If your network magicians deployed either a hardware or a software WAN Optimizer, here is a word of advice from Gayan “Performance Wizard” Perera, presumably learned the hard way:

If you have a WAN Optimizer on your network and it’s trying to optimize CRM traffic, double check the following settings because it can affect CRM form load times. Ensure that the following settings are turned OFF:

• Compression Stripping – CRM and IIS does a nice enough job that the WAN optimizer doesn’t need to interfere
• Keep-Alive header injection
• Authentication Header Stripping

When optimizer is not configured properly, it can interfere with CRM traffic resulting in errors and/or poor performance. The symptoms may include (YMMV):

• Click on a list record – lag before the record opens
• When the record is opening, the ‘Loading’, ‘Requesting data…’, ‘Loading business logic’ phases are slow compared with a system that’s optimized correctly
• Opening a record results in blank or incomplete screen, or infinite ‘Loading’ message
• Certificate errors or blocked content