IWP clients report losing data/browsers freezing (argh)

[pastover]

Hi all,

I have several private-school clients who use FM systems I've designed for them, which allow teachers to write student evaluations online, through IWP layouts. The systems are all served by FM Server Advanced (9 to 11), on both Windows and Mac servers. There can be anywhere from a few to 20+ simultaneous users during end-of-term peak use.

These databases have been in use for 4 or 5 years now, all the FM bugs have been worked out, but I still get reports of users having data-entry problems that seem to be browser-related. Users say they enter some text, click the 'save' button (which is just a 'Commit Record' script), and their text will have vanished when the window reloads. Or they'll be working, and the browser will freeze and they can't do anything.

Does anyone have experience with similar problems? My go-to assumption is always that it is user-error, but it's a little too continual, and I've had users swear up and down that they're following correct protocol when things just 'happen'. And of course, I can't reproduce the problems.

hopefully,

LS

[webko]

Sounds like some sort of networking issue to me...

[pastover]

Networking... meaning on the user's end? Server end? Your suggestion is that it could be a connectivity/bandwidth problem? It happens across multiple installations, and numerous users. I agree that it feels like slow bandwidth, and that's one reason I was looking for folks who might have had similar experiences - because if that can affect the performance of IWP, it's a good thing to be aware of.

I'm not a web person (that's why I'm relying on IWP), but isn't it possible that with FM Server having to build these pages on the fly, with code that's kind of a mishmash, trying to render FM layouts into reasonably cross-browser HTML, that there might be some bottlenecks on the server side? Could disk speed, processor speed, etc. be a factor?

[2ninerniner2]

In an attempt to narrow the source, have you done any sort of analysis of the variables you mention? You state that this is happening on FMSA 9 thru 11; so, is it happening more on one version than the others? Mac and PC; same thing. Browser "flavour"; again, the same.

I would suggest you begin tracking these variables to see if a pattern emerges :)