The site is slow, or pages hang

Work out first whether the site is slow or stuck, because they have different causes. Slow work eventually finishes. A request that returns nothing at all, even after two or three minutes, is not slow: it is waiting on something with no deadline, and that is almost always a lock or a wedged process.

Find the layer in three checks

Each of these rules out a whole layer, so do them in order and stop when one fails.

1. Is the page cached or generated?

Request the home page twice, once normally and once with a junk query string such as a random number. If the plain one is fast and the junk one is slow, the cache is hiding a slow site. If both are fast but one particular page hangs, the problem is that page, not the server.

2. Does a plain page differ from a form submission?

If every page loads but calculations or logins hang, the fault is in the path they share: the upstream API, a database write, or a limit. If everything hangs equally, it is the server or the database.

3. Is another site on the same server healthy?

This is the strongest single check available. If a second site on the same machine works normally, then the server, the web server and the software are all fine, and the fault is specific to this one site: its settings, its database, or something it is waiting on. If the second site is also unwell, the problem is the machine.

Do not measure through your own limits

Repeated testing trips the site's own protections and hides the real fault. The calculator proxy allows a set number of requests per minute per address, and guests have a daily allowance. Once you cross either you get a refusal that has nothing to do with what you were investigating. Wait out the minute and send one request.

What usually causes a hang

• A long job holding a worker. Generating a premium report with AI runs for minutes. The browser gives up first and shows an error while the work continues, so the natural response is to try again, and each attempt takes another worker. Enough of them and the whole site queues. Wait rather than retry.
• A stuck database lock. Reads stay fast and only writes hang. Look at the running queries for anything waiting on a lock.
• A full disk. Reads work, writes stall. Check free space first, because it is quick and it explains a lot.

Before restarting anything

A restart usually clears a hang, and it also destroys the evidence of what caused it. Capture the running queries, the free disk space and the error log first. Otherwise the same thing happens again and you are no wiser.