Problem with site speed, cache and the cart

I am having a problem with site speed, cache and the shopping cart.

I am using a Rockettheme template and I just read recently that they may be a little slow. I have had a few customers complain that it took a long time before their order went through and some orders never did. So I am trying to speed up my site somewhat. I have taken everything I can off of the checkout pages and it sometimes takes 5 seconds or more to add something to the cart. I recently did a test order and it took 10 seconds until the order went through (not always - but sometimes) and I have a fast connection.

I have my cache set to off - and when I turn it on, weird things happen in hikashop such as the checkout page not coming up after putting something in the cart. In the past I have tried to use the pop up when an item is added, but it would never go away unless I closed it.

I would like to use G-zip but similar things happen. I have seen nicolas post that gzip and cache will not affect hikashop, but something IS happening.

1 - I think I have a hikashop problem with the adding to cart function when cache is on.

2 - My site may not be as fast as I like - even though I have most modules off when Hikashop is running. What can I do to speed it up? Do having modules installed but disabled slow down the site?

After this Holiday season I am going to a responsive template. Does anyone know of any good ones that are fast or lightweight?
Does anyone have ideas?

Hi,

The page generation would not depend on your connection speed.
Using Gzip compression can speed up the transfer but would not speed up the generation.
Joomla cache could generate some problem by caching the cart page or some elements called in Ajax. Because it is not possible to configure the cache in order to not cache specific pages, it could have some borderline effects.

Modules which are unpublished are not loaded by Joomla. Files would not be included so it would be fine.
I would recommend you to activate the debug mode in order to check to have some generation report.
The Joomla debug plugin would give you a little "benchmarking" of your page, giving you times for different step of the page generation.

If you have some "system" plugins or other component which have a plugin system, it could affect the page generation.
HikaShop does not load its core if its not used in a page. Our system plugins are "stand alone" in order to not load the HikaShop core for other components (except when other components wants to call HikaShop function).

HikaShop could make some big SQL queries. If your database is externalized, it could affect generation speed (by adding some "lag" when an SQL query is made).

Best regards,

What is the relationship between page generation and the connection speed. I thought every page had to be first downloaded and then put together. I checked and do have some gzip enabled (and hikashop ok) & I will leave cache off. I may have some extra plugins I can remove.

Hi,

As I said, the connection speed has no relation with the page generation time, so I can't give you the "relationship" between them.
After the page is generated, it would be send to the user.
It's like a cooker and a server in a restaurant. Even if the server is quite fast, if the cooker may a lot of time to make the meal, you will wait.

Regards,

Ok thanks - so if there is a delay after clicking next (or something) before my browser rotating arrow thing starts to move that is the page generation delay and how long from when the browser rotating arrow moves until the page loads is the connection time?

The size of the page, images ect. affects the connection time and then the "system" plugins or other components which have a plugin system, could affect the page generation? Correct? It seems like the browser load time is a bit longer than the page generation. I think my site need to go on a diet! (Less images)

Here is an article you might want to read: www.joomspot.net/how-to-speed-up-optimiz...las-performance.html

As explained there, the best way to speed up your pages is to use a light weight template for your website.