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I'm having an odd problem with gmail. My gmail is painfully, excruciatingly sluggish. Messages take a long while to load, send, frequent "#717" errors, etc. I realize that this is a rather common frustration and I have tried all the standard cures that people recommend.
I have found, however, that changing my computer's DNS settings often temporarily fixes the problem. The change doesn't have to be to any particular IP, it just has to be to some different IP. I usually toggle between Google's two public IPv4 DNS IPs (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). Let's say I'm on the former at the moment and gmail is currently hanging while it loads a message. I open my network preferences and change to the latter, and the minute I hit "apply" Gmail instantly loads the message. This has happened many times; it is clearly repeatable. I have suggested that friends also try it, and they have seen the same effect.
So, two questions:
- What would cause this behavior?
- Is there anything I can do to automatically/programatically accomplish this so that I don't have to frequently manually toggle my DNS?
Jack7890
Posted 2012-08-10T21:08:11.090
Reputation: 229
You say you "toggle between Google's two public IPv4 DNS IPs" - you should be specifying both at the same time as the primary and secondary DNS. ? – MrWhite – 2012-08-10T23:08:21.363
Trying to accomplish this automatically is the wrong solution. It is as if you drive a car on a highway and the motor stalls every 5 minutes. Your solution would be to stop and restart the car automatically. Finding out what is wrong would be better. – Hennes – 2012-08-10T23:39:31.837
@w3d if I do that, then OS X always uses the first entry and the effect of the "toggling" doesn't occur. – Jack7890 – 2012-08-11T14:29:23.130
@Hennes agree 100%, I've just been using it as a poor stopgap. I'd love to find the root cause of this. – Jack7890 – 2012-08-11T14:29:52.550
Can you try adding gmails IPs to your OS's version of /etc/host and see if that helps? (and no, that is not a proper solution either, but it might work and it might yield additional clues as to what is wrong) – Hennes – 2012-08-11T17:53:35.413
Interesting. I have been using Gmail for a few years now and have so far not experienced the slow down you mention. Nor can I repeat the issue, that your friends seem to be able to do, using your suggestion. The "standard cures" you link to are just generic speed-up tips for those on a slow connection - these should not be necessary IMO. I wonder if it's a regional thing - presumably your friends are all in the same locality? Do they all use Macs? How full is your inbox? That other user cites 4GB as a trigger. Must admit I am using less than 1GB. – MrWhite – 2012-08-11T21:07:37.053
@w3d Yes, I think the slowness is almost certainly associated with inbox size. I have bought extra storage from Google, so on a percentage basis the inbox isn't slow, but I do have over 11GB in there. I've already gone to great pains to prune that down (including using FindBigMail but unfortunately it's hard for met to get it much lower than that.
– Jack7890 – 2012-08-11T21:55:51.097@Hennes do you mean the IPs associated with gmail.com? Do you think there would be many of those (and that they would change frequently)? – Jack7890 – 2012-08-11T21:57:23.450
Possibly. But if they stay stable for a while and the problem goes away while you use a hosts file rather than a resolver look up then you would have additional information. -- Right now I have no idea why something goes wrong. Finding out what (and more specific than 'something within DNS) might help to actually solve this. – Hennes – 2012-08-11T22:07:10.867