Citrix enviroment slowness issue

[Odrigeld]

Regarding Filemaker Pro 6v4 on Citrix Metraframe XP:

We have about 30 users running Filemaker Pro on 2 different Metaframe XP servers (dual processor) with Filemaker Server hosting our databases. In certain situations, the clients will use up 100% of both CPU's on both servers for 15 to 20 minutes.

It appears that every copy of filemaker on each server tries to consume as much processor time as possible.

It also appears that a single user initiates the chain of events that cause this by performing an action on the database such as a sort or a find (although we are not sure which action it typically is).

The filemaker server does not appear very busy and the network traffic between the filemaker server and Citrix servers actually drops during this period.

Booting off users eventually leads to kicking off the user who started the problem and the CPU's on both servers are instantly freed up.

I'm looking for anyone who has experienced this same issue and can offer additional information that they may have observed or anyone who may have more information on how filemaker pro 6 communicates with filemaker server that may shed some light on the subject.

Thanks

[Anatoli]

We where using 30-40 FM 5.5 users on Terminal services without single issue. I do not know how Citrix is working at all.

I guess there can be something in FM 6, Citrix or bad programming, like calculation across many (all) records.

[Mariano Peterson]

Yes, I've dealt with this. When using Citrix (and I'm fairly certain Terminal Services, as well), instances of FileMaker can hijack the CPU when performing certain tasks, primarly searching and sorting.

These processes are often called "runaway processes", and can be controlled by CPU limiters like AppSense. AppSense allows you to limit what percentage of the CPU different processes can obtain - so by setting FileMaker to 25%, you guarantee that no single instance of FileMaker will occupy more than 25% off the processor's time, leaving it available to manage the other FileMaker processes for other users.

Hope this helps!

[Anatoli]

How much is AppSense?

IMHO more taxing, than simple search or sort are reports and heavy calculations.

We set one special FM client as "JOB machine" and it was processing in loop all time (CPU) intensive tasks, which where requested by users. It then send the result in PDF to user via email. That was excellent idea and TS was running without problems.

[Mariano Peterson]

I don't remember, that was over a year ago and somebody else actually purchased the utility. I vaguely remember it was relatively cheap, maybe $50?

Yeah, its a very good idea to make a seperate JOB machine that handles reporting and such. However, users will still perform sorts and searches on the Citrix machine, so capping the processes is a good idea, too.

[Anatoli]

Sure, everything to tame the beast is great. BTW, it just shows how the port from Mac to Windows is bad. Would you believe it, that inside FM on Windows is everything coded in Mac character sets? And poor FM on Windows must translate everything. It again shows how Windows are running this quite badly written application efficiently. FM is actually always faster on Wintel.

[Keith LaMarre]

I have also run into this problem - you're right, its a long sort, find or possibly a script that could be trapped in an infitinite loop. However, I have been able to locate the bad "process" in Citrix Manager and then just eliminate that one to allow the other processes to continue. Hack off the nose to save the face!