FM5 is SO slow. what is going on?

[Alan Trewartha]

I've looked in vain for anyone else experiencing this problem, and i'm getting pretty steamed up about it. the FM support line only support instant web publishing. great support.

now before i go mad and call an account manager at FM, has ANYONE when upgrading to FM5 (unlimited) found that their lovingly created CDML-based web solution is suddenly about *10* times slower.

We're still trying to pinpoint the problem, but it does seem to be just very slow at processing CDML. we took out the FMP-IFs and this reduced a 30 second request to a 4 second request.

[Anatoli]

My Unlimited is actually 2-7 times faster, than version 4.

There must be something fishy with your set up. OS? Memory? Etc?

[Alan Trewartha]

perhaps, but it's precisely the same system that was running the old client with web companion. we simply installed the new client on the machine, set it going with exactly the same CDML pages and it's slow as hell.

It is probably worth saying that this is an extranet machine -- i.e. it is behind a firewall. Otherwise nothing unusual in the setup. we have managed to get responses down to only twice as slow by judicious use of pared down layouts with only the used fields on it. we had one layout of fields that served for 4 pages that had token dependent content, naturally that has meant changing the CDML so that instead of just the token switching (which was nice and simple) to switching token AND layout. grrr

thanks for the reply tho, ta

[Anatoli]

That is very, very strange. On what OS and HW are you running? Firewall shouldn’t be an issue.

Did you allocated all possible memory (9999) to Unlimited? BTW, FileMaker Inc, why we cannot allocate more?:

[Garry Claridge]

I have had a problem like this and it turned-out to be a corrupt file. This must have occurred during the upgrade.

Hope this helps.

Garry

[Alan Trewartha]

THis is on NT4 server. i'll check on the corrupt file thing. Do you mean the .fp5 file needs to be checked for block consistency etc?

[Alan Trewartha]

no corrupt file either. spent a long while recovering it to be 100% sure, set it up running in parallel and did some speed checks. no significant difference.

I've given up making it as good as on 4. it's just not going to do it. i'll see if the xml pages are served any better, and if so work on server-side conversion to HTML.

This is sad because we were very happy with Filemaker til now, and the extranet we'd built was working really well. They won't support us on this because it's not instant web publishing. we've spent many many thousands of pounds on their product and we get no help. pah.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

To begin with, why are you running this on NT Server? Is the specific file or files being used for web publishing also on the same CPU as FileMaker Server? This is NOT A GOOD IDEA.

I see that you are in the UK. You might wish to contact Lord Peter Makin, a superior developer. Perhaps he can assist you with your coding.

Also, how much cache did you attempt on this? Under preferences, set it to at least 8192KB.

Recovering a file does not rid it of corruption. Do you have a clean clone into which you can import the data?

Also, please be sure to use the latest vrev of the product. For FileMaker Pro 5 that is the 5.0v3 rev. The various v-revs are available for downloading from the FMI web site, either the main one or the British one.

Old Advance Man

[Alan Trewartha]

Don't worry, the FMP server is on a completely different machine (Mac OS X server!) on our side of the firewall. The unlimited install is on NT server cos it's doing various extranet bits and pieces. the file was not corrupt -- we made a clean clone at an earlier stage and there are no messages on opening about corruption/fixing. the recovery stage was just to be 200% sure, and probably pointless as you say. latest vrev too thanks.

We're a bit unsure about the cache settings on an extranet box. There has been issues of data not refreshing possibly because of firewall blocking the client update messages (we've never been 100% sure on this) so we've traditionally kept it low. i'll have a play though, but if the cache is just a data cache it shouldn't have much impact on the processing of CDML -- should it? i'll have a see and let you know.

Thanks also for the contact

[Steven H. Blackwell]

>Don't worry, the FMP server is on a completely different machine (Mac OS X server!)

Let's be precise here. The server CPU running FileMaker Server 5.5 should be OS X (10.0.4 or 10.1) and NOT OS X Server.

HTH

Old Advance Man

[Alan Trewartha]

yes yes yes, sorry. OS X not server all up to date and lovely. we have NO problems with filemaker client to server. it's as good if not better than before. it's just the client responding to http requests and processing CDML files that's causing the problem. we've even tried it on other installs of NT 4 workstation within the firewall, and the response time is rubbish, so it's not specific to that hardware, the firewall, a particular NT service pack, etc.

[Anatoli]

RE: ...and the response time is rubbish, so it's not specific to that hardware, the firewall, a particular NT service pack, etc.

Then we cannot possibly talk about the same product. Our FM Unlimited is processing all requests in split second, however difficult the request is.

It must be something on your machines...

[Garry Claridge]

Does FM Client access on your LAN have normal access times on ALL files/tables? Can you test the CDML access speed from your LAN?

All the best.

Garry

p.s. Must be a solution some where!

[Steven H. Blackwell]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Trewartha:

yes yes yes, sorry. OS X not server all up to date and lovely. we have NO problems with filemaker client to server. it's as good if not better than before. it's just the client responding to http requests and processing CDML files that's causing the problem. we've even tried it on other installs of NT 4 workstation within the firewall, and the response time is rubbish, so it's not specific to that hardware, the firewall, a particular NT service pack, etc.

---

Is it possible that you have a lot (over 20) temp files in the Windows-->Temp directory? That can be a xource of sluggishness for FIleMaker Pro. Clean those out and see what happens.

HTH

Old Advance Man

[Keith M. Davie]

"The unlimited install is on NT server cos it's doing various extranet bits and pieces."

If that extranet includes running scripts, especially a script with a loop, that could be the problem.

[Alan Trewartha]

can i just repeat my thanks for all these responses -- i am following them ALL up as far as sensible. i am alos v annoyed at the lack of help from fmi -- but from what you are saying it does seem to be specific to our NT build, so perhaps understandable.

You have to keep in mind that this machine was previously running the filemaker 3/4 client and we were V happy with it. All we did was run the CD install for 5 unlimited on the box (then the updates from fmi web site) and our site is v slow now. AND we've tried it on more than one box with the same results.

we may do a weekend temporary move back to the old setup to double-check that nothing odd happened during the changeover.