[AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

[John Bodin]

Darryl/Jim, thanks for replies and suggestions.  Here's the reason I believe the problem is with the jet engine on the local pc's OR a Windows Update, and not the network.

Everything else runs stellar on the network.  Internet Explorer/Chrome no issues.  VOIP phone system, no problem.  Quickbooks w/6 simultaneous users, no problem.  Opening files over network shares, no problem.  I was hoping I'd have the slow network performance on word/excel files over the network as I have seen that multiple times and have been able to change settings on the server to correct.  Unfortunately, works just fine.  All Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with a few older XP boxes which have never and still never experience the speed problem.

I eliminated the new gig switch I put in a little while back by getting an older model that is much less sophisticated, and no issues w/anything except the random slowdowns with Access.  That goes for both the new and the older switch so I have to rule that out.  And rule out the wiring as I have moved workstations around to see if maybe a bad cable was in play, but problem still randomly happens on original location and moved location.

The server does not have Access installed, just has the MDB's on a shared drive.  Copy of FE on local PC's C drive.  I have some C drives that are SSD's, but doesn't seem to matter.

What the norm has been for the 20+ years this A2K system has been around is that if you are the only one in (say on a Saturday), everything is lightning fast.  Screens open in a second or less.  When 2 or more people get in, then the screens slow a bit, but usually no more than 2 seconds to open any form, very acceptable.  No complaints, even when 15+ are in at the same time, some running multiple instances of Access (one instance runs a Dispatch Board on one monitor, the other instances runs the rest of the program, like Work Order Entry, Purchase Orders, Quotes, etc.)  The other thing I always do before putting an update into the FE is to create a blank MDB and import all the objects from the FE I'm working on and compile the FE.  This is what they run, a clean FE. There was phenomenon back on their server in Windows NT days where if I made a change to a report or form say on one machine, which would decompile that FE, if a second person connected to the app, they would notice a 2 - 3 minute delay in opening any form, every time they clicked on a button or other form.  As soon as everyone got out, one person was left, that person would experience very fast performance again.  Creating blank mdb and importing all objects and compiling took care of this, so I keep doing this slightly pain in the tail procedure whenever making updates to the system.

Finishing up, not too many months ago the speed issue creeped in.  It was around the time of both the addition of the new switch and introduction of Dell 3040 Optiplex Micro machines.  I have addressed removing network switch, but that didn't help.  I can't remove all of the 3040's because of problem with old XP boxes and the version of QB people are running.  There are maybe 4 or 5 3040's in play.  Quite possible a Windows Update came across which would only effect the Win7 boxes, that's a high possibility in my book.

And not being able to explain this one, I've seen a person being the only one in the system on a Saturday morning and the system hung for minutes at a time (white screen) just opening the Access App.  Not even the typical places which are several of the forms/procedures.  That had never happened ever, so a gremlin has snuck in somewhere and I just do not know where.  I do not know what tool(s) to utilize that may help determine the hangup (maybe something like Wireshark, I do not know.)

Thanks for listening.

John



-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Darryl Collins
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2016 7:13 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

In our office we have about 40 PC and when we moved to W10 we immediately noticed a significant network speed degradation during windows updates.  Things would frequently grind down to less than dial up speeds as windows automatically choose to download and install updates.  It would also be annoying as many of our PC's run overnight doing processing work and you could not prevent some updates from auto rebooting outside of 'active hours' (as set in the OS settings).

We did two things which have helped out.

Firstly all out PC now have a simple registry hack (which I can send you off list if you want) which prevents windows from downloading updates automatically.  Rather like windows 7, All users now get prompted when there are updates available and need to manually click to download and install which they can do at a time of their choosing.  This way we can control any major updates until quieter times such as weekends or overnight.

I have also run a script which prevents Windows telemetry from constantly reporting back home.  I cannot quantify if this has made an improvement or not, but common sense seems to suggest that stopping the PC's from tracking user behaviour and uploading back to MS is likely to help improve response times and network speeds.

These are not specifically related to Access, but might be of use to you anyway.



-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of James Button
Sent: Monday, 7 November 2016 8:22 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

Is this the same sort of time for the PC's effected - as in each PC has it's own time of nut working fast - I have win-10 on a standalone systems and have noted that the windows (10) backup facility is taking so much time that it effects other apps - even the Defender update of  'Definitions' stalls for over 30 minutes Particularly annoying at the start of the month when system image tries to redo the image And - if the system is not powered-up at the (scheduled) backup run-time - then the effect starts soon after the next power-up, and is even worse than usual.

Not saying it isn't a network problem - but backups to local drives is a pain, and a backup to a cloud, or even a LAN connected drive could be very effective in slowing down the system

JimB
  


-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bodin
Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2016 6:02 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

Well after several weeks, still having speed issues.  Jim, on your comment about maxing out MaxBuffers, does the max # of 65535 trigger some different behavior than setting it to a very large, but not max, 50000?  Just curious as I've mostly seen 50000 as the suggested number.

To date, I have made three changes on the machines:

MaxBuffers = 50000
GPEdit Turn Off Multicast Name Resolution = Enabled Turn of Autotuning - Netsh Interface TCP Set Global Autotuninglevel=disabled 

Some days, everyone is good.  Other days, one or more stations are bad for 1/2 stretches or longer.  

Any other ideas besides embarking on a re-write to SQLServer?  Appreciate it.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Dettman
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 11:09 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

John,

<<Any other ideas? >>

 A few.

1. Anti-virus - I would assume it's the same for all, but try turning it off.
2. NIC drivers - make sure their up to date.
3. Make sure there is no diagnostic protocol loaded for the NIC.  If so, remove it.
4. Make sure the NIC is not set to go to sleep (low power mode) 5. Are you using mapped drives or UNC?  If mapped, default settings in Win 7 disconnect a mapped drive after 10 minutes of inactivity.  You can disable this.
6. You should disable ipv6 if your not using it.

That's it for the moment off the top of my head.

 Oh and the MaxBuffers, set it to the max of 65535.   There was a bug in
some versions of Access when running on a 64 bit multi-core processor.   JET
has three background threads by default, one of which was for cache cleanup.
If the threads ended up on different processors, they can block one another.
Setting MaxBuffers to the max alters the cache cleanup process to work around that.

Jim.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bodin
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 09:40 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] Speed Issues on network just with Access App

Not sure if any of you have had the below issues before, but I haven't in the dozens of years of using access.  Driving me nuts, along with the customer.
Hope someone can help.  Sorry for long post but wanted to share details.

About 15 users w/Access 2000 running a front end access program Backend lives on a server in a shared folder (both FE/BE are MDB's) Gigabit Ethernet Switch Workstations are (were) XP Pro SP3, Win7Pro SP1 64Bit XP machines are Dell Optiplex 360's and 380's Win7Pro machines are Dell Optiplex 3020 Small Form Factor and Micro, and one Opti 7010

Above combo has been running fine since pretty much before dinosaurs became extinct.  Besides Access, some users have Quickbooks, and everyone has some flavor of Office H&B (2007, 2010, 2013, 2016).  None of the H&B come with Access, so only one version of Access on the PC.

In attempt to get remaining users off XP, I bought more Dell's, but they were the Optiplex 3040 Micros, Win7Pro 64Bit.  Not too long after putting these on the network, some, but not all, of the 3040 users experienced slowdowns where a screen that would normally take 2 seconds to open up, now taking 10, 15 sometimes up to 2 minutes.  Not consistent, user might work fine for a while and then bang, slow to a crawl, pretty much unusable.
Other 3040 users may or may not have same problem, but then some of the 3020 micro users experienced the same problem where they never did before, but not nearly as many times as the 3040 users.  Very strangely, the XP users never experience any of this nor the 7010 w/Win7Pro 64Bit, even when the other users are.  They just move along.  So to with the Opti 7010, no issue.
And all machines are running fine with all other apps - QB, Word, Outlook, PDF's, Internet, etc. - Just Access Issue.

Saw various articles describing same problem, even with a standalone workstation running both FE and BE with Windows 7 64Bit.  I haven't seen the issue if there is only one user in the system (common on a Saturday).
However, I've seen this issue with just 2 people in.

Although I can't tell if every machine needs the below or just ones with issues, I have tried the following based on many posts that I have read:

PC Specific:
Group Policy Change to Turn Off Multicast Name Resolution=Enabled Registry
MaxBufferSize=50,000 Turn Autotuning Off (NetSh Interface TCP Set Global
Autotuning=Disabled)

Non-PC Specific
I replaced the network switch with an older gigabit model but again, I do not think is it.
Replaced wiring at some workstations
Made sure the Lock file was deleted in the shared folder when all users out so it would get created fresh Access 2k SP1 or SP3 was installed on workstations Checked Tools/References to make sure none were missing on the workstation VBE6.DLL was dated 3/17/2015 on the Win7 Machines Bought a used Opti 7010 with same specs (because only other 7010 has never had an issue to date), set it up and put it on the network.  Issue right away with only one other person on the network Probably a few other things I forgot to mention, I've lost track

Customer has brought back some old XP machines because of issue and they are working just fine.

I have a 32bit Win7Pro machine that I am almost done reformatting and will put on the network to see if that does anything.

Any other ideas?  I don't think the number of users is the issue.  I have a
2002 Insurance app with 65 people in it from three locations all day long and no speed issues.

Thanks for taking the time.

John





---

John Bodin
sBOR Office Systems
jbodin at sbor.com<mailto:jbodin at sbor.com>


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