Extremely Slow Page Load Times (40s) on Fresh Discourse Installation

Product Support Self-hosting

AI-generated summary

J_J1 reports extremely slow initial page load times (~40 seconds) on a fresh Discourse installation hosted on a 2-core, 4GB RAM cloud server, despite meeting minimum requirements. Navigation becomes fast after the first load. The setup includes three plugins: Material Design Theme, Gamification, and Solved. Canapin suggests testing in safe mode and removing plugins from app.yml to isolate the issue, and recommends checking browser dev tools (network/console tabs) for clues. They also link to a related thread after yesterday’s upgrade my site is taking 50 seconds to open and then behaves normally for diagnostic tips, noting that while causes may differ, troubleshooting methods may apply. The issue appears to be a cold-start performance bottleneck, not general slowness, and may be plugin- or configuration-related.

1

Hi everyone,

I recently set up a Discourse instance following the official installation guide on a lightweight cloud server. I’m experiencing severe performance issues with the initial page load, taking around 40 seconds. However, once loaded, navigation within the site becomes much faster.

Here is my self hosted discourse

Server Specifications:

  • CPU: 2 cores

  • RAM: 4GB

  • Storage: 40GB SSD

  • No other services running on this server (dedicated to Discourse)

Installation Details:

  • Fresh installation using the official Docker setup

  • Followed the standard installation procedure from the documentation

Installed Theme and Plugin

  1. Material Design Theme
  2. Gamification
  3. Solved

Current Issue:

  • Initial page load (cold start) takes approximately 40 seconds

  • Subsequent navigation within the site is much faster

  • The server is dedicated to running only Discourse

  • The server specs should be sufficient according to the minimum requirements

Has anyone experienced similar issues or can suggest potential solutions for improving the initial load times? Are there any specific configuration settings I should check or optimize for better cold start performance?

Thank you in advance for any help or guidance!

2

Do you experience the same issue in safe mode, and if you completely remove the plugins from app.yml? Is there any useful information in the network and console tabs of your browser dev tools when the slow loading occurs?

Also,

The reasons for the slowdown might differ, but the topics contain suggestions for helping with the diagnosis.