The problems you are describing with the site not loading are normally a result of packet loss. In traceroutes, those appear with asterisks instead of a time in ms. So you might see something like:

90ms * * core.vaultbbs.com [216.9.65.38]

Those asterisks are a red flag that packets are being lost and that's going to cause the site (or graphics) to stall out.

The traceroutes you provided seemed to just have small, momentary spikes in the transmission time. Even spikes of a few thousand ms (i.e. a few seconds) will cause the site to load slowly, but it should not stall out.

Also, these are the total round-trip transmission times--not the hop transmission. So the fact that the response time spiked nearer our server doesn't necessarily mean that the problem is near our server--any hop along the way could have been the source of the delay.

Of course, if all the responses are short up to a certain point and then all subsequent responses are slow then that's a pretty clear indication of a slowdown at that point--but momentary increases in the response time can indicate a slowdown anywhere between you and the server.

I have seen the kind of problem you are describing from time to time with other sites. A site I started visiting recently seems to have this problem--at least for me--frequently. It starts loading and never seems to stop. I can be in the middle of writing a message and realize the browser is still trying to load the page so I click the "Stop" button to make it give up. I haven't seen anyone else on that site complain about it so I assume it's not happening to everyone--just like here it doesn't seem to be happening to everyone.

I would be interested in knowing what browser and operating system you are using, though. If it's a common browser that many others are using then it'd be strange to see you having problems while others are not.

Regards,
Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster