123REG is a terrible host & they use shared hosting.

Concrete5 & other CMSs really do benefit from the database being on the same server as the files. Otherwise it will be very slow.
123REG databases are slapped across only a few servers for all their customers. So your database could be on the same server as 1000 other people (or more)

I would recommend trying to change cache/files folder to 777 if it's not working at all.

Maybe test your site onhttp://www.webpagetest.org/ maybe there's a particular issue with your site loading in a particular file?

Hi, Thanks for your input on this. The speed does go up and down a lot and sometimes becomes completely inaccessible ! This is of course with the cache turned as it won't work properly at all with it turned on.

Thanks again, Tony

Have you got the option "On - In all cases." selected in your cache settings?

If so try "On - If blocks on the particular page allow it."

Full Page Caching
Off - Turn it on by hand for specific pages.
On - If blocks on the particular page allow it.
On - In all cases.

Can you show/share the site with us?

Even if you get caching working it may seem better every now and then, but shared hosting is so bad it might continue to be an issue.

Hi, Thanks for your suggestions.
I've tried all combinations of turning on cache to see if it makes any difference. I've not tried enabling caching on a single page yet.
If I turn on any caching in the control panel or even clear the cache it seems to set something off that stops the cache being read by a site visitor (public) It works OK for me while I'm logged in but when viewed as the public it's all screwed up !
The only thing I can see that changes is that files/cache/*.* folders and files have their permissions changed to what I had them set to.
If I turn off all caching and then reset these folder permissions it will work again but with out the cache working. My website is:http://www.tonylilley.co.uk

I'm not a whizz kid at this stuff so it's frustrating being stuck between Concrete 5 developers and 123REG who both say their is nothing wrong !!

Best wishes, Tony

I've now got the home page to load up much faster by turning on it's own page caching. The global caching is still turned off. I did try to turn some of it on but it didn't help much except maybe for Cache Override. If block caching is turned on or the cache cleared it then screws up all the page css making the pages look very odd !!

We have managed to make a temporary fix. My son who is a software support engineer has added some extra lines of code to the Dispatcher file that changes folder and file permissions on files/cache/*.* back to 775 after they have been reset to 664 by something !
The 123REG server seems to block 664 to the public and the files cannot be read. It's now working fast ! Hope it lasts but a proper solution needs to be found to this problem. If there were another C5 update we would have to add these extra lines of code into the new file.

I don't see why concrete would do that, though I did suggest you should set the permissions to "777" in my first comment:

"I would recommend trying to change cache/files folder to 777 if it's not working at all."

I would set it to be recursive too.

Hi, 123REG have now told me that Concrete 5 won't work on their servers unless we add some lines of code to it, something about un-mask ?
The whole thing was running so slow I could hardly use it in the end !
I've now left them and putting it on a new host called Squirrel Host.
The advertise that Concrete 5 will run on their servers and run well.
So far they seem to be right. It now works perfectly :)

Not sure about un-mask.

Though 123reg really do suck. Not used squirrel host myself.

I have recently taken to digitalocean, though these guys are really good imo:
http://www.unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk/...

I found 123-reg to be pretty bad too, a few of my websites are still hosted there - even with cache enabled it takes too long to even request the basic HTML document!!

Checked on webpagetest.org and it takes at least 2-3 seconds - not a lot but still annoying if you are browsing!!!

What makes you think this is a concrete 5 site?

Concrete5 already existed back in 2013 :)