Why do web pages that are taking forever to load suddenly load if you reenter the URL

DJOtaku · 01-09-2012, 04:11 PM

Just curious about this because it happens at least once every other day. I start up a web browser. I type in the URL. The wheel spins forever. It spins so long I think maybe my internet connection is out. I click in the URL field and hit enter again. The web page appears suddenly. Like not even a second to load - just instantly there.

What's going on?

frankbell · 01-09-2012, 08:59 PM

Many times, if the pages contain advertisements, the ads are hosted on a remote site from the one you are loading and the issue is that the page is waiting for the ads to load. When you go to reload the page, a lot of its contents are already cached.

No idea if this is what is going on here, but it's quite a common phenomenon.

AnanthaP · 01-12-2012, 04:45 AM

You have to factor in that while it was taking forever to load, it was really filling up the page - and thus the cache (but not completely) and so the next time, (when you re-enter) it finds mostly everything in cache and so loads quickly.

This is difficult to prove but I think we can check it out by trying various cache settings.

Secondly, it could be that in large pages, there is some genuine external but transient delay. Again, difficult to check.

OK.

DJOtaku · 01-12-2012, 02:36 PM

makes sense

sundialsvcs · 01-16-2012, 11:36 AM

As an aside: "ad blocking" software such as adblock and privoxy are very handy for many reasons ... including the elimination of cache-busting ads.

otoomet · 01-21-2012, 10:47 AM

Just a hypothesis --

this is a connection problem, one-time packet loss, which the software does not handle correctly. If a package is lost, some software layers may remain waiting for it, never realizing it is lost. If you click again, all packages arrive just fine and the page loads fast.