Why does data sit in Send-Q? TCP sessions freezing
Solution 1:
Data goes in the send queue when the application writes it to its local kernel TCP stack. Data gets removed from the send queue when the other side's TCP stack acknowledges receipt of the data. If they're sitting in the send queue that means that your IRC server code has sent them to your kernel, but the other side of the connection hasn't acknowledged them yet. This may be because they haven't been sent yet. This can be caused by server bandwidth limitations or server performance limitations, but most commonly it's simply because the other side isn't receiving the data as fast as the server is sending it.