Split database Crawals vs Unsplit on Network

[lameid]

I find myself contracting at a corporation.

I am using Access 2000 file format and Access 2003. Here, when I split a database vs having one common file, everything crawls to the point of being unusable. using a common file for data and application file on the network is much faster than a front end on the client. This is of course the opposite of what I would expect if a small difference was noticeable.

Looks like Black ICE or Novell would be my first suspects as I've never used them.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Any solustions?

 

[dhookom]

What have you tried in order to trouble-shoot? Did you google this and try to change some things?

Tony Toews has some good performance tips.

Duane
Hook'D on Access
MS Access MVP

 

[lameid]

It is not an Access problem as performance is resonable if the split files are local. Any marginal performance that may be gained is nothing to the brick wall I am experiencing.

The split performance with backend on the network is slower than the application before being split over the network. The split database run locally is comparable to the whole application run locally.

The split locally tells me there is nothing inherently wrong with the split, although that would likely be faster than split with backend on the network. The fact that the all in one file runs reasonably over the network tells me that network throughput is not the issue.

Beyond that, the security products are protected and I can not tinker with them or I would have by now. I was hoping someone would have experience to say thumbs up or down on BlackIce or Novell. My experience with SAV is that it would not slow things down anywhere near this much, albeit it has been three years or more since I used SAV with split DB's. AV as a performance problem has always seemed to be a myth in my tests.

 

[lameid]

It isn't as bad as I had thought. Reports seem to run fine. However if I click around on controls in a report design view, it hangs. Performance on the integrated file never hangs. The CPU utilization of blackd.exe hits about 3% during the slow down. The slow down seems to take a little bit longer to occur with autocorrect turned off.

Blackd.exe is the BlackIce Firewall. I am betting it is perceiving the inbound connection as some sort of flood.

 

[dhookom]

if I click around on controls in a report design view, it hangs

have you checked to make sure there isn't a non-default printer specified for the reports?

Duane
Hook'D on Access
MS Access MVP

 

[MajP]

Pay attention to the first recommendation on the dhookum's post. You need to ensure that you keep a persistent connection to the backend. I always use the hidden dummy bound form as described. This make a huge difference with A2K (not certain about A2003).

 

[lameid]

There is a defaul pritner specified in my test report.

I did some more digging and found Proventia Desktop is based on black ice. For some reason I'm able to unintsall security products and reinstall them. I eliminated this.

MajP, thanks for pointing out the persistent connection, I missed that one (most of the suggestions are old hat to me). However to test I opened a bound form, minimized it and my testing shows the same slow down.

I also poked around the Novell Client settings (4.91.3.20061109)... There is a setting for File Caching turned on. I have also heard reports of delayed writes... User A updates/appends records, User B doesn't see them until They both get out and back in (single file / unsplit). So I'm guessing that the file is being cached and network reads may be slow for some reason. I expected the persistent connection to help if this hypothosis is correct.

My much larger split application is slow too and I had given up on split in this environment (my application is close to single user). But fixing a few things in the other application made me want to split and revisit the issue. I'm going to give up for now.

 

[ToyFox]

Take a look at KB960307 (Slow performance on a network).
I applied the hotfix this am, and it runs fast. All my databases run fast now...It's A2007.

 

[lameid]

I am well aware of your post. I'm using Accesss 2003.