Slow Screen Rendering in ACCPAC/Citrix configuration

[wardo2]

Hi, I'm hoping someone has a solution to my problem....I have ACCPAC v5.0A Corporate Edition, fully patched, using Pervasive 2000 database. We followed the recommended Terminal setup from ACCPAC where we have 2 servers, a Citrix server with the ACCPAC and database client files, and an "ACCPAC" server, with the database engine and program files. We can connect and use everything properly, but it is taking our screens between 30 and 40 seconds to render to the client connecting through their Citrix client. Does anyone know how we can speed the screen rendering up?

Thanks

 

[africanernie]

Hi,

There a a great deal of issues with Accpac and Terminal Server, especially when you throw Citrix into the picture. There are sttings in the Accpac and Pervasive Windows registry which affect the speed in various ways, one option is to disable the "splash" screens in pervasive and accpac. This means that they dont do the advertising bit before launching each app. Then there is a tech-note at accpaconline that refers to a registry setting you can add to the Application server which tells it that it is a standalone server as far as accpac is concerned, I think this resolves the issues around database engines and requestors, what is where kind of stuff. Then there are endles changes you can make in pervasive, I would suggest max out the settings and slowly bring them down until you have some sort of suitable speed improvrovement. Hope that little bit helps.

Regards

e

 

[rvspy]

One thing I've seen in the past is anti-virus software. Starting from version 5.0 ACCPAC switched to MS COM technology to build their UIs. Now OCXs and DLLs are heavily used in each screen. Unfortunately (or fortunately) most anti-virus software by default scan OCXs. This could delay ACCPAC screens from loading. You may want to turn off the anti-virus software on both servers for a quick test. If your ACCPAC screens start to load much faster then you've identified the source of your problem. To rectify this, just define a filter in AV to leave the ACCPAC program directory alone.

I am not sure setting the Roto Standalone registry key will help speed up Citrix or not. It's supposed to eliminate "Could not load UI" error on ACCPAC web enabled Citrix/Terminal servers. Interesting suggestion though, worth a try.

Last but not least, just a general note. Loading an UI is such a complex series of events, some tools are very useful in identifying whether the problem is rooted in the database, business logic or UI layer. Namely DBSPY, RVSPY, and ACCPAC Spy (spying on COMAPISession).

 

[wardo2]

Thanks for all of the input, but we have actually ended up completely reworking the architecture so that now everything (Citrix, program files, and database) are all on the one server. This has reduced our screen rendering time down to about 0.5 to 1 second, and since we have a small user base, we have been told that this architecture is stable. We tried everything in the old architecture to get the screens to render faster, including using the spy utilites, enabling and disabling anti-virus software, changing Pervasive configurations, etc... but nothing was working so we had to change.

Thanks