Does WordPress 2.5.1 suck?

June 4, 2008
Posted in Editorial

wordpress-logo

I know I will probably get blasted/flamed for this post … but that’s the life of a nerd with an opinion.

So does WP 2.5.1 suck? I’m not sure!

🙁

UPDATE:

I have since discovered new information and have resolved the problem … kind of. You can find details in the comments below.

So what’s the problem with WordPress 2.5.1?

I just recently installed the this latest version of WordPress (2.5.1) and quickly found it hanging (while trying to load a page) for as long as 40-50 seconds!

I then proceeded to isolate the potential causes (database, custom fields, custom theme) and have since found out that something stinks in 2.5.1’s core.

The bug is not consistent across servers – that means, it could be hard to find.

After installing WordPress 2.5.1 multiple times on one of my servers (the server where I always got the massive slowdown) I then installed 2.5.1 on another server of ours and so far, it seems to be working.

Some might think that the simple answer is that the first server is the problem. Well, the problem with that assumption is that all previous versions of WordPress work fine … along with 5-6 other PHP applications.

… No, it’s a WordPress 2.5.1 thing.

Update: I am having the same problem with WordPress 2.3.3. Strange because WordPress 2.3.1 works.

🙁

I’m not the only one.

A few minutes of Googling revealed, that I was not the only one having these problems.

Unfortunately for me, the solutions suggested don’t seem to solve my problem. Too bad, WordPress 2.5.1 has some nice administrative features.

My suggestion:

Before you upgrade your old working installation of WordPress, I would suggest that you test 2.5.1 in some other directory just to be sure it works with your server.

Stefan Mischook

www.killerphp.com

11 Responses

  1. Stefan Mischook Author June 4, 2008 at 11:49 am

    Hi,

    I wanted to update this post given the information I’ve gathered.

    Well, in a nutshell, I’ve found that any new install of WP on server A … and the 2nd install craps out.

    But, installing WP on my own dedicated server (server B) and it works fine. What’s weird about all this, is that server A has another WP install that is working just fine! Only the new install keeps hanging.

    … Very weird.

    So at this point, I don’t know what to think.

    Stefan

  2. Joseph Crawford Author June 4, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    I personally did not encounter these issues, however if you are not setting up another sub-domain for migrating your site you need to rethink your web development practices. You should never alter a live site that is working until you know that the changed code will work properly for you.

    I always setup beta.domain.com and install the latest WP for testing before I take it live.

  3. Joseph Crawford Author June 4, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    And wait… You find a bug in the code and all the sudden the entire application sucks?

  4. Stefan Mischook Author June 4, 2008 at 1:57 pm

    “You should never alter a live site that is working until you know that the changed code will work properly for you.”

    True. In this case. I was not altering a live site, just adding a new sub section.

    “And wait… You find a bug in the code and all the sudden the entire application sucks?”

    I was not meaning to convey that. I like WordPress. But the problems do persist.

    🙁

    Stefan

  5. Pádraic Brady Author June 4, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    Any chance of isolating the slow down using XDebug? If it’s something specific creating a massive slowdown, XDebug would find capture it in a cachegrind output.

  6. Stefan Mischook Author June 4, 2008 at 3:42 pm

    I haven’t tried yet.

    Stefan

  7. Mark Author June 4, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    Are you sure it is not a plugin causing the slowdown? Sounds like you have the bug hunting well under control, but you can contact me directly if you believe that I can be of any help.

  8. Stefan Mischook Author June 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    Hi Mark,

    I appreciate the offer of help, but things seemed to have resolve themselves!?

    Check it out:

    After doing the installs of different releases of WordPress (from 2.3.1 to 2.5.1) I found that they all ran really, really slow.

    … Strange since my original WP install was working fine throughout this process.

    Anyway, so I left it alone (planning to take it down later) and proceeded to install WordPress 2.5.1 on my dedicated server with the idea of using a sub-domain to create the virtual connection between the root site (killersites.com) and this new WordPress install.

    Note: I tend to prefer sub-directories to sub-domains because sub-domains can confuse some people and sub-domains can ‘confuse’ some search engines.

    Anyway ..

    Then later that day, I decided to check the hanging WordPress installation and to my surprise … it was working fine. So, there you have it … it just works now.

    ??

    Conclusion:

    Given that all new installations of WordPress, regardless of release, was acting up, I now am thinking there was something wrong/wonky on the server end of things and not necessarily WordPress itself.

    … But I just don’t know.

    Stefan

  9. Mayooresan Author June 6, 2008 at 2:01 am

    yeah.. agree with you! I had hell lot of problem with image uploader.. later I switched to non-flash uploader.

    but what ever the problem.. you can find solutions online.. thats the beauty of wordpress! 🙂

  10. Stefan Mischook Author June 6, 2008 at 2:06 am

    Mayooresan,

    I had the same problem with the new image uploader. I was able to get it to work by updating my htaccess file.

    And yes, you are right: the huge WordPress community is a HUGE reason to go with WordPress … lot’s of support.

    Stefan

  11. Harry Eves Author April 21, 2009 at 6:10 am

    Doesn’t like IIS does it. Out of the box, straight in. Runs like a dead slug and takes minutes to load. No templates being used, no plugins, just lousy performance (more 404’s ect.) Never mind, I’ll just use something decent from MS :0)

To Top