SLOW running

[fishhead]

HI I have 3 computers running an application i created linked to back end tables on our server.

When 1 computer is turned on the application runs fast (normal speed)
When the other two computers are turned on the applications runs very slow (seems to stutter - seems to be waiting for a connection then works fast again - different screens (tasks) seem to lag like this)

I had someone come in and confirm that our network is working properly - there didn't seem to be any problem communicating with the server from their perspective.

I had someone convince me to upgrade the computers to office 365 (which was painful). i was told that 1 purchase would allow me to install the software on 5 computers. This didn't correct the problem and the new outlook on office 365 is terrible - keeps crashing. I thought perhaps because the office 365 was on 3 computers but under the same user name might be slowing things down? I've since purchased a license for Office 2016 Professional and installed it on one of the computers (removing office 365 on that computer). This still hasn't fixed the lagging problem so i'm not convinced it has nothing to do with the user name being shared on 3 computers all running at the same time etc.

i'm now at a loss as to what would be causing this lag. I've installed the application on the server directly - linking to the backend tables also situated on the server and the program works perfectly. This is clearly a problem transferring information over the network. Also the laptop that now has the office 2016 pro version installed had the HD completely reformatted recently in an attempt to fix this problem - so i'm pretty sure the laptop is working fine.

Has anyone had similar problems and can you suggest things to try to fix this?



much appreciated.

regards,
Steve

[CJ_London]

network is working properly

this comment needs clarification - is it working properly for your particular requirements? It may just be working in that all machines can connect to the server - but not particularly fast.

Are you connecting via a hardwired LAN? or wireless? (if the latter, your data is at risk).

Lags can be cause by poor backend and/or front end design. For the backend, is the data normalised and properly indexed? For the front end, is it designed to bring the minimum amount of data required across the network? e.g. forms are not populated with whole table recordsets, but just the record you want to look at. They (and their underlying recordsets) don't use domain functions, etc

And is your record locking policy set up correctly for your environment? see advanced section of client settings for each user - normally this would be set to no locks

[fishhead]

Thanks VIP....
I am connected via hardwired LAN - that was my first attempt to fix the problem.

I've also received feedback regarding possible poor backend/front end design - I have been using this application for many years - originally based on MSACCESS 2010 (on my laptop) with the other users using RUNTIME. The computers all had Windows 7 pro as an operating system. This served us very well for many years. Quite fast screen refresh etc. Very little has changed with the application so i really don't think the problem is due to design. The record locking policy is set up correctly too - only 1 user can access the record at any time etc.

About 4 months ago I noticed the program ran very slow (in terms of accessing the backend data - once the data was obtained the screen would appear (refresh) at it's normal - fast speed. It seems like the data request was being set to the backend and the computer hangs waiting for the request to reach the backend - then all of a sudden the various screens would refresh quickly (normal speed) as if traffic over the network was low enough to allow the request/response go back and forth. I had someone come and check the network out and they determined everything is working well and pointed the problem back to MSACCESS. I also had the HD formatted and reinstalled everything on the laptop thinking this was a local problem - but this did nothing to fix the problem.

I've tried installing Office 365 - which didn't fix the problem and last week i purchased Office 2016 and installed this on my laptop - again with no performance improvements.

I should mention that i also reduced the file size of each of the backend tables ( 4 in total) - Where i used to run fast with 5 years of data in the tables i'm running slowly with only 2 years of data.

Is there anything else you can suggest i can look at or try to fix this problem?

thanks,

[CJ_London]

Not really - I presume you have compacted the back end?

As an investigation, what happens if you copy the backend to a local drive and connect the front end to that - does that then work normally. If so that implies it is a network issue

[fishhead]

Not really - I presume you have compacted the back end?

As an investigation, what happens if you copy the backend to a local drive and connect the front end to that - does that then work normally. If so that implies it is a network issue

Yes Ive compacted the back ends and yes when I copy and link them to the local drive everything works as expected (fast)

i too assumed a network issue but having someone come and test the network confirming it's ok left me hanging again

anything else come to mind?

[Shadow9449]

There is a number of ways to improve performance. If the database is being shared over the network then presumably it's split FE/BE. You can get some really poor performance in a split database without a persistent connection to the BE. Albert Kallal has a great post about why and how to split: http://kallal.ca/Articles/split/index.htm

Scroll down to "One last tip" on how to maintain a persistent connection. See if that helps.

[fishhead]

One thing I noticed is during business hours the application is slow but after business hours it runs at the normal (faster) speed. During the day there are 3 computers on the network, which I'm told is nothing in terms of workload while in the evening only my laptop working. Is it safe to assume this is a network issue - even though I had someone come in to check this for me?

[John_G]

What you need to try next is running all three computers after business hours. If they run normally (i.e. are not slow), then I think you can assume you do have a network issue. Another thing to try if you can is to put the back end data on another server to test during the day. Maybe the server the BE is currently on has very heavy traffic on it during business hours.

[ohmydatabase]

https://www.accessforums.net/showthr...=slow+database

I tried the persistent connection, but ran into some odd errors. I did notice a significant increase in performance. However, I would (sometimes) run into an error when another computer tried to open another persistent connection. Long story short, there's not much you can do to remedy a slow network. Users that aren't directly on the network will also experience slow performance.

[Shadow9449]

I'm not sure how you did the persistent connection. The way I do it is REALLY simple. I create a table with one record in it with meaningless data. I create a form that's bound to the table. I have that form open hidden when the application opens. That's all.

There are many other techniques to speed up the database. Are forms bound to large tables or on recordsets that only load one record at a time? Do combo boxes load when you need them or with the form? How about subforms on the tabs? Etc. All of these make a difference.