double images on basic slideshow page load

Hi @vlasker,

Does the issue happens only at the first load ( when the images aren’t cached ) or it happens every time when you reload the gallery page?

Please note that the slideshow requires the images to be loaded in order to start so that would be a normal behavior to see the images stacked for a half of second at the first page’s load. After that, the images should got cached in the browser and respectively those wouldn’t require a reload time.

Best Regards,
Mihai

Hi,

We are very sorry to hear about the slow load times! A few things to keep in mind and try:

1) Check your image sizes: *Recognize when you deactivate NextGEN, all your image/galleries are not loading, so loading time will be faster. The larger your images, the more dramatic the difference. We would suggest optimizing your images for the web by resizing them to 960 px on the longest side before uploading to your site or through the Manage Gallery (see how here).

2) Check the first load vs subsequent load. *We use displayed gallery caching so that subsequent loads after the first-page load (for all users) are faster. Could you confirm whether or not after reloading your page with your gallery, if opening it up again in a different browser helps?

3) Remove any plugins you don’t need. Consider deactivating Jetpack, which together with NG for some reason seems to slow performance. A good plugin I would suggest to install to help you identify the larger plugins that use a lot of server resources: P3 Plugin Profiler (NextGEN will be one of them, because it is a large plugin, but it will help you identify others that you might consider deactivating and removing if you aren’t using them).

4) Optimize Your Database & Remove ‘Bloat’. Install and use WP-Optimize to help optimize your database tables and remove ‘bloat’ from your site (i.e. page and post revisions, spam comments).

5) Install a caching plugin. Some highly rated ones are: W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache

NextGEN includes a lot of dynamic code. We’ve discovered that for websites that already suffer from some performance issues, usually due to hosting or to the performance of other plugins, etc. that NextGEN can exacerbate loading time issues. It sounds like that’s what may be happening here. Our first suggestion would be to consider installing a caching plugin. We have found that for those experiencing this, a caching plugin can have a major positive impact. Beyond that, the other solution we’ve found is to consider deactivating other intensive plugins (as we’ve seen this compound performance when used in conjunction with NextGEN).

Mihai

Hi @vlaske,

Thanks for trying the basic speed optimization steps.
I hope that you wouldn’t mind providing us with that gallery page’s link that loads slower than expected so we could take a look at it.

Mihai

Hi @vlasker,

Thanks for providing the link but it looks like it loads pretty fast in my case ( ~2.5s )
Can you please check your internet connection and make sure that it is fast enough when loading different pages just to exclude the loading speed problems based on the network’s speed?

Please let us know,
Mihai

Hi @vlasker,

It looks like the page loads the images each time a user reloads the page which causes those to appear stacked for a half of second until NextGen fires the slideshow instance.

I hope that you wouldn’t mind trying to install a plugin like “W3 Total Cache” and enable the caching solutions in order to avoid reloading the images on each page load for a faster content delivery time.

Hope this will help,
Mihai

Hi @vlasker,

I am not sure if we have already suggested this before, but, can you please try to temporarily deactivate all the plugins excepting NextGen Gallery and W3 Total Cache and switch to a generic theme like Twenty Seventeen to see if the images still appear stacked while page loads?

Mihai

Hi @vlasker!

We were wondering if you could share the shortcode you are currently using on your site https://www.nocankba.dreamhosters.com/design-awards/

You will need the “Classic Editor” plugin installed.
Grab the shortcode and please share it with us: https://imgur.com/BcBwVeJ

Have you tried to reset NextGen Gallery settings?

1.- Clear or deactivate any plugin cache you have installed (I know you have done that before, but It’s part of the troubleshooting steps).
2.- Go to Gallery > Other options > Miscellaneous > and click on “Clear image cache”.
3.- Go to Gallery > Other options > Reset options > and use the option “Reset all options”.
4.- Reinsert your gallery again and save.

Please, keep us posted.

– Gaby, Customer Support.