Troubleshooting “Page Load Time Too Long” in SharePoint
When SharePoint pages take too long to load, it can be due to various factors such as large lists, excessive web parts, poor network connectivity, slow database queries, or inefficient caching. Below is a detailed step-by-step guide to diagnose and improve SharePoint page load performance.
1. Analyze Page Load Performance
Before making changes, identify where the delay is occurring:
✅ Is the whole site slow or just specific pages?
✅ Is it affecting all users or only some?
✅ Is the issue intermittent or constant?
Tools for Diagnosis
- Developer Tools (F12 in Chrome/Edge) → Check network requests and load times.
- SharePoint Health Analyzer → Identify potential issues in Central Administration.
- Google PageSpeed Insights → Analyze rendering bottlenecks.
- Fiddler or Wireshark → Monitor network latency.
2. Optimize Large Lists and Libraries
SharePoint struggles with large lists exceeding 5,000 items per view, causing delays.
Fixes
🔹 Enable Column Indexing:
- Go to Library Settings → Indexed Columns → Add an index.
🔹 Use Filtered Views to limit displayed items.
🔹 Use Folder Structure instead of a flat list.
🔹 Enable List View Threshold exceptions for admins.
3. Reduce the Number of Web Parts on the Page
Too many web parts (especially data-heavy ones) can slow down page loads.
Fixes
🔹 Edit the page and remove unnecessary web parts.
🔹 Convert complex web parts into lightweight alternatives.
🔹 Optimize web parts to load asynchronously (Lazy Loading).
4. Optimize SharePoint Images and Files
Large images and documents slow down page rendering.
Fixes
🔹 Use optimized images (JPEG instead of PNG, compressed files).
🔹 Enable Image Renditions in SharePoint to resize images dynamically.
🔹 Store large files in OneDrive or CDN instead of SharePoint pages.
5. Enable Caching for Faster Page Loads
Fixes
🔹 Enable BLOB Caching in web.config:
<BlobCache location="C:\BlobCache" path=".*\.(gif|jpg|png|css|js|ico)$" maxSize="10" enabled="true" />
🔹 Enable Object Caching for site collections in Central Administration.
6. Improve SQL Database Performance
🔹 Check slow queries in SQL Server:
SELECT * FROM sys.dm_exec_requests WHERE command = 'SELECT';
🔹 Rebuild fragmented indexes:
ALTER INDEX ALL ON [dbo.AllDocs] REBUILD;
🔹 Ensure SQL Server has enough RAM and storage.
7. Optimize Network Performance
🔹 Use ping, tracert, and iPerf to test latency.
🔹 Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to speed up content delivery.
🔹 Reduce firewall and proxy restrictions for SharePoint traffic.
8. Optimize IIS and SharePoint Services
🔹 Enable HTTP Compression in IIS.
🔹 Set Output Caching to reduce repeated page processing.
🔹 Restart SharePoint Timer Jobs and unused services.
9. Regular Maintenance and Monitoring
🔹 Keep SharePoint and SQL Server updated with the latest patches.
🔹 Monitor Performance using PowerShell scripts and SharePoint Health Analyzer.
🔹 Remove Unused Features from site collections to reduce overhead.