Extremely slow client

prq

Hi,

My company installed Navision 3.70 (client) on my machine but something's probably amiss:

When I try to open the company's DB, using the SQL option, it takes about 5-10 minutes to open it every time, with constant disk accessing. Takes also very long (30seconds to 1 minute) to open any option from the main menu, or creating a filter, etc.

I've tried just about everything: using wireless or ethernet 100, starting in normal or safe mode, I always have the same symptoms.

If I try to access the same database from another PC, everything runs smoothly and fast.

Must be something wrong with my PC, but I have no problem whatsoever running any other applications.

Where could/should I start searching for the culprit for this problem?

Thanks in advance,
Pedro

kine

How many RAM do you have on this PC? How many free physical RAM?

prq

Hi, thanks for your reply.

This machine has 512 Mb DDR Ram. I have tried running the Navision client with no other applications on, which means at least 256Mb free RAM. Even in safe mode, when most of the RAM is free and page file unused, I still get the same symptoms.

I was suspecting some service/program dependencies not working, since I had another program that tries to connect to SQL servers which completely stopped working. I did reinstall Navision (and Framework) but never got an improvement.

kine

Try to run MS SQL Client Network Utility and check enabled protocols and their order. Check installed libraries and compare with other working PC.

Then check your network connection, check HDD functionality (if all other applications have the same problem etc.), check HDD free space, check CPU utilization, check which process is taking the processor etc.

jesam

And if all else failes, try replacing the network adapter card. I once had a PC that generated collisions all the time so that all network trafic slowed down to snail speed.

prq

kine wrote:

Try to run MS SQL Client Network Utility and check enabled protocols and their order. Check installed libraries and compare with other working PC.

Then check your network connection, check HDD functionality (if all other applications have the same problem etc.), check HDD free space, check CPU utilization, check which process is taking the processor etc.

All network protocols are disabled (strange?) but they were also disabled on a colleague's pc who uses navision with no problems at all.

It can't be a network issue because I've tried accessing the server through both the wireless and the ethernet network.

No other application has a similar behaviour, so I don't think it's a processor or HDD space (on which I have 9 free Gbs). When the slowdowns occur, the cpu is 95%+ idle.

I'm starting to lose hope

kine

...with constant disk accessing...

Can you use performance monitor to watch read queue and write queue? Which is overfilled? Read? If yes, there is probably error on the HDD. Try to copy the Client folder to another place and run it from there. If there are many writes, it is possible, that you entered some big no. into cache settings of the client. Try to delete .zup file.

wonmo

What are the settings on the client for:

Object Cache (KB):

TempFilePath:

You might also want to check your temp file settings.

prq

kine wrote:

...with constant disk accessing...

Can you use performance monitor to watch read queue and write queue? Which is overfilled? Read? If yes, there is probably error on the HDD. Try to copy the Client folder to another place and run it from there. If there are many writes, it is possible, that you entered some big no. into cache settings of the client. Try to delete .zup file.

Read queue is normal, it's the write queue that's overfilled. I have changed the cache settings to higher (100000) and lower (1000) values and the result is the same.

I have also deleted the zup file, changed tempfilepath to other places (c:\temp for example). Nothing helped.

I believe this machine had the Navision client about 6 months ago and it worked well. It was uninstalled and recently installed again, which makes it even more strange.

Is there a list of service dependencies for Navision, or even a log where I can find out where/what Navision is writing on my HD?

I was trying to avoid having to format the machine, but it's seeming to me that I have no other way out...?

kine

Try to reinstall MDAC, delete all *.?mt files in client directory and subdirectories (temporary files, will be re-created)

wirtnix

is there a WLAN installed on that PC?

maybe the PC tries to connect via the WLAN which is VERY MUCH slower than the LAN.

prq

kine wrote:

Try to reinstall MDAC, delete all *.?mt files in client directory and subdirectories (temporary files, will be re-created)

I have uninstalled and reinstalled MDAC, and also deleted all the smt/hmt files I had, no difference at all

It's not a WLAN / LAN problem either. All my coworkers use WLAN, and also, as I mentioned, I tried to disable the WLAN and access using LAN (100Mb NIC) and the performance was exactly the same.


EDIT: This most likely a machine problem: even when doing a page down on a filter or maximizing a filter window, I get disk access for at least 10 seconds. I just find it strange that I don't have this problem on any other application.