I have been speed optimizing a Wordpress site to little effect. There are three files CSS-related php files from the Wordpress theme that are delaying page loads on the site. One of the three files is basically one line of custom CSS from the custom CSS feature in the theme.
The Problematic Files
(As requested) Here is more info on the three files starting with the entirety of customCss.php.
/* CUSTOM ADMIN PANEL CSS */
div#tspfp_article.layout_default div#full p
{
margin: -30px 0px !important ;
}
Meanwhile, dynamicCss.php is just CSS code for those parts of the theme formatting that can be modified by the site admin in the Admin options panel of the theme. Finally, responsiveCss.php is CSS code for the responsive version of the site. For all three of these files, I don't see any code besides identifying classes and the CSS formatting for them. They are in the CSS directory of the theme directory. I don't know enough about php to know why these files are php files rather than just CSS files.
Speed Test
You can see what I am talking about with this Pingdom speed test:
The yellow is 'Wait'. There are no slow items in the cut-off portion of the image.
The full results are here: Pingdom Results Page
Update
The slow speed on the three files gradually returned. When I deactivate plugins the problem goes away even when I reactivate the plugins, but with the plugins reactivated the problem slowly comes back. If it was my browser, I would say it was a memory leak.
Final: In the end, we switched Wordpress themes and the speed is fine now.
Questions
1. Any thoughts on what might be causing this?
I understand that I have blocking CSS and JS files, but I don't see anything that would be causing that long of a wait. When I ran the P3 Plugin Profiler, Wordpress and all plugins appeared fine -- it is the theme that is taking all the time.
GTmetrix recommends avoiding dynamic queries. I assume all the ver=3.61 references are to the version of Wordpress (which I am using). I noticed that my Wordpress sites using other themes don't make this query (at least not over and over).
2. Is this typical coding practice?
3. How much negative impact do these query-strings have -- a little or a lot?
4. Could there be some kind of memory problem given the gradual return of the issue?
I tried searching for similar questions here, please excuse me if I missed something. Sometimes, I know just enough to be dangerous.