Sluggish Text Entry

[cmcfarling]

I have 2 users using an identical config, iMac with Filemaker 7.03, OSX 10.4.1. One one them periodically has an issue where typing comes to a crawl. After typing a whole sentence on the keyboard, only about half of the sentence is actually entered into the text field. Very slowly, the rest of the characters come in. Both users are accessing the same networked database.

Quitting and relaunching FM seems to temporarily fix it, but it happens at least once a day.

Has anyone experienced the same behavior? Could it be an OSX 10.4 thing?

[Lee Smith]

How are these files being accessed. Server, Web, Sharing,

Lee

[cmcfarling]

Filemaker Server running on Win2K

[stanley]

Does the behavior appear in other applications, or only in FileMaker?

-Stanley

[cmcfarling]

only FM

[Reed]

I've been using FM7v3 on 10.4.1(2) for a while and I haven't seen this. One computer is a G4 533, one is an iBook G3 500, and one is a Dual G4 1GHz. The only thing that ever seems to bring the slower systems to a crawl is Microsoft Word. Even when it's in the background, it eats up cycles like crazy.

[stanley]

Reed has a good clue there. Look at the Process Viewer when FMP is running fine, then look at it when FMP has slowed down - see if you can spot anything.

Other than that, is it just typing into a text box that slows, or is it the whole system?

-Stanley

[cmcfarling]

I'll see what I can get from the PV.

It's just text entry in FM that's affected, the rest of the system is fine.

[Reed]

If you open another file locally on the affected computer, is the text entry slow in the local file as well as the network file?

[Ron F]

Are you opening multiple windows in your solution. If you are this would make sence sine FM7 on PC has issues with performance when multiple windows are open. In contrast FM 7 running on Mac have no such issues.

[cmcfarling]

Well, the same thing began happening on the other iMac mentioned above yesterday. I was able to get on it today when the the problem was happening.

There were no other processes eating up the CPU. After verifying that, I quit all other apps. With only FMP running, the problem remained. I then created a new file on the local desktop with a single text field in it. And began typing into the text field and got the same results.

In this sluggish state, FM is using about 70% of the CPU while typing.

After all that, I quit FM, relaunched it, opened the local file I had just created and began typing. Now eveything was normal and CPU usage didn't go beyond 30% or so.

My conclusions so far:

- This is not a network/server related issue (which, BTW, why did this thread get moved to this forum? It wasn't here to begin with)

- Quitting and relaunching fixes the problem temporarily.

- I never saw this problem before using 10.4.1, which makes me think there's a strong possibility that the OS version is a factor.

[stanley]

It is starting to sound like a memory leak or some other awful problem like that. I don't have anyone using Tiger, so I can't do any testing to look into what you're encountering, though.

-Stanley

[JoshB]

We are expirencing similiar behavior on a couple of our Mac-Mini's. I may be revealing my inexperience here, but I'm currently adjusting the cache size that FileMaker uses in the preferences window...I've noticed that the default is 8 MB, of which FM uses only 7. I increased the cache to 9 MB. Preliminary findings seem positive, but I will know more tomorrow. Our macs are running the most recent versions of OS X. As a side note, we also have IMacs and Windows machines that seem to be immune to this situation. Anyway, any other recommendations are appreciated (or a note saying I'm wasting my time adjusting cache sizes ;)

[JoshB]

In case anyone was on the edge of their seats waiting, adjusting the cache seemed to have no effect. The testing continues.

[cmcfarling]

I found the culprit. Photoshop 7 is installed on this machine. There is a G5 update for Photoshop 7 that had not been installed. Launching Photoshop while FMP is running seems to cause this problem. Oddly, FMP is the only app that seems to be affected.

Anyhow, after updating Photoshop, the problem appears to have gone away.

[cmcfarling]

I found the culprit. Photoshop 7 is installed on this machine. There is a G5 update for Photoshop 7 that had not been installed. Launching Photoshop while FMP is running seems to cause this problem. Oddly, FMP is the only app that seems to be affected.

Anyhow, after updating Photoshop, the problem appears to have gone away.

[cmcfarling]

I spoke too soon. The problem cropped up again today. I'll keep digging.