With ProWorkflow being a web-based application, we occasionally get some customers mentioning it seems to be “loading slower than usual”. 99% of the time this is due to a local network problem, we will traditionally find out their Internet Service Provider (ISP) then check their network status page to see if there are any issues on their network.
Failing that we get customers to run a trace-route, while this usually immediately makes the issue clear to us, many customers ask what exactly a trace-route is…
What is a Trace Route?
To produce a trace-route you tell a utility on your computer what Internet address you are tying to reach (ProWorkflow.com), It figures out the actual IP address of the server (66.220.28.153), then sends a batch of “packets” to the address.
Along the way it returns the IP address’s of all the “hops” (the routers) between your computer and the server, then sends a packet to each one of those hops individually (it “pings” them). It tracks the amount of time it takes for the packet to get to the “hop” and then return back to your computer (round-trip time) measured in milliseconds (0.001 seconds per millisecond) then displays the average, minimum and maximum value for this beside the address (in that order from left to right).
While this all sounds very confusing (and this is a simplified explanation), the simple explanation is “it works out all the points between your computer and the server, then works out how long it takes to get a reply from each point along the way”
Why is this useful?
Along the way any address’s with unusually high “ping” times become red flags for any possible network issues. if a “hop” isn’t responding to the ping it is denoted with an asterisk *, this could mean that there is a problem if nothing else is responding past this point, or it could simply mean there is a network there not responding to a ping because of security issues.
It is useful to us because we can immediately see if there is a problem at some point along the network, so we can explain to users why they are experiencing slow response times from the application.
How do I run a Trace Route?
We might end up asking you to run a trace route and explain this information to you, a copy of this information is below.
If you have a Windows PC …
- Hold down the windows key on your keyboard and simultaneously press “R” to bring up the run dialog.
- Type “cmd” into the run field and press enter on your keyboard. It will bring up the command prompt (a black screen with white text).
- Type “tracert proworkflow.com” (without speech marks) and press enter on your keyboard. It will trace a line from you to the server and ping each point along the way.
- Once it has finished (it will display “trace complete”), right click and click “select all” then press enter on your keyboard (this will copy the information).
- Open up a mail message and hold down ctrl then simultaneously press “v” to paste the data in.
If you have a Mac PC (using Max OSX Leopard) …
- Go into the “Macintosh HD” on your desktop.
- Go into the “Applications” folder.
- Go into the “Utilities” folder.
- Open the “Network Utility” application.
- Go into the “Traceroute” tab.
- Type in “proworkflow.com” (without the speech marks) then click the “trace” button.
- Once finished (the button will change from “stop” back to “trace”), hold down the apple key on your keyboard and then simultaneously press “a” to select all.
- Hold down the apple key on your keyboard then simultaneously press “C” to copy.
- Open up a mail message, hold down the apple key on your keyboard then simultaneously press “v” to paste the data in.
These instructions didn’t work for me?
If this doesn’t work on your computer then let me know in the comments, I am trying to get a set of steps that will work on any operating system (currently commercially available) for support reasons.
I can give you a hand and take down a set of instructions along the way!
