Troubleshooting: Poor or Slow Performance of Sirius Online
If you are experiencing any slowness or poor performance during your use of Sirius Online, we recommend that you take the following steps to improve performance.
Step | Action | Observation | Next Step |
1 | Check other websites for their performance. Always first check your favorite educational, news, or sports sites to see if they are also performing slowly. | If other sites are performing poorly, you may have a poor connection that requires additional troubleshooting. | Consider additional troubleshooting as suggested in Step 2. |
2 | Ask the student(s) if the problem is present on their home or other private networks. | Home networks do present firewall issues or other unique challenges. If the problem does not occur in a private network, then the issue may relate to the school’s network. | Proceed to Step 3. |
3 | Understand your internet/WiFi access and bandwidth. How many concurrent connections (i.e., individual computers or tablets) are each of the WiFi access points configured to handle vs. actual total number of users? Run a speed test of your wifi or internet access point at Speedtest.net. Take the download speed number (the megabits per second, or Mbps) and divide it by the number of computers/students accessing the same access point to get a megabits per second (Mbps) for each machine in the WiFi network. Your Sirius Tech Support Analyst may ask you to share the screenshot of your speed test as well as additional information about the access point/wifi connection in question, including the number of users that the access point is configured to support along with the actual number of users. | ADDITION OF IT CONTACT If your Mbps is less than 1 Mbps for each computer accessing the signal, you will need to request an increase in wifi access in your classroom. The ideal Mbps to run Sirius Online is 5 Mbps. If any of your access points are overloaded, or do not meet the minimum 1–5 Mbps, please explore solutions with your IT department. | If you have adequate bandwidth/internet speed, go to Step 4. If you need support to perform or interpret a speed test, please reach out to support@siriuseducationsolutions.com. |
4 | Reboot your machine. Restart your machine and launch only one browser with one tab open and try to access Sirius Online again. | Machines running multiple programs at once, or multiple browsers with multiple tabs, tend to work or process poorly. This is especially true of the Chrome browser and Chromebooks (the more tabs open, the more degraded the experience). | If rebooting your machine and relaunching Sirius in a single browser tab does not produce better performance, go to Step 5. |
5 | Understand your computer and operating system. Is your computer out of date, or are you running an out-of-date operating system or browser version? For up-to-date system requirements go here. | If you are running an out-of-date operating system or non-compatible version of your browser, you may be experiencing poor performance because your machine needs to be updated or upgraded. | If your computer is up to date and meets our system requirements, then proceed to Step 6. |
6 | Apply our Whitelist to keep you firewall from impacting performance. | Sirius Online cannot perform all necessary tasks and functions unless the whitelist is applied. Be sure to check with your district or school IT support team as an important step toward resolution. | If application of our whitelist has been completed (or you’re working from your home network, which doesn’t have a firewall) and are still experiencing problems, go to Step 7. If you need support to complete this step, please reach out to support@siriuseducationsolutions.com |
7 | Turn off pop-up blockers, extensions, and monitoring software. Does your machine have pop-up blockers, extensions, or other monitoring software that is preventing Sirius Online from performing optimally? | Working with your district or school IT support team, try turning off all pop-up blockers and extensions. If that resolves the issue, you will need to go through a process of turning off each individual extension or pop-up blocker to identify the conflict. If turning off all blockers and extensions doesn’t resolve the issue, try turning off any monitoring applications to see if that is the source of the problem. | If you are still experiencing the issue, proceed to Step 8. If you need support to complete this step, please reach out to support@siriuseducationsolutions.com. |
8 | Open the browser console and try to replicate the problem as you do a screen capture recording for Sirius Tech Support and Engineering. | Working with your district or school’s IT support team, open your browser’s console window (see this link) and try to reproduce the error. You can take a screenshot of any error messages that appear in the console when you try to replicate the issue; you can also take a video capture of the steps you take to recreate the issue along with any console error messages that appear. Sirius Tech Support can also provide more in-depth instructions as issues are shared. | If you are still experiencing issues and need support, please reach out to support@siriuseducationsolutions.com |
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