Slowness while working in CPE editor

[AdamC7127]

The recent major update has made the creating of email campaigns nearly impossible. Anything having to do with text is very challenging. Anything typed takes a VERY LONG time to fill in. The letters come in with several seconds between each one. Instead of a sentence just flowing, it takes 10+ seconds for each word to show up and a full sentence probably takes a minute or more to show up. I cannot go on to another place because if I move the cursor elsewhere the text starts showing up there, so I just have to wait while the text fills in. Adjusting the font size is erratic and at times doesn't do what I need. Changing colors for the background isn't working properly and at time the color for text or background in a particular section changes by itself to something totally different. Bullets disappear at random and won't come back right away if I try to adjust it... I could go on, but I hope there is an update coming soon!

[AdamC7127]

Final Update 10/25/22 - Hi everyone. Thank you for your patience while we were wrapping up some additional testing for our fix. This morning the fix for typing slowness was released for all accounts. Fast typists should no longer notice a severe (3-4 second) lag before their text shows up. If you are still experiencing that long of a lag, please try restarting your browser.

[Frankie_P]

Hi @AdamC7127

Thanks for sharing this feedback with us. Because this is not a common experience of our users we would like to troubleshoot further with you. For instance, what browser are you working in? Are you having this experience with copied campaigns or even with brand new campaigns?  Do you see this happening when trying any of these troubleshooting steps?

[SusanW319]

Seconding this issue, any text entry is incredibly delayed. Happens in both Chrome and Edge. I've also been running into general slowness loading campaign and contact pages, again across Chrome and Edge. Right now I can't get the campaign page to load at all, it acts like it's loading in everything for about a minute then just stalls out to a blank page. Site and editor are feeling pretty frustrating and unusable today, hopefully it's something the team is aware of and a fix is in the works.

Editing to add the 'Insert Image' function in the builder is unbelievably slow as well. It sits on the loading animation for several minutes before I can select an image, if it decides to load at all. Sometimes I have to back out and reopen the campaign for it to be responsive.

What changed in the last week or so to bring up these issues? As a customer it's very quickly becoming a deal-breaker, it's not an exaggeration to say it's taken minimum ten times as long to work on campaigns this week.

[William_A]

Hello @AdamC7127 and @SusanW319 ,

I had some success in recreating some of the issues you've described, however I want to also confirm a few elements on your end for the sake of the case notes being sent to the engineers.

Does the lag seem to occur for you even when working in a brand new, made from scratch campaign? Do you notice the lag spike after a certain number of lines are added in a single text block, or a certain number of images are added? Does adjusting the amount of text and images in your email, or using redirect links to webpages and uploaded documents with more info reduce the lag at all (or performing any other email length troubleshooting)?

Are you regularly copying from campaigns that were already copies of copies? Or are you copying directly from a master template each time you prepare one of your regular sendouts?

How old are the devices you're building the email on? This question is mainly for our engineers so they can collect data on what device types and ages seem to be the most affected.

[SusanW319]

Thanks William, I wondered if it might have something to do with the amount of content in a campaign or repeatedly copying the template.

From a quick test on a blank campaign, the text input is generally responsive. There's a perceptible but very slight delay still, probably in the range of milliseconds. Just for reference I don't notice any delay typic quickly or long strings of text in the feedback forum here, but the faster or more I type in the editor it seems to cause the slight delay. Switching back to entering text in a copied campaign, the huge delay is again present. Interestingly though, it's only when I'm editing the body of the email. When I type in the pop-up for subject line, there's no delay.

For our regular campaigns, building from a new template or copying from a master template instead of the previous week's campaign would have to be a last resort. Our general style is blocks for what's happening this week, and blocks for what's coming soon next week. Copy the whole thing the following week, drag the coming soon blocks up to this week, and make new coming soon blocks. The type input delay is frustrating, but to me it would be more frustrating and inefficient to have to recreate several existing blocks each week.

Without spending a lot of time experimenting, it's hard to say if there's a tipping point on when the delay and slowdowns start happening. I don't know what average image or word counts are like for the typical campaign, but I suspect our weekly campaigns would be above the average on both.

Specs for my system:

Win 10 x64

i7 3700 4 cores @ 3.40 GHz

16gb ram

onboard Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip

Wired network, speed test just showed 101.5 down/20.4 up

Hopefully this can help zero-in on it a little more!

[William_A]

Thank you very much for providing the troubleshooting and specs info. I've updated your case with the engineers so they have that additional information for troubleshooting. 

[AdamC7127]

Hi William,

Thanks for looking into this! I will try to answer your questions from both messages.

I am using Safari as my browser.

I have been using the copy feature for my campaigns for about 3 years now and have never had a problem until this recent update. However, I did do a comparison.

I made a copy of my most recent campaign and the issue is still the same - terribly slow for any text to show up.

When I started a new campaign the text does come in a little faster, but there is still a delay. I tried adding more sections and pictures to the new campaign and sadly the time for text to appear started to slow way down again.

The uploading and editing of pictures is very slow and cumbersome as well. Too many steps to get to being able to place an image in the campaign.

Again, thank you and I hope these issues are able to be resolved quickly. 

[William_A]

Thank you for the updated info. I've updated your existing case with the engineers with your response.

[TPRG2000]

Yes, I am experiencing the same issue.  It was fine for a while and then in the past week or so it has been so slow it the lag has caused me tremendous frustration.  I've had to walk away numerous times from the computer.

The standard "what OS are you using" trouble shooting doesn't work, and never has with ANY computer or tech issue.  Low level tech support is really just here to screen user-error problems from real issues.

This is a real issue.  It is not "rare".  Three people are reporting this in the past week.  It is an issue on the side of CC, which we've seen before.  

I can verify everything that Adam and Susan reported.  

This is happening on Chrome, Safari, Windows 10, Windows 7, and everything in between.  

Time for Constant Contact to get to the root of this issue and solve it immediately.  I hate to be like this, but in the end it winds up costing us time, which costs us money, and when there is a tech issue like this, I am certain that CC won't give us some sort of rebate either.  In any case, it needs to be fixed because it is hurting everyone at this point.  

And the fact that I can type normally in this message box to complain about the issue is incredibly ironic.  

Thanks for your time, and please forward my message to your engineering department.  let's hope they jump on this and FIX THE PROBLEM!

[Nick_S]

Hi @TPRG2000,

Thank you for adding your concerns to the discussion thread. I can confirm that I was able to replicate the delayed typing issue while testing in an email with a lot of content, but did not experience it with a brand new template. I've added this and your concerns to a case to our engineering team for additional insight.

[TPRG2000]

Thank you for your response.

Whether or not this happens with a brand new template is not the issue.  If this is due to us adding content, then it defeats the purpose of adding any content to begin with.

Emails are read based on having valuable content.  We can't send out spammy emails that are just a few lines because CC has technical issues when adding new content!

This issue needs to be fixed.  Right now, I am typing in a word doc and then adding to the email.  This is not what we are paying for and my hope is that this is a top priority for CC at this time.  

Let's get it fixed.  

[AlbertS73]

Hi, 

Same issues here with both images and text. i am using your system for many years and suddenly it's impossible to work with! 

[Zoe_H]

Hello @AlbertS73,

I do apologize that you are having this same experience. Have you attempted to create content in  a brand new email to see if this becomes more of a faster process? 

[KarinT]

Having the same issue. I'm ready to give up on Constant Contact! The delay is absolutely dreadful and something that should take 30 seconds to enter new copy takes 5 minutes. It's excruciating! Please help!!

[TPRG2000]

Looks like this is, in fact, a very common issue.  

Let's get some updates about how CC is trying to fix this issue.  

[AdamC7127]

Thank you everyone for your input.  We've been experiencing this issue for a while.  We posted here on July 6. For productivity purposes it has become almost completely useless.  I've appreciated the service.  Thanks to all of those who have worked on this.  The bottom line is that, as long as this is an issue, it is virtually unusable.  I am going to have to find another company.  I'm sad as I've valued CC, but what can I do.  If a solution comes up in the next few weeks that will be wonderful.  Otherwise I have no choice but to move on.

[SarahK7685]

Same issue. I use this platform daily, my computer is a beast. It's not laggy on ANY other program or in any other capacity, except Constant Contact. Literally have to take text to Word, edit and paste back in if I want to have any sense of speed. It happens with the headers, paragraphs, etc. And as all have stated here, it came after an update. I am confident that the engineers behind the scenes at CC can figure it out and must know the origins of this issue. I think about the users that are newer to the platform, and must think, wth is going on? We are the few that take the time to type to support for help. I see no actual solutions here, disappointing to say the least. Good news, typing here in cc and no delay, lol. 

[smartypantsguy]

same issue here. Ready to quit CC for good over this.

[INafterschool]

I'm experiencing the same issue with the delayed typing. I'm using Chrome but was able to replicate in Safari and Mozilla. This happens regardless of what template I'm using - new or old, big or small. 

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)

• 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor

• 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 memory

[CindyP780]

Same issue here. I made a recording on my phone this morning to show the incredibly long typing lag time to my coworker. This started happening a couple of months ago and has gotten steadily worse. It is now is so bad CC is unusable for my monthly newsletter as it is wasted time and money. For reference, I work on a Mac and use Safari and do not experience these issues with any other software. If the issue isn't fixed right away I will have to find another service as it's clear from this long thread that the issue has been ongoing for quite a while with no resolution.

[CharleneM87]

The new editor is so buggy it's almost impossible to use. Typing is slow, fill function no longer works (can't change from color to white), "Undo" removed hours of work, etc. Are others having these problems? It's been weeks since the new editor previewed, thoughts things would be working by now. Considering switching to another platform, very disappointed in CC. 

[Zoe_H]

Hello @CharleneM87,

I do apologize that you are having this experience! We are aware of the lag when typing and are working hard to get this fixed. To troubleshoot everything you are experiencing we recommend trying a brand new campaign to see if that shows improvement. 

[TaylorC0]

Yep, I second that.  New editor is horrible.  After much difficulty (editor didn't really work at all on Firefox, had to download Chrome to get anything done) finally got an email looking good enough, checked it in preview mode and still looked good, sent email out and it didn't look anything like the original.  Pictures and links missing, formatting all jacked up...

We've been customers for over 15 years, but if this is the type of "progress' we have to look forward to, we may have to look for someone else soon.  This is unacceptable.

[Zoe_H]

Hello @TaylorC0,

I apologize that your email didn't send properly. Could you provide us with a screenshot of how the email appeared in the inbox so we can take a look? 

[AnnetteK08]

I can no longer edit links, either by double clicking or selecting the edit button from the hovering window. Complete amateur hour, 1 step forward 3 steps back with every update.