FM5 Sluggish

[gbenic]

hello,

I have owned FMP5 since it was launched. All of a sudden it has become so sluggish.As examples, I can't select a word by double clicking; it takes 6 seconds to open an item in the Menu; copy/paste takes 7 seconds ;if there is a relationship, well, it's an eternity ;in fact, everything is slowed down. I tested with a database with one record ,one text field,no relationship. The version is 5.0v3 English. The system is Mac 8.6, on a PowerBook 3400,240Mhz, 64Mo. Virtual memory is on. In the Get Info>Memory of the application, I allocated to Minimum: 6000k and Prefered: 10200k.

One detail. If I look at the cache size in Edit>Preferences>Application>Memory, the size is 8258k the first time I look. But if done repeatedly , it drops every time and is only 5000k the sixth time. Only FMP5 does that.

As I said at the beginning, it happened suddenly. And it happened only to FMP5. Nothing was changed recently in my system, nothing was added. I did rebuild the desktop.

Does somebody knows why?

Thanks.

[ May 12, 2001: Message edited by: gbenic ]

[Jetson]

I am having a similar problem. Not 6 seconds, but certainly sluggish. In fact, my arrow cursor seems to be strobing. I tried removing all plug-ins, increasing memory partition, and turning off virtual memory. Any other ideas out there?

[BAZ]

I don't really have an explanation for this or a solution, but I would like you to know that we faced a similar problem. We use IBMs. Suddenly everything was slow, and as you said, the memory was degrading..

What we tried is to upgrade the system memory, and we updated the system's BIOS (I don't how that applies to Macs). It worked for a while, but then it become slow again. Until now, we don't have an expalantion for it..it would be very helpful if someone can give us a hint on this..!

[Moon]

Have you tried throwing away the FileMaker preference file? On the Mac, a bad pref file can play havoc with the way a program operates, and trashing it is often a quick, easy fix.

Other trouble shooting ideas: start up with all extensions off. Then try with only Mac OS 8 basic. You might have an extension conflict. You might also try turning off the FileMaker plugins.

[ernst]

I've noticed sluggishness(?) when I updated our shop's administration from FMPro 4 + Server 3 to FMPro 5 + server 5.

We do use a 'relationcode' valuelist that started responding very slow after upgrading to version 5. The first time after opening a database it can take up to 15 seconds for the list to appear, every consecutive time the field is clicked it will still take about 5 seconds until the list appears. The list displays about 500 entries from a database that has about 5000 records.

Tried:

- optimising all databases

- forcing the index to be rebuilt by turning indexing off and then on again

- increasing memory partition of client and server.

- reducing the maximum amount of clients and databases on the server.

- using a faster server (400 Mhz iMac in stead of 233 Mhz iMac)

- no longer using filesharing on the server

- using only TCP/IP as the network protocol

But as you can guess, without any significant result.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experienced the same with valuelists and maybe found a way around it.

It is unclear to me at this moment how to send this kind of feedback to Filemaker inc's developers.

Anyway, regards to all.

Ernst

[ernst]

I've noticed sluggishness(?) when I updated our shop's administration from FMPro 4 + Server 3 to FMPro 5 + server 5.

We do use a 'relationcode' valuelist that started responding very slow after upgrading to version 5. The first time after opening a database it can take up to 15 seconds for the list to appear, every consecutive time the field is clicked it will still take about 5 seconds until the list appears. The list displays about 500 entries from a database that has about 5000 records.

Tried:

- optimising all databases

- forcing the index to be rebuilt by turning indexing off and then on again

- increasing memory partition of client and server.

- reducing the maximum amount of clients and databases on the server.

- using a faster server (400 Mhz iMac in stead of 233 Mhz iMac)

- no longer using filesharing on the server

- using only TCP/IP as the network protocol

But as you can guess, without any significant result.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experienced the same with valuelists and maybe found a way around it.

It is unclear to me at this moment how to send this kind of feedback to Filemaker inc's developers.

Anyway, regards to all.

Ernst

[ernst]

I've noticed sluggishness(?) when I updated our shop's administration from FMPro 4 + Server 3 to FMPro 5 + server 5.

We do use a 'relationcode' valuelist that started responding very slow after upgrading to version 5. The first time after opening a database it can take up to 15 seconds for the list to appear, every consecutive time the field is clicked it will still take about 5 seconds until the list appears. The list displays about 500 entries from a database that has about 5000 records.

Tried:

- optimising all databases

- forcing the index to be rebuilt by turning indexing off and then on again

- increasing memory partition of client and server.

- reducing the maximum amount of clients and databases on the server.

- using a faster server (400 Mhz iMac in stead of 233 Mhz iMac)

- no longer using filesharing on the server

- using only TCP/IP as the network protocol

But as you can guess, without any significant result.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experienced the same with valuelists and maybe found a way around it.

It is unclear to me at this moment how to send this kind of feedback to Filemaker inc's developers.

Anyway, regards to all.

Ernst

[gbenic]

from gbenic (I don't repeat my original post)

I have found the culprit!!!

After trying many solutions: play with the application memory cache, run Norton Disk Doctor 3 times, start with extensions off ,trash FileMaker Preference file, Rebuild the Desktop, reinstall the application and many others , nothing worked.

Then, in despair, without much hope, I ran Disk Doctor for a 4th time.

Report: the "File Exchange Preference" file has bad data and that could cause problems.

Solution proposed: replace with a backup file.

That I did, and SUCCESS!

FileMaker is back to normal.

It was a surprise because the first 3 times I ran Disk Doctor, it did not detect that problem.

How do you know that a preference , other than the preference of the problematic application, will cause such a conflict? You can't start with Preferences off.

The lesson for me is don't be afraid to run a utility (such as Disk Doctor ) many times. There is no guaranty it will see the conflict the first time.

Thanks to those who proposed a solution. It was very kind of you.

[Gogargirl]

I was away and didn't see this string for a few days - but while I was away I was having exactly the same problems....on a PC. In particular, it takes *forever* to exit one specific field after updating data in it. I tried everything. But now I need your help - what is a Filemaker preference file and how do I trash it on a PC? What happens if the backup file also has the error?

It tried saving a clone, and then importing records from a backup - but that didn't work either.

Any ideas please?