Virtualmain panel has become heavy

Virtualmin
1

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version | Debian Linux 11
Usermin version | 2.302
Virtualmin version | 7.30.8
Theme version | 24.02
Apache version | 2.4.62
Package updates | All installed packages are up to date

The Virtualmain panel has become heavy after recent updates to the admin panel and the menus are slow to open on low-end systems. There is probably a bug causing this. Are you experiencing the same issue?

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SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version Debian Linux 12
Usermin version 2.302
Virtualmin version 7.30.8
Theme version 24.02
Apache version 2.4.62
Package updates All installed packages are up to date
System hostname vps01.indiax.com (172.26.6.140) Operating system Debian Linux 12
Webmin version 2.402 Usermin version 2.302
Virtualmin version 7.30.8 Authentic theme version 24.02
Time on system Friday, July 25, 2025 12:56 PM Kernel and CPU Linux 6.1.0-37-cloud-amd64 on x86_64
Processor information Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8259CL CPU @ 2.50GHz, 2 cores System uptime 59 days, 23 hours, 35 minutes
Running processes 100 CPU load averages 0.42 (1 min) 0.14 (5 mins) 0.04 (15 mins)
Real memory 277.31 MiB used / 158.92 MiB cached / 447.83 MiB total Virtual memory 202.9 MiB used / 1.99 GiB total
Local disk space 8.67 GiB used / 10.9 GiB free / 19.57 GiB total Package updates All installed packages are up to date

I have this low-end system. Virtualmin seems to be zippy enough on it.

Admittedly, I don’t use it for much except secondary DNS…

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3

No, not here.
What browser? (probable cause)
what sort of connection? (4G phone on WiFi)
broadband optical line or wired copper?
which recent update? package or application.

I could keep guessing - such a vague question.

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4

Both on the Samsung J8 phone browser (Edge - Samsung - Firefox) with WiFi and 4.5G internet and on the laptop browser (Edge) with Windows 10, 4 GB RAM, N5000 CPU and high-speed internet, It goes without saying that my server is with an ARM processor, with 4 processor cores and 8 GB of RAM.

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version Debian Linux 11
Usermin version 2.302
Virtualmin version 7.30.8
Theme version 24.02
Apache version 2.4.62
Package updates All installed packages are up to date
5

I think it’s heavy on the front-end because it runs smoothly on systems with high processing power.

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So the problem is probably with me, thank you.

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I have one server where virtualmin is either slow or impossible to load specs are 500mb ram, 1 cpu, 10mb disk space, on this server while virtualmin stats is loading. Sometimes the omm killer knocks a service out or 2, perhaps the minimum ram requirement of 250 mb ish needs to be upped a bit as i am sure this was the memory requirement before the authentic theme, and as the authentic theme does a lot more than the older themes there may be a bigger overhead these days

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8

I have no problems on the server side and everything works fine. Sometimes I need to access the panel using a phone or a system with low processing power, but it has become really slow, to the point where I sometimes give up on continuing my work. Previously, I could easily access the panel using all systems and do my work.

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I often have to visit clients with old systems (even Windows 7 on old laptops and even archaic Modem wired BT connectivity) they do internet crawl but it is still workable.

is someone hogging your connection or digging the road up outside? :laughing:

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10

Yeah, that’s probably it :joy:

11

Wow! Are those still around?

Sorry about going off-topic, couldn’t resist.

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The dashboards not really showing that.

image

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If you run the top -c command while logged into that slow server and try to load one of the Virtualmin pages, does anything stand out in the top command output?

Also, what is the output of free -h on your system?

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14

That is not OPs system. That’s calport showing a tiny system he’s running Virtualmin on that isn’t exhibiting the problem being reported.

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15

Opps, thought that was OP.

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                 total       used        free       shared    buff/cache   available
  Mem:           7.6Gi       2.8Gi       586Mi       260Mi       4.2Gi       4.3Gi
  Swap:          3.0Gi       184Mi       2.8Gi

I’d like to provide a bit more context regarding the issue:
On low-end devices (such as older smartphones or less powerful PCs), Virtualmin now appears to struggle — the loading process stalls at around 16% when opening menus, and reaches about 60% during the init phase. During this time, the client device’s CPU usage spikes to 100%, while the server remains idle and shows no signs of high resource usage.

What’s interesting is that this behavior only affects low-end client devices. On newer and more powerful systems, Virtualmin performs smoothly and loads without any issues.

In the past, even these weaker devices were able to run Virtualmin reasonably well, so I’m wondering whether recent updates — particularly in the front-end or theme — might have introduced heavier rendering or processing that affects performance on older hardware.

I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have, such as possible optimizations or features that can be disabled to improve compatibility with less capable clients.

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on my home network, accessing to my server is slower when I use Powerline adapters, but rapid using a direct Ethernet.

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Can you clearly define what you mean by a low-end client device? Also, do the devices you’re talking about use batteries? If they do, is it possible that vendors slow down the hardware on purpose when the battery starts to degrade?

In the past? How far back are you talking about? Was it with an older Framed Theme, or do you always mean it was used with Authentic, and was faster back then? If so, this is unlikely because Authentic constantly goes through improvements and bug fixes.

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19

Hi Ilia, Thanks for your reply.

By “low-end devices,” I mean things like:

  • My old Samsung J8 (Snapdragon 450 / 4GB RAM, Android 10) — tested with Firefox, Edge, and Samsung Internet.
  • A laptop with Pentium Silver N5000, 4GB RAM, Windows 10, running Edge and Chrome.

They’re obviously not high-performance machines — but they used to handle Virtualmin just fine until recently. Also, these devices aren’t being throttled due to battery issues or thermal limits. They run other modern web panels and fairly JS-heavy websites without much trouble.

What’s odd is that the CPU spike happens entirely on the client side, not the server. While Virtualmin is loading (especially during the init phase or when opening menus), the browser hits 100% CPU, yet the server shows low load and low memory usage. This behavior wasn’t present a few months ago.

Regarding the theme — yes, I’ve been using Authentic consistently (not Framed or Gray), and the slowdown seems to have started sometime after version 24.00 or so. No changes on my side — same devices, same browsers, same internet. That’s why I suspect something in the frontend may have become heavier — perhaps in terms of JavaScript complexity or rendering overhead.

Would it be possible to offer a way to tweak the UI for better performance on older or less capable devices? Maybe a “minimal mode” that reduces animations, transitions, and live elements?

I completely understand that modern software evolves and naturally requires stronger hardware — that’s expected. Still, having a lighter or performance-optimized option (even experimental) would greatly improve Virtualmin’s flexibility and accessibility across a wider range of environments.

Thanks again for your time.

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I have one of them and it seems to cope well enough.

NHS :upside_down_face:

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