Sometimes, you might encounter the ‘website took too long’ error when you try to visit a particular website.
The following images show what the error looks like on Chrome and Firefox, respectively:
Chrome:
Firefox:
If you’re concerned about accessing your site because it shows that it could be down for all users, you need to fix it. Read on for some common causes and how to troubleshoot.
What does this error mean?
The “taking too long to respond” error indicates an issue with the connection between the server and the client (the web browser). It means that the server takes a long while to respond to the client. The connection attempt is then terminated. The error is usually returned if the client cannot receive a response from the server within 30 seconds.
What causes the ‘taking too long to respond’ error?
Here are several reasons why your browser takes a long time to load:
Internet connection problems
A particular website may fail to load if you do not have an internet connection. Make sure that your device is connected to the Internet, for example, by using a local network or wifi. If you’re using a local area network (LAN), you need to check your network settings. Make sure that your TCP/IP protocols are correctly configured. Later in the article, we’ll look at fixing Internet connection problems.
Your server is overwhelmed
Memory allocation is not evenly distributed when using shared hosting. Some websites may require a lot of memory, leaving others with less memory available. If you’re using shared hosting, there’s a chance there isn’t enough memory available to allow for a connection between your client and server, so you may need to upgrade your hosting plan.
Talk to your service provider about your memory limit. You can check your memory limit by going to the ‘Site Health’ tab on your WordPress dashboard.
You might also consider changing your hosting plan to a VM (Virtual Machine) package, where memory usage is shared equally among users and applications.
Other factors could cause your site to become overloaded, including spikes in site traffic, code, and scripts that haven’t been deferred to load only when your site fully loads, etc.
Your antivirus is blocking site access
You may need to adjust your antivirus settings to allow access to some websites or even all of them if your current settings block them. If you get an error message saying “Taking too long,” you may need to temporarily disable the feature and see if the issue is resolved.
DNS cache
Domain name system (DNS): The DNS is what translates domain names into IP addresses. Because it is easier for browsers than for humans to read IP addresses, which are four sets of numbers separated by periods, while it is easier for people to remember the text, domain names are made up entirely of text.
DNS results are usually cached to ensure that subsequent requests are handled faster. If there was a problem communicating between the client and the server, it could be because the cache was outdated. Flushing the DNS cache should solve the error.
Outdated extensions
Extensions come in handy for adding necessary features to help improve browsers’ functionality. However, they may be less frequently updated for compatibility with different browser versions. Old extensions may cause problems when communicating with the server. You don’t know if the extensions will work as expected.
If you use Chrome and antivirus software, you may experience slower browsing speeds if you install antivirus software.
Browsing history
Stored data from browsing sessions (saved passwords, cookies, site names, URLs, and cache) can contribute to client-server communication problems. The stored data contains the name and URL of the particular site you are trying to access. If it had connection issues before, it would refer to the browser history, and the client-server connection would fail.
Chrome’s default profile folder issues
A folder called ‘Default’ is located on your local computer that stores your ‘Chrome profile’ (your bookmarked web pages, saved passwords, apps, browser settings, and extensions). If you’re having trouble uploading files, you may need to change the name of this file so that it doesn’t take too long to upload. If corrupted files are in the folder, it could cause problems for clients and servers communicating.
The issues that might cause a corrupted default folder include local files cached in the cache folder or third-party antivirus interference.
Windows hosts file
A domain name server (DNS) is what maps domains to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. If you want to test how your site looks when hosted on a different server than the one you’re currently using, you’d need to edit the host file. If you’ve blocked certain websites or IP addresses from accessing your site, they may also cause other sites to be inaccessible, resulting in the “page not found” error.
The network adapter is not installed or is out of date
Drivers are essential for seamless communication between software applications and hardware devices. If your network driver is not up to date or your device does not have one, it may result in broken client-server communication.
Your browser contains corrupted files
Your browser might be infected by malware. These can affect how the client communicates with the browser. Restoring the web browser might fix this problem.
Theme incompatibility
If you are using WordPress, your theme incompatibility issues could be the ‘taking too long to respond’ error. The only way to determine whether your theme is causing the problem is to change it to the default theme. If an error occurs, you need to reinstall your theme or revert to the latest backup of your site.
Too much data in your database
If your database contains lots of data, for example, hundreds or thousands of blog post entries, gallery pictures, and theme and plugin entries, your site may take a long time to load when someone visits it.
Hardware acceleration
Hardware acceleration refers to when tasks are redirected to specialized hardware for handling them. By default, the processor is the hardware designed to perform most tasks on a device, but other components can be used to enhance performance. However, other hardware (such as a graphics card) can be used to relieve the CPU, allowing for faster processing and better performance. For example, sound cards can be used to improve sound quality.
Hardware acceleration may improve your browser’s performance. A setting called “hardware acceleration” on a browser allows the browser to use your computer’s hardware resources to speed up specific tasks, such as loading videos and graphics. The browser will be using less of its processing power, so it will have more available memory to load your site.
On Chrome, hardware acceleration is enabled by default. To determine the efficiency of hardware acceleration, you need to check your browser’s performance when acceleration is enabled and when it is not. If it does not improve your browser performance, you are better off without it.
Connectivity tests
If you encounter the “taking too long to load” error, one approach is to rule out any obvious causes, for example, internet connectivity. Ensure that you have a working internet connection and that it’s not just a temporary problem.
The second approach is testing connectivity to be more precise when diagnosing an issue. Some of these fixes require using the command line interface, but they are simple fixes, so you don’t need any technical knowledge to implement them.
SEOptimer’s Page Speed Tool
If you want to check whether your website is optimized for mobile devices, SEOptimer has a free website audit tool that lets you test your site’s responsiveness and overall page load time.
If the server response time is prolonged, then it could be causing the ‘taking too long to respond’ issue to occur.
You can also use our tool to check your site load time and page performance. All you need to do is enter your domain name and get results. The others give indications of how slow the site loads. If this is very big, this may often directly lead to the ‘taking too much time to respond’ issue.
When the “All Page Content Loaded” and “Page Scripts Complete” indicators appear, the site has loaded all its content and scripts. If your site has been slow to load for some time, it may be due to a problem with your server. Server response time is how long it takes for the site to respond.
How to fix the website took too long to respond to the error
When it comes to fixing this problem, you need to eliminate any apparent causes first. We discuss the most apparent causes of errors before discussing the less obvious causes.
Check whether you are connected to the Internet
The first thing you need to do is ensure that your device is connected online.
To check whether you have a good internet connection on a wireless network on Windows:
- Click on the wifi internet access icon on your taskbar.
- Choose ‘network and internet settings.’
- Launch the ‘network and sharing center
- Click on your wifi connection. A new window that shows ‘Wifi Status’ opens. You can see your ipv4 and ipv6 connectivity, speed, and internet quality here as shown:
- Click on ‘Details’ to see whether you have a working IP address and DNS server IP address as shown:
- Click on ‘properties’, then ‘TCP/ipv4’
- Then check ‘obtain an IP address automatically
- Check ‘Use the following DNS server address
- Enter 8.8.8.8 as the preferred DNS server
- And the alternate DNS server as 4.4.8.8
- Apply changes, save and restart your PC.
If using LAN, check your settings by:
- Accessing your browser settings
- Clicking on ‘proxy settings’. This opens an Internet properties window.
- Click ‘LAN settings’
- Uncheck ‘use a proxy server’ if it is checked
- Check ‘Automatically detect settings.
- Apply changes
Check your internet connection speed
If you’re sure that you have an Internet connection, you might want to test its speed. If your internet connection is too slow, you might want to try loading the page using a different internet service provider. If this solution works, there may be something wrong with your connection.
Change devices
Try accessing the site from another device. For example, if your computer is connected to the Internet, you may want to test whether you can access the site from a mobile device. If it worked on the other device, there is a possibility that the device you’re using right now cannot connect to the server.
Once you’ve eliminated internet connection issues, it’s time to try other fixes, such as checking for malware. Let’s look at some solutions for issues that might occur when your device isn’t able to connect to the server.
Server troubleshooting
The first step for identifying server problems is logging in. if the login is slow, it already indicates that there is a problem.
Other fixes:
Clear browser cache
To clear browser cache on Chrome:
- Open your browser and click on the three dots on the top right.
- Select ‘more tools’
- Then clear browsing data
- You may want to clear everything, so select ‘all-time.’
- If your site was working for a short time, for example, an hour before it stopped, you could clear the cache for the last one hour.
- Check the boxes
- Then ‘clear data’
Use incognito mode
When using incognito mode, your browser does not ‘store’ your activity. To use incognito mode in Chrome:
- Click on the ‘three dots’ on the top right
- Click ‘more’
- Then’ new incognito window
- It should have an anonymous icon
If you can access the site while it’s in incognito mode (i.e., not logged into Google), then you need to check if any extensions are causing problems.
Extensions
To disable extensions in Chrome:
- Click the three dots on the top-right menu
- Choose ‘more tools’
- Then ‘extensions’
- Go through each one and remove those that are no longer necessary
- For those that you choose to keep, check their latest updates
- Click ‘details’
- Then ‘view in Chrome Web Store’
- Scroll to ‘additional information
- You should see a date under ‘last updated.’
- The last update should be within three months from the current date
- Remove those extensions. Later on, replace them with alternatives that are more frequently updated
- You can then try to access the site that had problems loading. If it still has problems, disable all extensions
- If the site works this time, you then know that extensions were the problem
- Enable one extension at a time when reloading the site until when you have identified the extension causing problems
Firewall and antivirus
To disable your firewall on Windows 10,
- Click the start button
- Select ‘settings’
- Click ‘update and security
- On the left menu, click ‘Windows Security.’
- Click’ Firewall and network protection
- Choose the network settings that you want to turn off
- To disable the firewall, click the on/off button
You may also need to uninstall your antivirus if disabling your firewall does not resolve the error. It is not advisable to have the firewall turned off or have no antiviral software installed. Once you’ve resolved the issue, you must turn off the firewall and reinstall your antiviral software.
Add or update network drivers
To access your drivers on Windows:
- Right-click on your PC
- Choose ‘manager’
- A new window, ‘computer management’ opens
- Choose ‘device manager.’
- Then ‘network adapters’
- Choose the name of your ‘network adapter’
- Right-click on it
- Choose ‘Scan for hardware changes
- Then choose ‘properties’
- It will show you whether the driver is installed
- If it is already installed, select ‘update driver’
- It will look for updates and install them if any are found
Hardware acceleration
To turn hardware acceleration on or off in Chrome:
- Choose ‘settings’
- Click on ‘advanced’
- Scroll until you see ‘system heading’
- Enable or disable ‘use hardware acceleration when available
If this approach does not work, you can force it by:
Entering chrome://flags in the address bar
- Go to ‘override software rendering list’
- Enable it
- Select ‘Relaunch now’
Modifying your ‘hosts’ file
To modify the host’s file:
- Open the start menu
- Select ‘all programs’
- Then ‘accessories’
- Right-click on notepad
- Choose ‘Run as administrator
- A new window opens
- Click on the File menu
- Select ‘open’
- From the drop-down menu, select ‘all types’
- From the list, click on the hosts
- If after the last sign line (after the #) there is an IP address or hostname, delete it, including any other data included here
- Save changes
- Restart your browser
Editing the Chrome default profile folder
It would help if you exported your saved passwords and bookmarks first before editing this folder. You could also sync Google Chrome with a Gmail account. If you do this, you will lose all of your data.
To edit the defaults folder:
- Open windows explorer
- Paste this in your address bar
- Once you have found the Default folder, rename it to ‘backup default’
- Run your browser.
If you’re having trouble fixing corrupted files, locate the corrupted web data file and delete that one. If your site still takes too long to load, delete the Local State files. Note that this won’t result in the loss of your data. You can also remove any optional tools preinstalled with your antivirus software, such as AVG Antivirus Toolbar and AVG SecureSearch.
Do a site clean up
You need to clean up old images, posts, and other content from your site. These could include posts in draft, new images, spam, and old user accounts that are not currently in use. You can go one step further and use a tool like Advanced Database Cleaner. Delete unused plugins and themes from your WordPress site.
Image optimization
You can also optimize images using plugins like Jetpack’s Image CDN, Compress JPEG & PNG Images, and Smushing image compression and optimization. It’s good to use a plugin to optimize existing images and those you will add later.
Wrapping up
You now know the options to explore when fixing ‘website takes too long to respond’ errors. You have an idea of what could be causing the errors, and the areas to check first.
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