10 months ago
Subject: West4 Region - Production App Unusable
---
To: Railway Support Team
From: NovaDub Team
Date: December 7, 2025
Urgency: HIGH - Production Application Affected
---
## Issue Summary
Our production web application hosted on Railway is experiencing critically low download speeds for static assets, making the application effectively unusable. Users are waiting 2+ minutes to load the homepage.
## Environment Details
- Project ID: 6df3a8e7-1ef0-454a-9118-e3d06ebd1c09
- Service ID: 89bacfcf-8d2f-4960-9c7c-68a361988bf3
- Region: europe-west4-drams3a
- Domain:www.novadub.ai
- Railway URL:novadub-site-production.up.railway.app
## Problem Description
Static file downloads are extremely slow, with effective bandwidth of only ~90 Kbps (11 KB/s). This is approximately:
- 100x slower than typical cloud hosting
- 15x slower than Vercel
- 5.7x slower than Railway's own documentation site
## Diagnostic Data
### Test 1: Sequential Downloads (Same File, 650 KB gzipped)
```
Request 1: 75s @ 8.7 KB/s
Request 2: 107s @ 6.0 KB/s
Request 3: 120s @ 3.8 KB/s (TIMEOUT)
Request 4: 80s @ 8.1 KB/s
Request 5: 37s @ 17.7 KB/s
```
Observation: Extreme variability (4.6x difference), inconsistent performance.
### Test 2: Detailed Timing Breakdown
```
DNS Lookup: 0.002s (normal)
TCP Connect: 0.087s (normal)
TLS Handshake: 0.572s (normal)
First Byte: 0.771s (acceptable)
Total Time: 45.43s (CRITICAL)
Download Size: 649,762 bytes
Speed: 14,301 bytes/sec
```
Observation: Connection establishment is fast, but data transfer is severely throttled.
### Test 3: Parallel Downloads (3 simultaneous connections)
```
Total data: 1.95 MB (3 x 650 KB)
Total time: 99 seconds
Throughput: ~20 KB/s total (shared bandwidth)
Per connection: ~6.5 KB/s
```
Observation: Bandwidth is shared across connections, suggesting a total egress limit.
### Test 4: Comparison with Other Providers
| Provider | Speed | File Size |
|----------|-------|-----------|
| Vercel | 164 KB/s | 52 KB |
| GitHub CDN | 82 KB/s | 26 KB |
| Railway Docs | 63 KB/s | 29 KB |
| My Railway App | 11 KB/s | 650 KB |
### Test 5: TTFB Variability
```
Test 1: TTFB = 0.35s
Test 2: TTFB = 2.57s
Test 3: TTFB = 1.49s
```
Observation: Time To First Byte varies by 7x, indicating server-side instability.
## Questions
1. Is there a bandwidth throttling policy on the europe-west4 region?
2. Are there any known issues with the europe-west4-drams3a edge server?
3. Is there a way to increase our egress bandwidth allocation?
4. Would migrating to a different region improve performance?
5. Are there any recommended configurations for serving static files?
## Business Impact
- User Experience: Homepage takes 2+ minutes to load (unacceptable for a SaaS product)
- Bounce Rate: Users leave before the page loads
- SEO Impact: Core Web Vitals are severely affected
- Revenue Impact: Potential customers cannot access our service
## Requested Actions
Investigate why our specific deployment has such low bandwidth
## Additional Information
We are happy to provide:
- Access to our Railway project for investigation
- Additional diagnostic logs
- Any other information needed
Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter.
---
Project: NovaDub (www.novadub.ai)
9 Replies
10 months ago
I can confirm this issue on europe-west4-drams3a. Public network speed is unbearably slow at the moment. Please prioritize this issue as it affects apps in production.
10 months ago
Hi! Are you able to run https://docs.railway.com/reference/network-diagnostics and share the output here?
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • 10 months ago
Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway • 10 months ago
raphaelflash
Here you go
10 months ago
Are you able to open your own thread mentioning this? Apologies for the trouble; it'll help us track these issues easier.
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • 10 months ago
10 months ago
@dicemans are you able to share an example link to a static file that is slow? I'm unable to reproduce the issue on your site from my end. Additionally, running https://docs.railway.com/reference/network-diagnostics and sharing the output here would help us troubleshoot this with more information. Thank you!
Status changed to Solved dicemans • 10 months ago
10 months ago
Hi, thanks for your response. Here is the information you requested ( attached file ):
Link for test
As also mentioned by raphaelflash, the issue is intermittent and occurs frequently during evening hours (timezone: Europe/Rome – CET/CEST).
I have also noticed through additional testing that it tends to happen right after a machine re-deploy and continues for approximately 15–30 minutes after the deployment completes.
I’m available to provide any further details if needed.
Thanks.
Attachments
Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway • 10 months ago
10 months ago
The link 404s for me.
Given your output, I can see that:
- You're connecting from Rome using Starlink
- You're being routed to our EU edge, which is correct
- Your traceroute shows the optimal path (Budapest->Prague->Amsterdam->Railway's Datacentre)
Any latency you're experiencing may be coming from your connection, or your application itself. Starlink is prone to packet losses from what I understand - could that be causing issues?
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • 10 months ago
10 months ago
Thank you for your response. However, I have evidence that disproves the Starlink/network theory.
---
### Test: Same Network, Different Providers
From the SAME machine with SAME network (Starlink):
```bash
# Railway (our app)
curl -w "Speed: %{speed_download} bytes/sec\n" -o /dev/null -s \
"https://novadub-site-production.up.railway.app/assets/index-Cie3DRno.js"
# Result: 23,203 bytes/sec (98 seconds for 2.2MB)
# Cloudflare CDN
curl -w "Speed: %{speed_download} bytes/sec\n" -o /dev/null -s \
"https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/three.js/r128/three.min.js"
# Result: 2,463,935 bytes/sec (0.24 seconds for 600KB)
```
| Provider | Speed | Comparison |
|----------|-------|------------|
| Railway | 23 KB/s | 1x |
| Cloudflare | 2,463 KB/s | 106x faster |
If it were Starlink latency, Cloudflare would also be slow. It's not.
---
### Test Files for Your Verification
I've created static test files you can download:
1MB Test File:
```bash
curl -w "Speed: %{speed_download} bytes/sec, Time: %{time_total}s\n" \
-o /dev/null -s \
"https://novadub-site-production.up.railway.app/bandwidth-test-1mb.bin"
```
Expected result: ~23 KB/s = ~45 seconds for 1MB
Instructions file:
https://novadub-site-production.up.railway.app/railway-test.txt
---
### Key Evidence
1. Same client downloads from Cloudflare at 2.4 MB/s → Network is fine
2. Railway downloads at 23 KB/s → 100x slower than expected
3. First byte is fast (330ms) → Connection is established quickly
4. Transfer is slow → Egress bandwidth is throttled
---
Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway • 10 months ago
10 months ago
Hi there,
I'm unable to reproduce this with the links you provided.
Using your own test files and commands, here are the results I'm seeing from a central European consumer internet line:
1mb bin file: Speed: 2635540 bytes/sec, Time: 0.397860s
JS file: Speed: 6569275 bytes/sec, Time: 0.346704s
Best,
Nico
Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway • 10 months ago
10 months ago
This thread has been marked as solved automatically due to a lack of recent activity. Please re-open this thread or create a new one if you require further assistance. Thank you!
Status changed to Solved Railway • 10 months ago