Extreme delays in Rpt Design view in Acc. 2003

[jsteph]

When I open a report in Access 2003 (11.6566.6568 SP2), I get big delays (5-8 seconds) between mouseclicks--ie, click on a control, wait with dead mouse...click on another control...wait...

I have Name-Autocorrect turned off.

The mouse goes to the I-beam and nothing is active during the delays. The .mdb exists on a network server, with Server 2003 sp1, and my client machine is XP Pro, SP2, so it doesn't appear to be the other KB issue I saw about this slowness with NT4 and a Jet 4 service pack mismatch. Other similar reports have no such delay, and this report is very basic, no odd user functions in controls, etc.

The recordsource is a pass-thru, and I'm aware that initially access needs to get some odbc info on the fields--but this is only once on opening the object or after a change of recordsource--not on just clicking from one control to the other.
Any ideas on what this might be?

Thanks,
--Jim

 

[mp9]

Compact/repaired lately?

 

[jsteph]

Yes, I've done that, same thing.
--Jim

 

[dhookom]

Is the slow report designed to use a specific printer or the default printer?

Duane MS Access MVP
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[jsteph]

It's the default printer, as are the others. But I found what it was, and I was the right track in thinking it's Access completely re-parsing the sql every single time I so much as touch a control, and I believe it has to do with outer joins.

This is because if I change the sql and replace the LEFT JOIN with INNER JOIN, everything is perfectly fine, I can move controls around at will. As soon as I put the outer joins back (there are 3), it goes back to the delay every time I so much as click on a control.

My theory is that since it's an outer join, maybe Access scans the entire table, possibly to see if one of the joined table's fields may be null--I don't know. To me, I would think that one scan would be enough upon opening the report, but that's what the behaviour turned out to be and I'm stuck with it because I need the outer join, so I'll just temporarily remove the entire RecordSource property while adjusting the controls, then put it back for production.
--Jim