Very slow opening hosted file on 3G

[P J]

Tim,

 

I am experiencing very long file open times for the hosted file - up to 5 minutes over UK 3G.  After this the actual sync works fine in a sensible time.

 

Any thoughts....

 

Thanks 

 

Paul Jansen

 

 

[timdietrich]

Paul --

 

Are you only experiencing this when syncing? What happens if you connect directly to the hosted file from Go?

 

-- Tim

[P J]

Tim,

 

I have a test script that just opens one of the remote files and times how long it takes.  less than a second on wifi and upto 5 minutes (when it doesn't time out over 3G)  I am going to put a copy of the files onto one of our servers in the datacentre and see if there is any difference.

 

The client is testing on 4G and getting similar issues.  Any file that is opened opens on a blank layout with a blank table (no fields and no records)

 

The actual sync when the connection is made proceeds quite well so this 'connecting' overhead on slow connections is very frustrating 

[timdietrich]

Ok, so it sounds like a Go / Server issue - not something specific to EasySync.

 

You might want to look at the FM Server logs to see if they reveal anything unusual.

 

Another suggestion: There are iOS apps that can do things like ping and trace route. It might be interesting to see what's happening at the network level, and if any unusual hops are causing the problem. (It doesn't sound like that's the case, but you never know.)

 

-- Tim

[P J]

Tim,

 

I agree it is probably a server/Go issue.  It seems that the connection time increase more than linearly with the drop in network speed

 

Nothing of much use in the FMserver logs.

 

watching the sever admin, the client connection is created immediately and the file is shown as connected, but then it takes the age to 'finish' opening.  The files have minimal if any startup scripts which never leave the blank layout so it is a puzzle - especially as it takes less than a second over wifi and my cable connection.

 

As the whole point of sync is to deal with poor connections, it's a bit of a disappointment...

[timdietrich]

I would run this one past FileMaker Inc tech support if I were you. 

 

During testing, there were times where we would see the initial "handshake" (if you can call it that) between Go and Server seem to take an unusually long amount of time. The connections would seem to be almost instantaneous if you looked at them from the Server side. The problem seemed to be on the Go side of things - and I think that's what you're seeing, too.

 

If you can reproduce this problem consistently (something I could never seem to do), it might be something that FMI tech support can look into.

 

And I agree - it is disappointing. It seems to be a strange Go issue - one of many.

[David Jondreau]

Any external file references it may be trying to resolve?

[P J]

David,

 

The hosted files are of course 'external file references'  Are you suggesting that IP address may be preferable to a domain name?

 

On a wired connection to the internet all is super fast.  My testing has revealed that a 3G connection can be extremely variable even if the device does not move.  Just the opening of a remote db file appears to have a significant overhead on slow connections.  It appears there is some communication going on between the server and FMGo after the connection appears in the admin console and that this can take a very long time (5 minutes on one occasion) on a slow connection.  Once started this process cannot be aborted the user just has to wait until it is finished.

 

Interestingly, often after a slow 'opening' the actual sync completes in a slow but acceptable time.  However, 30 seconds for sync after 5 minutes of connecting is not acceptable. 

 

I am now pre-testing the connection to the internet by downloading a series of html files of increasing size using insert from url. This allows me to assess the connection speed programatically and for the user to abort if the connection is too slow.

 

Thanks

[Rick Whitelaw]

I find 3G very slow even when doing routine FM stuff remotely on my iPad. I always try to use wifi whenever possible. 3G is so slow I use it for for nothing but email.

[David Jondreau]

No, I'm wondering if there are External Data Sources that the file is trying to resolve. That can slow things down, especially if they're missing.

 

How big is the relationship graph? Is there an opening script running?

 

I'd say there are optimizations you can try to speed it up, but it really depends on what else is going on.

 

Keep in mind that "speedtest" speed is not the best predictor for how quick FileMaker will work.

[bcooney]

Another variable to considering is how many other apps are open on the iPad. I find FMGo very sensitive to RAM availability.

[Franco]

how didi you set  " $$use_psos_during_pull " on "  EasySync Settings " script on the mobile file?

 

This variable set if the pull scripts of the hosted file is solved by the server or in the mobile device.