This is a very strange issue I am having.
My client is experiencing poor performance (20 sec per page load or so) when accessing their SharePoint 2007 site that is hosted somewhere externally by a hosting provider. In fact it is not just that particular SharePoint site - we tried accessing another SharePoint site that is online and we were experiencing the same performance issues.
Now it is ONLY slow if ALL of these conditions are true:
- User is using IE6
- User is using a machine connected to the client's company network (there's a proxy Configured)
- User is authenticated (Windows Authentication)
So to back these theories up:
- We have tested with FireFox and IE 8 from within the company network and it's performing well (both authenticated as well as unauthenticated).
- We have tested with IE6 from a machine that's not on the client's company network and it's performing well (both authenticated as well as unauthenticated).
- We have connected to an online WSS team site (out of the box) that is open to anonymous users with IE6 using a machine that's connected to the client's company network and it's performing well.
Some other interesting facts:
- Accessing over HTTPS or HTTP doesn't seem to make any difference
- The client has another SharePoint system (based on SP2003 and requiring Windows Auth) which is hosted internally (so not going through the proxy), which is performing just fine.
- Client's internet connection is just fine for all other sites
- To make it even weirder, the mobile view (add "/m" to subsite url) seems to be performing fine! Though I think it's just because these pages are just so tiny.
I get the impression that is has something to do with the way IE6 handles Windows Authentication in combination with the proxy used in the client's company network. Does that make any sense? I'm a developer so it could well be that I am talking rubbish here :)
Ideas anyone?