Hi newmikey,

I you want to be sure that Piwigo is getting slow due to a plugin, in the local configuration (use LocalFiles Editor, I swear it doesn't impact speed), add:

<?php
$conf['show_gt'] = true; // gt = generation time
?>

and look at what Piwigo says in the footer of your pages when the plugins are active or not.

If the pages are slower than 150ms to generate then you may have a problem with your host.

@plg

On the main page the result is: "Page generated in 2.450 s (13 SQL queries in 1.690 s)"
On the gallery overview (albums view): "Page generated in 2.321 s (15 SQL queries in 1.788 s)"
Opening one album to show the individual thumbnails: "Page generated in 2.561 s (18 SQL queries in 1.914 s)"

So it does seem slow?

I'm getting there - could be something specific to my install (2.3.4). I just installed a fresh 2.4 in a subdirectory and copied the images across - as well as putting in the timing code suggested earlier.

Getting better speeds by far but lost a great many plugins ;-( that aren't yet compatible with 2.4

Thumbnail page inside album: Page generated in 0.066 s (15 SQL queries in 0.004 s)
Gallery page: Page generated in 0.072 s (21 SQL queries in 0.006 s)

more interesting than activte plugin one by one, you can also set this option:

$conf['show_queries'] = true;

this will show you the detail of each SQL request, which time it take, like that:

SELECT id, name
  FROM piwigo_languages
  ORDER BY name ASC
;
(this query time : 0.000 s)
(total SQL time  : 0.021 s)
(total time      : 0.151 s)
(num rows        : 47 )

[26] 
SELECT id, name
            FROM piwigo_categories
            WHERE id IN(9);
(this query time : 0.000 s)
(total SQL time  : 0.022 s)
(total time      : 0.151 s)
(num rows        : 1 )

you'll easily see which request is slow.

Guys, we can mark this one solved. Haven't gotten to the bottom of this but it must have been an anomaly in the DB of the 2.3.5 install. Did a clean install of 2.4 and the times now seem up there with the best of 'm!

Many thanks for the help!

PS: also integrated a page-filling slideshow as frontpage ( with the additional pages plugin set to full HTML ) with an opensource script found here: www.buildinternet.com/project/supersized