Symptoms
After updating to Prime Mover 1.9.5 – export and restore is way slower compared to previous versions.
Why does this happen?
Some hosts aggressively block continuous AJAX server requests. This could trigger the host WAF and rate limiting security policies. As a result – this completely blocks Prime Mover from completing the export or restore process. It returns a timeout error.
Starting with Prime Mover 1.9.5 + the overall Prime Mover requests mechanism is significantly slowed down. This ensures that it will work in these type of hosts and allow the export/restore to complete without throwing any server timeout errors.
The only side effect is that the export and restore will also become very slow. But there is a solution to this (see next section).
Solution
If you want to bring back the original “fast” export and restore – it is very simple and easy:
- Login as administrator (or network administrator if multisite).
- Go to Prime Mover -> Advanced.
- Go to Debugging Tools -> Turbo mode settings.
- Make sure to check “Turbo mode” (see screenshot below) and click Save.
- Depending on how your site or host handles caching. It is best to clear your browser cache after saving this setting. This will ensure that Prime Mover uses the turbo mode setting when doing export and restore.
How does “Turbo mode” works?
Prime Mover send two kinds of requests to the server. It is the progress tracker requests and the core processing requests. The progress tracker requests monitors the updates of the export and restore process. The core processing requests is responsible for executing the actual export and restore processing steps.
When turbo mode is enabled – Prime Mover sends progress tracker requests every 7 seconds and it sends core processing request every second (there are only few export or restore processing steps). This results to faster processing – however frequency looks too much for some hosts.
By default (since Prime Mover 1.9.5) – this is off. When disabled – Prime Mover only sends progress tracker requests for every 37 seconds and sends the core processing requests every 15 seconds. This does not affect Prime Mover functionality at all – it only slows down the frequency of requests so it won’t be flagged as too much by some hosts.
Is it safe to use “Turbo Mode”?
If your site is already using Prime Mover for sometime already and there is no problem with your host (you can export and restore just fine) – yes you can use Turbo mode without any issues.
But if you are new to Prime Mover plugin or you are using it with a new host – we don’t suggest enabling this setting as your host might be implementing security rules that could block Prime Mover requests.
Disabling turbo mode ensures that there are few requests sent to the server and won’t trigger any rate limiting security rules. So it is why by default – this setting is OFF which is the safest option for all hosts.
Are there other benefits of disabling “Turbo mode”?
Yes of course – disabling turbo mode results to sending fewer requests to the server when you are doing export and restore. This translates to less CPU usage and memory consumption. It is because your CPU doesn’t spike as always when there are only few requests being sent and processed by your server.
In addition – this minimizes the possibility of having parallel requests which could overload some servers (typically if you are using shared host with minimal resources set.). In the end – this update makes the plugin more resource friendly to your server.
Does this setting works for both Prime Mover FREE and Prime Mover PRO?
Yes – this setting can be found in both the free version or PRO version of Prime Mover.
What if I have further questions on this setting?
Please let us know by contacting our tech support.