[archive] Slow Load of Data in Thin Client

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi Steven,

Two things to consider. Firstly, the amount of data you're loading to the grid might mean you would be better served by a paged-grid in conjunction with a work-file. Probably not an issue if you're only loading a dozen or three records.

Secondly, use MASS-UPDATE for your grid load, and then turn it off after you've built it. From the manual:-

5.11.2 Grid: Special Properties
MASS-UPDATE (numeric)

When set to a non-zero value, this property inhibits most (but not all) updates to the screen by the control. This allows you to make multiple changes to the grid faster, and with a smoother screen appearance. When set to zero (the default), changes made to the grid are reflected on the screen. Note that the act of setting this property to zero causes the grid to repaint. (create, modify, inquire)

Ian

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi,

My experience is that depending on how many records then paged is better.
We use both in the same program sometimes, for example sales order enquiry on header records is paged as it could be reading thousands of records.

But if you click on a header record to drill into its order lines it is VSCROLL as its not likely to be very high.
This particular example displays 192 records in approx 2.5 seconds with little or no difference in either fat or thin client.

It would be faster again if it did the MASS-UPDATE as suggested above.
Infact I went off and changed it and its probably took another second off that.

Do you use mapped drives?
This will probably cause a big slowdown - we have experienced that, and in fact that was the reason why we simply went straight to thin client.

You could maybe turn on the profiler on that particular program to see exactly whats talking the time?


Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi,

My experience is that depending on how many records then paged is better.
We use both in the same program sometimes, for example sales order enquiry on header records is paged as it could be reading thousands of records.

But if you click on a header record to drill into its order lines it is VSCROLL as its not likely to be very high.
This particular example displays 192 records in approx 2.5 seconds with little or no difference in either fat or thin client.

It would be faster again if it did the MASS-UPDATE as suggested above.
Infact I went off and changed it and its probably took another second off that.

Do you use mapped drives?
This will probably cause a big slowdown - we have experienced that, and in fact that was the reason why we simply went straight to thin client.

You could maybe turn on the profiler on that particular program to see exactly whats talking the time?


Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Thank you both for your response.

Ian, I already have it programmed to use the mass update. In the one example that I used, loading approximatly 300 record, took 10 times as long using Thin Client than it did when running locally. I'm not sure that using paged Grid data would resolve the speed issue, granted it would make it quicker for the user to start entering data, but it would still be slow loading each page. Do you know if it makes any difference in speed if I were to load the data to a local file, then load the grid from that?

Shaun, you asked if we use mapped drives. I didn't know of any requirement for mapped drives when using Thin Client and this issue is with the Thin Client/AcuConnect. Under our normal Client/Server configuration, we do use mapped drives and it is even faster than the Thin Client when loading Grids. It is interesting that you didn't notice a difference between Fat, Versus Thin on 192 records. It was extremely noticable on ours. What Version of AcuConnect/Acuthin and AcuGt are you using. This issue has been noticable on both 6.20 and the current version we are testing 7.2.1

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi,

We're currrently using 8.0 since February this year.
Prior to that 7.2.0 for about 1 year and 6.1.0 prior to that.

Yeah, you're correct no need for mapped drives in a thin client setup.

I'd really recommend testing 8.0. There were quite a substancial number of problems with 7.2.0 that we had to have patched by Acucorp.
Basically it caused memory leaks and subsequent MAV's etc.

I don't know the answer, but is it possible to knock together a quick test program and i'd be more than happy to try it here on our setup?
If I get a chance i'll try and post a cut down sample of one of our programs

I think the profiler is available in V7.2
It is quite usefull and tells you which area of programs is taking the longest time , amount of reads etc.

Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi,

No, I don't know if loading the grid from a local file would be faster or not. Sorry, I think you'll need to suck it and see :)

I can't put my finger on it (i.e. a manual page to support my belief), but I have a suspicion that the profiler can't be run in a thin-client environment.

We have no problems with paged or standard grid load times with 7.2 in thin client environments. Is your server Windows or *nix?

Ian

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Hi,

No, I don't know if loading the grid from a local file would be faster or not. Sorry, I think you'll need to suck it and see :)

I can't put my finger on it (i.e. a manual page to support my belief), but I have a suspicion that the profiler can't be run in a thin-client environment.

We have no problems with paged or standard grid load times with 7.2 in thin client environments. Is your server Windows or *nix?

Ian

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

OK, I created a very quick extract from one of our programs.
See what it does, there's a compiled in debug (7.2.0) program and an indexed file.

The profiler does work in thin client, see a sample of it on this acutual program on our machine - its just a text file.

Ran with Windows XP client with a unix server (SCO openserver 6 ).
Runtime version is V8.0 though and I don't have an earlier runtime to hand on this server.

Hopefully this will help.

Shaun

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 July 2008]

Some background to what we do. We have a couple of programs that we use grid controls for data entry. In one program the user can select the option to create a list of items that will be populated into the grid. This is like an order system, where they create the list and then just enter down through the quantity cell to put in the appropriate amounts. The other grid control that I use is simular where they can do a lookup from a data file to select a group of records that are pre-populated in the grid for changing data fields.

Now, the problem I have is that when I populate the data, running on the server (local data), it will load the list in 10 to 15 seconds. When I try to load the same list through Thin Client, it will eventually time out and the application will completely drop out. That's with the first program, the other program that loads around 300 records will only take about 3 seconds on the server, but takes about 2 minutes to load when running over the client.

Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this?

Ian, We are currently running on Windows Server 2003 for the server and Windows XP for the client.

Shaun, I'll take a look at your sample and give it a try to see how it works.

Thanks,