Google App Engine development server slow in Windows but not in Ubuntu Linux

Question

In Ubuntu, I run the command ./dev_appserver.py to start the development server. Everything runs snappy under Linux.

I also have Windows 7 installed on the same machine. In Windows, I start the development server from the Google App Engine Launcher (version 1.5.1). The server appears to start up OK, but once it is running, pages may take minutes before they begin to load, if at all. The page tends either to load completely or not at all. If the page does start loading, it's usually fairly quick. It's not the loading of images and scripts that is slow, but it seems like the request itself is getting hung up or lost somewhere.

The page that seems to time out most often is the pretend "Login with Google" page. Also, during hang ups, occasionally I will get the following log message (but I'm not sure that its related). Most times, I won't get any message at all.

INFO     2011-07-10 22:36:58,631 dev_appserver_index.py:254] Updating C:\Users\Eric\Documents\NetBeansProjects\linkpad\index.yaml

While waiting for a hung request, the Windows Task Manager will show GoogleAppEngineLauncher.exe as using 00 CPU.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Note: I am somewhat dependent on Windows for testing in--you guessed it--IE

EDIT: I have not been able to solve this problem, so I have decided to workaround in Ubuntu:

1. Install VitualBox OSE
2. Get 2 copies of XP and 1 of Win7
   • These can be free if your school has an MSDNAA program. Try googling "yourschool msndaa."
3. Create virtual machines in VirtualBox as follows:
   • XP1 - install IE 7
   • XP2 - install IE 8
   • Win7 - install IE 9

Make sure you have 30GB of free space and at least 2GB ram before going the virtualization route.

Answer 1

Are you viewing you site with Chrome when on windows? If so you may want to start chrome with the --disable-preconnect flag.

The single-threaded nature of dev_appserver.py doesn't sit well with some of Chrome's clever connection/request fetching.

There are issues about it here and here, please star if it affects you