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    pfSense+ GUI extremely slow, network performance normal

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • TAC57T Offline
      TAC57
      last edited by

      I’m seeing severe slowness in the pfSense+ web GUI, while overall network performance is completely normal.

      Observed GUI delays (measured repeatedly):

      • Status → System → Update: ~2 minutes 30 seconds to load
      • System → Status (back): ~9 seconds
      • Status → Firewall → Rules → WAN: ~2 seconds
      • Firewall → Status (back): ~9 seconds

      So the delay is inconsistent but can be extreme on certain pages.
      Important:
      This affects only the GUI. Routing, NAT, DNS, throughput, and latency on the network itself are all normal.

      System details:

      • pfSense+ 25.07.1-RELEASE (amd64)
      • Hardware: ZimaBoard SBC v1.0
      • CPU: Intel Celeron N3450 @ 1.10 GHz
      • 4 cores (1 package)
      • Current: 1100 MHz, Max: 1101 MHz
      • RAM: 4 GB
      • Intel NIC
      • What I’ve already tried / ruled out:
      • Disabled pfBlockerNG
      • Disabled ntopng
      • Deleted ~49 MB of ntopng data
      • Rule count < 50
      • Issue persists after these changes
      • Browser cache cleared and tested from multiple clients (no difference)

      Question:
      What subsystems or diagnostics should I focus on to identify why specific GUI pages are taking minutes to render?
      Are there known pfSense+ 25.07.x GUI performance issues on lower-power CPUs like the N3450?

      TAC57T SteveITSS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TAC57T Offline
        TAC57 @TAC57
        last edited by

        Here is my system info:
        01a95630-6455-46bf-bd71-b7c3e39a7d9e-image.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • tinfoilmattT Offline
          tinfoilmatt LAYER 8
          last edited by

          What does logging look like? Any logs printing lines secondly or near-secondly?

          TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • TAC57T Offline
            TAC57 @tinfoilmatt
            last edited by

            @tinfoilmatt What logs would you like to see?

            tinfoilmattT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • tinfoilmattT Offline
              tinfoilmatt LAYER 8 @TAC57
              last edited by

              @TAC57 You don't necessarily need to show. I'm just curious if any logs are printings lines secondly or near-secondly.

              TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • TAC57T Offline
                TAC57 @tinfoilmatt
                last edited by

                @tinfoilmatt Got it. Some are close, but it's not a steady stream.
                061bce4c-8a08-48a5-8383-d0b08e1e0e58-image.png

                tinfoilmattT 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • tinfoilmattT Offline
                  tinfoilmatt LAYER 8 @TAC57
                  last edited by

                  @TAC57 That looks pretty normal. What about Firewall, Gateways, Routing, DNS Resolver, and DHCP (to name a few specifically)?

                  TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • tinfoilmattT Offline
                    tinfoilmatt LAYER 8 @TAC57
                    last edited by

                    @TAC57 On the other hand, there's also a couple softballs in there that should be cleaned up (e.g., disable/reconfigure that email alert; address auto-config backup; silence MAC address 00:11:32:8b:cc:73 from arpwatch).

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • TAC57T Offline
                      TAC57 @tinfoilmatt
                      last edited by

                      @tinfoilmatt said in pfSense+ GUI extremely slow, network performance normal:

                      @TAC57 That looks pretty normal. What about Firewall, Gateways, Routing, DNS Resolver, and DHCP (to name a few specifically)?

                      Firewall - fairly busy but I think that is to be expected
                      Rounting - just a few items today
                      DNS Resolver - Not too busy
                      DHCP - This doesn't have too many entries either.
                      76a54c0c-107b-4c8f-a5c1-f6ac170f0a1a-image.png

                      tinfoilmattT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • SteveITSS Offline
                        SteveITS Rebel Alliance @TAC57
                        last edited by

                        @TAC57 said in pfSense+ GUI extremely slow, network performance normal:

                        Status → System → Update: ~2 minutes 30 seconds to load
                        System → Status (back): ~9 seconds
                        Status → Firewall → Rules → WAN: ~2 seconds
                        Firewall → Status (back): ~9 seconds

                        Well the Update page sounds like it's having trouble checking for updates. You might try setting the update branch to 25.11, wait 15 seconds or so, and back to 25.07.

                        I've seen update checks take a long time on some routers (10 minutes). The system log logs that pkg was updated when it finally completes, as I recall. I'm usually trying to update when I run into that and it updates fine after the 10m wait.

                        Firewall > Rules can be slow if large aliases (geo IP/countries) are used but 2 seconds doesn't seem that slow.

                        To upgrade, select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings. When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, CPU, and/or disk speed.
                        Only install packages for your version of pfSense.
                        Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • TAC57T Offline
                          TAC57
                          last edited by

                          Captured top -aSH during a slow GUI page load. php-fpm workers spike to ~50–60% CPU each while loading GUI pages. CPU is otherwise idle. This appears to be PHP-side processing cost, not I/O or DNS blocking. Testing with Snort disabled to see if rule hooks are the trigger didn't seem to help.

                          last pid: 31135;  load averages:    1.25,    0.98,    0.53                                   up 0+00:06:35  12:51:39
342 threads:   7 running, 314 sleeping, 21 waiting
CPU: 38.0% user,  0.0% nice, 16.2% system,  0.0% interrupt, 45.8% idle
Mem: 391M Active, 152M Inact, 481M Wired, 2701M Free
ARC: 180M Total, 50M MFU, 116M MRU, 7590K Anon, 1128K Header, 4752K Other
     131M Compressed, 308M Uncompressed, 2.36:1 Ratio

  PID USERNAME    PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
   11 root        187 ki31     0B    64K RUN      3   5:18  68.40% [idle{idle: cpu3}]
   11 root        187 ki31     0B    64K CPU1     1   5:12  63.43% [idle{idle: cpu1}]
87102 root         68    0   142M    53M accept   2   0:04  57.81% php-fpm: pool nginx (php-fpm)
  580 root         68    0   144M    58M wait     0   0:15  54.88% php-fpm: pool nginx (php-fpm)
   11 root        187 ki31     0B    64K RUN      2   3:44  35.83% [idle{idle: cpu2}]
78759 root         37    0   144M    57M CPU0     0   0:11  27.29% php-fpm: pool nginx (php-fpm)
  614 root         68    0   144M    57M piperd   1   0:13  18.77% php-fpm: pool nginx (php-fpm)
   11 root        187 ki31     0B    64K RUN      0   3:54  12.39% [idle{idle: cpu0}]
92984 root         20    0    15M  4732K CPU2     2   0:00   0.48% top -aSH
14864 root         20    0    35M    12M kqread   0   0:00   0.30% nginx: worker process (nginx)
    0 root        -12    -     0B  1392K -        3   0:00   0.28% [kernel{z_wr_iss_1}]
    0 root        -12    -     0B  1392K -        0   0:00   0.26% [kernel{z_wr_iss_2}]
   12 root        -60    -     0B   272K WAIT     1   0:05   0.15% [intr{swi1: netisr 2}]
    0 root        -12    -     0B  1392K -        1   0:00   0.14% [kernel{z_wr_iss_0}]
   12 root        -60    -     0B   272K WAIT     0   0:04   0.12% [intr{swi1: netisr 0}]
    0 root        -60    -     0B  1392K -        1   0:03   0.11% [kernel{if_io_tqg_1}]
    0 root        -60    -     0B  1392K -        3   0:05   0.09% [kernel{if_io_tqg_3}]
    2 root        -60    -     0B    64K WAIT     0   0:01   0.09% [clock{clock (0)}]
    0 root        -60    -     0B  1392K -        0   0:00   0.07% [kernel{if_config_tqg_0}]
40171 root         20    0    24M    11M select   1   0:00   0.06% sshd: admin@pts/0 (sshd)
86395 root         20    0    14M  3432K kqread   2   0:00   0.06% /usr/sbin/syslogd -O rfc3164 -s -c -c -l /var/dhc
48890 nobody       20    0    15M  4556K select   3   0:00   0.05% /usr/local/sbin/darkstat -i em1 -p 666 -l 192.168
   12 root        -64    -     0B   272K WAIT     0   0:00   0.04% [intr{irq129: ahci0}]
    7 root        -16    -     0B    16K pftm     1   0:00   0.04% [pf purge]
   12 root        -60    -     0B   272K WAIT     1   0:02   0.04% [intr{swi1: netisr 1}]
   12 root        -64    -     0B   272K WAIT     3   0:01   0.04% [intr{irq132: re0}]
   12 root        -60    -     0B   272K WAIT     2   0:01   0.03% [intr{swi1: netisr 3}]
23420 root         20    0    21M  9792K select   3   0:00   0.02% /usr/local/sbin/openvpn --config /var/etc/openvpn
    0 root        -60    -     0B  1392K -        0   0:00   0.02% [kernel{if_io_tqg_0}]
    8 root        -16    -     0B    16K -        2   0:00   0.02% [rand_harvestq]
    0 root        -16    -     0B  1392K -        2   0:00   0.02% [kernel{z_wr_int_0}]
86245 root         20    0    14M  2816K kqread   3   0:00   0.02% tail -F -n 0 /var/log/auth.log
[25.07.1-RELEASE][admin@pfsense.crites.local]/root:
                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • stephenw10S Offline
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Yeah it looks like it's seeing some connectivity issues and that can cause significant delays.

                            Try running: pkg -d update and see what error it throws.

                            You might need to set the firewall to prefer IPv4 for it's own connections. We have seen some reports of issues with IPV6 and TLS we are looking into now.

                            TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • TAC57T Offline
                              TAC57 @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10 From Diag/command or Putty I get:

                              [25.07.1-RELEASE][admin@pfsense.crites.local]/root: pkg -d update
ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libutil.so.10" not found, required by "pkg"

                              I also set:
                              81d7dd38-80e6-46f6-81fb-4472f309ebd0-image.png

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S Offline
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Try: pkg-static -d update

                                TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • TAC57T Offline
                                  TAC57 @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10 It goes for awhile and then errors out. If I try to post the whole log it gets marked as spam

                                  DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_11_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_11/data.tzs                                      t
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_11_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_11/packages                                      ite.pkg
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_11_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_11/packages                                      ite.tzst
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
Unable to update repository pfSense
Error updating repositories!
[25.07.1-RELEASE][admin@pfsense.crites.local]/root:
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_11_amd64-core/meta.txz
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
repository pfSense-core has no meta file, using default settings
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_11_amd64-core/data.pkg
DBG(1)[63174]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • stephenw10S Offline
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Ah, OK. It looks like you are running 25.07.1 but are pointing at 25.11. If you switch the update repo back to 25.07.1 does that command complete?

                                    TAC57T 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • TAC57T Offline
                                      TAC57 @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 FYI. What is the secret for not getting marked as spam?

                                      DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-core/packagesite.pkg
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-core/packagesite.tzst
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
Unable to update repository pfSense-core
Updating pfSense repository catalogue...
DBG(1)[9562]> PkgRepo: verifying update for pfSense
pkg-static: Repository pfSense has a wrong packagesite, need to re-create database
DBG(1)[9562]> PkgRepo: need forced update of pfSense
DBG(1)[9562]> Pkgrepo, begin update of '/var/db/pkg/repos/pfSense/db'
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/meta.conf
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/meta.txz
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
repository pfSense has no meta file, using default settings
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/data.pkg
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/data.tzst
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/packagesite.pkg
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Request to fetch pkg+https://pfsense-plus-pkg.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v25_07_1_amd64-pfSense_plus_v25_07_1/packagesite.tzst
DBG(1)[9562]> (fetch) Fetch: fetcher used: pkg+https
pkg-static: An error occurred while fetching package: No error
Unable to update repository pfSense
Error updating repositories!
[25.07.1-RELEASE][admin@pfsense.crites.local]/root:
                                      stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • stephenw10S Offline
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @TAC57
                                        last edited by

                                        @TAC57 said in pfSense+ GUI extremely slow, network performance normal:

                                        What is the secret for not getting marked as spam?

                                        Have enough reputation. You should be good now.

                                        Try: pfSense-repoc-static N

                                        TAC57T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • TAC57T Offline
                                          TAC57 @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10 42c74697-8b39-40f1-a270-25cc3d43d000-image.png

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • TAC57T Offline
                                            TAC57 @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10 My reputation is probably what got me there in the first place! 😂

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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