Why is FM suddenly so slow?

[John Fowler]

I have a relational database set up as Sales (details of all Sales transactions), Contacts (for all non-sales contacts), and Customer Master, with all remaining data on a customer, and portals to the previous two. My Master has about 4500 records, my sales has about 1700, Contacts about 1600 or so.

Well, I haven't made any modifications to my DB in a while---I'm too busy making sales! But, in any case, about 3 weeks, ago, everything just started moving more slowly. Not just lookups and sorts and stuff, but also just plain window views. I've found that even an extra second or two added to each maneuver ends up interrupting my workflow. I'm just wondering if this is common, and I also want to make sure this isn't a sign of impending doom (I backup regularly).

Any insights are welcome.

John

[jasonwood]

What OS are you running?

[Rangoon]

Hi John,

Before jumping through a lot of hoops try this.

Open your file, go to the File Menu and pull down to "Save a copy as". When the window comes up go to the bottom field and select "Compress Copy (smaller). Do this for each file in your solution.

This will keep all your records intact but will reduce the size of the file and in most cases increase speed. Let us know if this does the trick, if not we'll take the next steps. But the amount of records you have in your system should not slow you down unless.

hj

[jasonwood]

Hey hj,

I never noticed that feature... is that simply to eliminate gaps caused by deleted records and such, or is there any other form of compression performed?

[Rangoon]

Hi Jayson,

RE: I never noticed that feature... is that simply to eliminate gaps caused by deleted records and such, or is there any other form of compression performed?

It's to eliminate gaps. 65 to 75% of file size is data. So it can make a great difference. I have one solution with over 325,000 records and it makes a huge size and speed difference.

One other thing that can cause slowdowns are numerous records in your database with no data. This is especially true using portals. If you put a bunch of data through the portal and erase the data from the portal field instead of deleating it from the file the data resides. You have a file/fields full of records with no data and that aint good!

hj

[John Fowler]

Compression. I've done it in other databases, I just couldn't find the feature in FM. And, sure enough, it has done the trick. How often do you recommend compressing? And do you ever notice any file corruption in the process?

Thanks.

John

[Rangoon]

Hi John,

I'm happy it worked for you, I thought it would. I compress files every four (4) months and I have never experienced data corruption.

Let us know when we can help. There are a lot of good folks on the forum that are happy to help.

Happy New year to you,

hj