Products taking excessively long time to become public

[SquishSquash]

Hi all!
(before viewing my shop or any affiliated content, please be aware it is adult in nature)

I recently started having an issue where my products are taking an excessively long time to load into the shop, or to move from one collection or another.

When I switch something from "draft" to "active," it takes forever for the products to show up on my storefront. Sometimes 30 - 45 minutes, sometimes more.

This is also impacting my "Recent Sales" collection in which items are taking forever to show up as sold out.

For reference, when an item is purchased and becomes sold out, it moves out of the "Shop" collection and into the "Recent Sales" collection (so that sold out listings aren't taking up a lot of room on my storefront, but I still have a record of my most recent sales for customers to look at).
This in particular has been really upsetting customers that are still seeing sold out items as available in inventory, only to be unable to purchase them.

I also see that my shop's speed score has gone way down. I'm not sure when that occurred.
It may have something to do with my relatively new filter app, but I didn't notice any issues when we first started using it. It seems to be a more recent issue, though I'm not 100% sure.

It is extremely frustrating and really putting a damper on what was previously a very customer friendly system with no issues.
I'm really not very tech savvy, so this is causing all kinds of headaches. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[flareAI]

Hello @SquishSquash,

Good day! Gina from flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot.

It sounds like you may be experiencing a few different issues that could be impacting your website's performance and causing slow loading times for your products. Here are a few potential solutions to consider.

1. Optimize your images
Large image files can significantly slow down your website's loading times. Make sure that all of your product images are optimized for the web, meaning that they are compressed and resized appropriately for display on your website. You can use a tool like TinyPNG to compress your images.

2. Evaluate your Shopify apps
Some apps can slow down your website's performance, especially if they are poorly coded or add a lot of extra functionality. Review your installed apps and consider removing any that are not essential or that you suspect may be causing issues.

3. Test your website's speed
Use a tool like Google's PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to test your website's speed and identify any specific issues that may be causing slow loading times. These tools will provide recommendations for how to improve your website's speed and performance.

4. Minimize the use of third-party scripts
Third-party scripts, such as those for analytics or chat widgets, can add significant overhead to your website and slow down its performance. Consider only using essential third-party scripts and make sure they are well-optimized.

5. Use a lightweight theme
Choose a lightweight theme that is well-optimized for performance. Avoid themes that have a lot of unnecessary features or that are overly complex.

6. Enable lazy loading
Enable lazy loading for your images to improve page loading times. This means that images are loaded only when they are needed, rather than all at once when the page loads.

7. Optimize your code
Ensure that your code is well-optimized for performance by minimizing the use of external resources, reducing the number of HTTP requests, and minifying your code. Use tools like CodeKit or Gulp to help automate this process.

Gina