This is kind of a late report, because I've had the death flu since 07Feb17 and am just now returning. On 06Feb17, I was surprised to learn in chat that "Krin fixed the lag," because I was still getting rather serious lag on the site (and not on other sites) and had assumed it was still a problem for everyone. I didn't get around to asking about this at the time, alas.

Now that I'm able to be back in Sylestia, the problem is still exactly the same. This is a particular problem in the Astryl's Vale zones, though it occurs everywhere. My avatar takes one slow step, then one more slow step, then...you get the idea. Holding the key down does not improve matters. I've tried re-starting the browser (Firefox) and re-starting the computer. Nada.

Please help. I could actually play for some time at a stretch while I finish recuperating, but this is frustrating. I hope this makes sense--head still a bit woozy.

Can you try running a few traceroutes to sylestia.com? Can you do like 3 of them ~15 minutes apart.

https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200169336-How-do-I-run-a-traceroute-

Additionally, have you tried different browsers? Have you tried running the browser without any addons? Do you use an antivirus? If so, can you try disabling it or whitelisting sylestia.com?

What device and operating system are you using?

Good grief, you're still awake?

Um, sorry, that came out weirdly.

Device is my desktop PC, Intel (R) Core TM(2) Duo CPU, 64-bit OS, Windows 7 Home Premium. I haven't tried any other browsers yet. Sylestia is whitelisted on my antivirus, but I haven't tried disabling it entirely yet. I also haven't tried deleting my Firefox add-ons yet. They are Shockwave Flash, Primetime Content Decryption, Widevine Content Decryption, Open H264 Video Codec, Adobe Acrobat, Java Platform SE8, BetterPrivacy, TrackMeNot, and ColorZilla.

Unless I hear to the contrary from you, I will attempt those things I haven't yet tried tomorrow, when I am fully awake, and I will also try running the traceroutes.

Just wondering if there's been any updates to this issue for you?

Sorry. Yeah, a bit. I uninstalled ColorZilla, which had become cranky anyhow, and noted an improvement re my avatar's speed of movement in Astryl's Vale. It didn't go up to the movement speed I have become accustomed to, but it did speed up perceptibly. Next I disabled TrackMeNot, but that produced no change.

I thought next I'd try uninstalling TrackMeNot entirely and see what that does.

BTW, does Sylestia make use of LSO cookies? BetterPrivacy deletes LSO cookies when I exit Firefox, so it occurred to me that perhaps there are some Sylestia LSO cookies I should whitelist.

We don't really use cookies at all, beyond just the basics.

Everything is pretty much stored in PHP Session, which is kept serverside and just matches by ID. There's then a layer of security that re-verifies your credentials literally every time you load a page and changes this ID to prevent session hacking.

I actually had to google what "LSO Cookies" were, so that tells me we probably don't. =P


Interestingly enough, I use ColorZilla as well and have never noticed an issue with it. But I'm on Chrome.


I'd highly suggest loading up a browser to run barebones and just seeing how it works. I'd imagine Firefox has that option, but i'm not sure how/where it'd be located.

Chrome is easy if you have that installed - just load incognito mode. It loads with no cookies and no extensions. And then deletes everything when you close the browser. It's great for testing things like this.

Well, I just found my second Guardian ever, who dropped an egg, so I may never, ever change anything ever again, LOL!

ColorZilla had specifically stopped working on Sylestia. It wouldn't give me the eyedropper cursor on any Sylestia page, but if I so much as moved the cursor to, say the toolbar, or a tab, or the address field, the eyedropper would reappear. Also, Flash has been crashing 2-3 times whenever I start Firefox, regardless of what site I'm on, but I had assumed that to be due to deleting LSO cookies; Flash would regain a few cookies and start working properly.

I don't have Chrome because it would always cause malfunctions at my old job, but I can find a way to run a barebones Firefox. First, though, I have a few more add-ons I can try zashing.

Thanx for remembering about this issue, BTW.

It definitely seems like you have some browser issues going on.

ColorZilla should work fine, I don't see why it wouldn't. There's nothing that I can think of specific to Sylestia that would tamper or interfere with it. If it's having issues, that seems like an issue with your browser itself or the addon's version.

Flash has actually been discontinued on Chrome with its latest update because of how awful it is. I imagine Firefox and Edge will follow suit soon enough if their newer versions haven't already. We don't use any Flash on our Site really... but that doesn't mean it can't cause all sorts of complications just running in the browser's background.

I'd highly, highly suggest just reinstalling your browser or trying a new browser and just going without any addons/extensions and seeing how things run. If it's noticeably smoother, you can always add things back one at a time as you need them.

But it definitely sounds like you have some browser issues going on.

Well, I switch to Explorer and . . . well, the lag is gone. My avatar can move around at normal speed, or what I had previously regarded as normal speed. It's pretty zippy, and other images on the site are loading quickly as well.

However, one reason I was distressed about how slowly my avatar was moving was that it limited my ability to roll up the fight counter and hopefully, eventually, locate a Guardian. Since I switched to Explorer, I haven't seen a Guardian since my second one, which was 833 fights ago (breaking the previous record of 740 fights between Guardian sightings). Is it possible that, even though I do not log out, Explorer is resetting my fight counter somehow? I'm grasping at straws here.

(And if not, is there some ceiling on the number of fights that can pass without a Guardian sighting? In other words, if I can reach, say, 2000 fights or whatever the ceiling is, a Guardian will definitely show up? Or is there always, no matter how many fights, a "roll of the dice" that has a nonzero chance of failing? Sorry if this sounds whiny, but I am really weary of fighting endless white stars.)

PS but thanx for correctly diagnosing that the browser was the source of the lag.

Edit: Well, something went right. Found a Guardian after 893 fights.

I am glad to hear that you have noticed an improvement using a different browser.

Just as one more suggestion, if you prefer Chrome over IE (or Edge), you can always try uninstalling Chrome and then re-installing it fresh.

For your other question, no, there is a cap on the bonus and a Guardian will never reach 100% chance to spawn. The maximum bonus ends up being a 600% boost to its spawn rate vs the standard.

When you initially switch browsers, it will reset the counter because you'll be creating a new session (log in). However, as long as you stayed logged in, the counter boost will continue.