good comparison.

You can spend more money and upgrade the download speed. It seems that many providers will do this for free if you give the impression you are likely to cancel.

However, try to get the highest possible upload speed. We think that is more important than the highest possible download speed.  Also, check that spy ware and viruses, DropBox, Apple iCloud etc are not using up your upload bandwidth.

If you can get fibre-optic braodband such as BT Infinity – fantastic!

First of all, go to www.broadbandtest.co.uk download and run their test program. It will give you a complete picture of your connection. If you have 1mb per user and 300k plus of upload speed (so a 6mb connection shared between 6 of you or a 12mb connection between 12 of you), that will be plenty.

You can also check for better providers here http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker – anyone that provides LLU can normally give you a fast service.

Contention

We used to have to worry about Contention - sharing the same “pipe” from the box at the end of your street, through your local exchange and on to the Internet with your neighbours.

BT claim this isn't an issue now - the only contention is at "national level" (whatever that means) at peak times. Click here for an article