Filemaker 12 List and Table view 3 to 5 times slower !

[genevieve charbon]

Hi,

Take a look at this, list view and table view became so slow that upgrading to FMP 12 is simply out of the question for me

http://forums.filemaker.com/posts/715ef37320

[RodSierra]

Thanks for the heads up, was about to download the trial, but won't even bother till I see this is fixed. I cannot believe they would even release 12 with this type of hit on performance.

[liltbrockie]

Yeah I noticed this too.... what I believe is happening is a change in the way the screen is redrawn... In old filemaker the screen was redrawn at quicker intervals... as and when the data was received...What I think the new filemaker is doing is waiting for all the data on the screen to download and then re draw the screen... so you get less flashes... BUT it does give the illusion of being slower!

[HALBURN]

I experienced the same slow down. I have a database with 4500 records and it's unusable when in Table view. I can barely scroll and it's very choppy.

What's odd is that I made a self relationship and created a portal, when I scroll through the same 4500 records it's very fast (or should I say normal?).

[mr_vodka]

conditionally formatted objects load way slower as well.

[genevieve charbon]

@Littlebrookie : it doesn't just appear slower, it is, a lot. Even with a completely flat file with all field indexed

In fact, almost everything is slower in FMP 12, Filemaker 12 is just slower across the board (like 10/20%) but for list / table vie is much worse 300 to 500% slower.

Please, go to the link I posted and voice your concern, we can't let that happen. List vew was already slow (unstored field etc), and needed a speed boost already, not a terrible regression. Please don't be quiet, voice it there : http://forums.filemaker.com/posts/715ef37320

[Steven H. Blackwell]

What OS and hardware configurations are some of you folks using? I do not see this scrolling issue, either LAN or WAN, on a 5000 record set of records. I don't see it in either Windows 7 or Macintosh OS 10.6. Records scroll just fine using either the sscroll bar or the slider in the status area.

Steven

[genevieve charbon]

Hi Steven,

FM Inc acknowledged it, i sor it's real, t occurs on mac and on windows. Me I'm on mac 2.6 corei7 April 2010 15" MacBook Pro 10.7.3

There's a file to download in the link

[Gus]

What OS and hardware configurations are some of you folks using? I do not see this scrolling issue, either LAN or WAN, on a 5000 record set of records. I don't see it in either Windows 7 or Macintosh OS 10.6. Records scroll just fine using either the sscroll bar or the slider in the status area.

Steven

Hello Steven,

It is a "disaster" on Windows XP sp3 on 2 different machines.

Using FM12 Trial version, I converted my main 2 gig database. Scrolling through a list of names using the scroll bar is jumpy and takes forever.

I have also a layout with 16 portals, it builds up in about 3 to 5 seconds in FM11, FM10 server, it took a good 23 seconds on the local FM12 trial on XP.

I also have another file with 70 records only and a graph, building the graph (takes 1 sec in FM11) hangs up for a minute, also windows xp.

Agree fully with Ms. Charbon

... a terrible regression. Please don't be quiet, voice it there : http://forums.filemaker.com/posts/715ef37320

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Hi Steven,

FM Inc acknowledged it, i sor it's real, t occurs on mac and on windows. Me I'm on mac 2.6 corei7 April 2010 15" MacBook Pro 10.7.3

There's a file to download in the link

It may be real, and I have no doubt it is and that you are seeing it. But it's not universal. And that's what I am trying to see. I will try it on XP later today if I have a chance.

Steven

[HALBURN]

The more I have been working with FM12 the worse this problem is becoming. I originally thought that the delay was only in Table view but now I am also seeing slow downs in portal scrolling. I am working on a large project for a client that I need to deliver Monday morning and this is going to be a real problem. We have already purchased FM12 clients and FMS12A for our client so we are pretty much committed to FM12 at this point.

I sure hope that someone at FM is on this.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

If it's a "...large project..." how have you managed to get it done in the short time since the release? Did you build it in FIleMAker Pro 11 and then convert it?

Steven

[HALBURN]

We had spent several weeks working on it in FM11 and when FM12 came out we immediately switched over because it resolved several iPad issues that were critical to the project (and were clearly never going to be resolved with a FMGO11 update). We were also able to ditch an incredible amount of interface related kludges thanks to the new interface tools. We already have a few hundred hours of development time invested into FM12, I cannot imaging that we would try to go back at this point, as we will miss our deadline.

We never imagined that FM12 would be released with the severe performance bugs. I had assumed that it went through several months of beta testing, I did not realize that we were the beta testers.

[Chong-Yee]

This is not meant to be a scientific test, but I did some measuring last night on a solution converted into FM12.

Mac OS X Lion, 8 Gb memory, SSD, local file, FileMaker Pro 12 Advanced, Pre-Release. 7000 record list view, scroll to top of list, position mouse at bottom of scroll bar and hold down until last record appears.

FM11: 29 seconds

FM12 (same solution, converted): 50 seconds

On my machine, at least, there seems to be a significant slow-down in scrolling rates for this particular list view from FM11 to FM12. I acknowledge a possible effect from the fact that I was using the Pre-Release version.

Regards,

Chong-Yee

[HALBURN]

I bought FM12 last week. I am pretty sure that I also got the pre-release version. ;)

[genevieve charbon]

Pre-release is slower than Final on certain things (looping in memory was 20% slower), but as far as scrolling speed the release version as also the issue

By the way, Bruce Robertson nailed the issue : the layout description is huge, layouts can gets 3.75x bigger. So this is a design issue, it won't be fixed soon

on tech net

https://fmdev.filemaker.com/message/76896#76896

And that confirm me deepest fear, we're screwed for a long time. Unless they didn't do the obvious optimizations of storing this in binary format, and compress it, they won't have much room to improve the situation which is flawed by design.

[RodSierra]

Genevieve, that tech thread pretty much sums it up, I just sent a mail to our folks, we will not be purchasing FM12 for any reason until this is resolved. Appreciate your efforts in getting this out quickly to all. One thing I really wanted them to fix was the Import script step changing the selected fields...they fixed it finally, now we can't take advantage of it...oh well.

Frankly did not see much else we would have wanted anyway, our customers are typically not interested in pretty layouts as much as they are speed and getting their job done, so no real loss for us.

[marianco]

Filemaker Pro 12 Advanced is slower than Filemaker Pro 11 Advanced. It is a huge, perceptible slowdown. This is easily seen in list view if you use a lot of conditionally formatted fields and objects. Filemaker Pro 12 Advanced uses a lot more CPU power when you scroll down the list.

This is very very very disappointing. The primary reason I upgraded was that I expected the latest version to be faster than the older version. Certainly, this was true of the jump from Filemaker Pro 10 to Filemaker Pro 11. I was very happy with the speed bump. But a huge slowdown is a huge and disappointing let down. It takes away productivity from the user.

It looks like I will have to simplify the formatting to help speed up the scrolling until Filemaker fixes this issue.

Slowdowns in newer versions means that the program is getting bloated and that the programmers were lazy as hell.

Unfortunately, this affects us all.

[bruceR]

I think 12 is a really great product. Seems like a lot of variability in performance even with this release, but the feature set is really broad and useful and powerful. Devil is in the details as usual and a lot of the doom conclusions seem premature and excessive. They will have to figure out what is different for those experiencing problems or not experiencing problems.

[Rick Whitelaw]

After reading so many "disaster" posts I'll not upgrade to 12 anytime soon. Speaking only for myself, the new features don't balance the extra time I would probably waste after upgrading. This is a disappointment to me as I always look forward to new (albeit ridiculously expensive) FMPA upgrades.

Rick.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I think 12 is a really great product. Seems like a lot of variability in performance even with this release, but the feature set is really broad and useful and powerful. Devil is in the details as usual and a lot of the doom conclusions seem premature and excessive. They will have to figure out what is different for those experiencing problems or not experiencing problems.

Agree, Bruce, with you about this. All my tests were done with the classic theme layout. I am beginning to wonder if that was a factor in my not seeing any of the slow scrolling issues on even a 60,000 record List View.

FMI is investigating this issue.

Steven

[genevieve charbon]

Steven,

Please take a look at that file, both the scripted test, an do some manual scrolling with the different layouts, and tell us your experience, so we can have common ground.

https://rapidshare.com/files/829418137/bench.zip

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I downloaded the sample files and ran the tests included in the scripts. As has been reported the FIleMaker Pro 12 version is significantly slower than the FIleMaker Pro 11 one. All tests were done on Macintosh OS X (10.6) with FileMaker Pro 12.0v1 and FIleMaker Pro 11.0v2.

But, as they say, wait, there's more.

1. Manual scrolling is virtually instantaneous for the 66K records in both List View and Table View.

2. Rewriting the scripts that do the List and Table View tests to optimize those scripts by utilizing Freeze Windows and by removing items such as refreshes and looping counter settings, results in traversal of all 66K records in about 1.2 seconds in both List View and Table View.

Based on all these reports and on reports in other venues as confirmed by FMI, I don't doubt people are seeing a slowing. But I think it remains yet to be seen what the actual cause is. Non-optimized coding and architectural practices may have a heavier penalty in FileMaker 12 than in did in the .fp7 versions. That was certainly the case eight years ago when we went from .fp5 to .fp7.

So, I am going to await reports from FMI as to what is actually afoot here and what might be done about it.

Meanwhile I am going back to focusing on client projects, and determining what migration and conversion paths make most sense for them.

Thanks to all who have commented in the thread.

Steven

[Lee Smith]

... by removing items such as refreshes and looping counter settings, ...

Hi Steven,

I can understand the "refreshes" having an effect. However, is it the looping, or the counter or the combination of the two that is slowing things down?

Lee

[genevieve charbon]

Steven,

1. Manual scrolling means looking at each record, so that involves clicking in the bottom of the scroll bar again and again till you reach the end, as a user would to to scan each records. So that involves many click. It's not drag an dropping the screen bar from top to bottom, so if you're not clicking at least 30 times (many more I think that's why I scripted it !) you're not testing the list redrawing as you only force the final screen to redraw.

2. Optimizing the script by freezing the display makes no sense at all, the script is the way it is to simulate what a user would see if he'd scroll the list himself. Of course this script is no about going from top to bottom.

And for those who might think why on earth do we need to scroll 60k records, the answer is simple it's a benchmark designed to show clearly a speed loss. Why did I wrote it, because I use lust view as my users daily with 600 to 1000 records, and weekly with 3000. And of course the problems shows

[genevieve charbon]

The refresh script step here is the most simple one, not flushing any caches.

It is mandatory otherwise FileMaker will not redraw, and hence it won't simulate user browsing.

But actually FMP12 Refresh is slower than FMP's 11 (one more thing amongst many things that are slower in 12), but it's slowness only account a little vs the Redrawing flow down as you can see it with true manual scrolling !

[Rick Whitelaw]

I also use "lust view" as often as possible!

[marianco]

I use a lot of conditional formatting to show the status of various fields in a database. I can see why this is now much slower in Filemaker Pro 12. I will have to see about dismantling all the conditional formatting to see how much of a speed up I can get. This is unfortunate since conditional formatting is a great feature.

I would love to see Filemaker Pro do some compilation of the code just like Safari compiles javascript to greatly speed up processing to near native speeds.

As an aside, in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, the powers that be unfortunately removed the scroll arrows from the scroll bars. I seldom used the Page Up and Page Down keys until now.

[The_General]

No problems here.

I'm using Lion and Windows 7. I created a new db and converted my largest dbs. No issues.

Oh, yeah that's with FileMaker 12 Advanced & FileMaker Server 12 Advanced.

[marianco]

The speed loss from Filemaker 11 to Filemaker 12 is like going from Mac OS X 10.7 back to Mac OS X 10.0 beta. It is really that slow for many things - such as running scripts, scrolling, etc. FM 12 is sluggish.

Hopefully, the programmers that be at Filemaker can sort this out and greatly improve on this release soon. Otherwise, I'm downgrading back to FM 11 - despite having paid for the upgrade.

[Vaughan]

As an aside, in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, the powers that be unfortunately removed the scroll arrows from the scroll bars. I seldom used the Page Up and Page Down keys until now.

Take that issue up with all the people that hated FMP's cross-platform native elements and wanted OS-native interface elements instead. A triumph of form over function, again.

As for the problems with FMP 12... there are ALWAYS issues with new releases, particularly after major changes.

FMP 7 had fuzzy text problems.

FMP 8.5 had bloated pdf files.

FMP 9 corrupted field indexes.

FMP 10 had problems with a long (several minute) processing period after changing field definitions.

Wait for the v2 or v3 revision before going into production with it.

As or those brave enough to be doing all this leading edge work with the new version: thanks for taking the hit for the rest of us. I'm sitting it out. :D

[marianco]

I suspect that one of the slowdowns is caused by the removal of Field Border Effects from Filemaker 12. Field Border Effects were an easy way to add dimensionality to the look of fields in Filemaker 11 and earlier.

The problem is that the conversion of a database from Filemaker 11 to Filemaker 12 still maintains the Field Border Effect (e.g. engraved) rather than converting the effect into an HTML/CSS equivalent. For example, Engraved field borders could be converted to a 1 pixel solid line border with the top and left borders selected - resulting in a similar appearance.

Thus, two methods need to be called to redraw the layout: one to render the HTML/CSS parts of the layout and one render the old-style fields with Field Border Effects via the old method. This requires much more CPU time to draw a layout - particularly a complex layout.

I converted a list layout with numerous fields set to engraved field borders to a fields with a 1 pixel solid line border with the top and left borders selected. Scrolling the conversion seems much more fluid and faster. Perhaps now, only one method is being used to redraw the layout as opposed to two methods from the original conversion.

[GC GYM]

I looked at the pre-release and tested using my almost new MBP OS10.7, 8GB, SSD firstly to run FMP12, and later to act as the Server for FMS12 over the WAN to a 2 yr old Macbook, an iPad 2 and an iPhone 3GS. I didn't really notice a big change, just disappointed that it definitely wasn't faster than it's predecessor.

Then I converted my client (Windows Server 2008, FMS to about 13 XP clients) and asked the staff to try it;

The response could be summarised as;

"Scrolling (through list view) is much slower and it starts and stops and jumps around so you can't really tell where you are up to"

I really hope this can be fixed soon, because otherwise the product is great, and the move to free FMGo is a very smart move.

[liltbrockie]

I have had word from Filemaker recently confirming that they are aware of the issue and trying to fix it but there is no time scale yet..