Access database on Windows 2003 server is excrutiatingly slow

[gdonald]

Hi

Wonder if anyone can help me. I am running an access 2000 application
with the backend on a server running windows 2003 and a seperate front
end on each users machine.

When i designed it, it was designed with a link table so that the user
is always connected to the back end but since the server was upgraded
the application has developed a horrible problem. It takes ages to open
any of the forms.

As a test under the same workgroup i created a table called "table"
with one field called "field". I populated this table with ten records
being the words one through to ten. I created this table in a back end
on the server called test 2.

On the individual machines i created a front end called test 1 and
linked to the test 2 back end on the server.

As you would imagine when you open the front end and double click on
the linked table you see the ten records instantaniously, BUT! when
another user logs into the same test 1 front end and trys to open the
table, ie the table open on 2 machines simultaneously it takes 17
seconds to open.

Has anyone had the same problem since switching to windows 2003 server?
This application ran perfectly before and we have tested the client
application at our office at it works perfectly without any kind of
delay.

Sorry for the length of the post.

Thanks

[JP]

gd*****@tlpsystems.co.uk wrote:

Hi

Wonder if anyone can help me. I am running an access 2000 application
with the backend on a server running windows 2003 and a seperate front
end on each users machine.

When i designed it, it was designed with a link table so that the user
is always connected to the back end but since the server was upgraded
the application has developed a horrible problem. It takes ages to open
any of the forms.

As a test under the same workgroup i created a table called "table"
with one field called "field". I populated this table with ten records
being the words one through to ten. I created this table in a back end
on the server called test 2.

On the individual machines i created a front end called test 1 and
linked to the test 2 back end on the server.

As you would imagine when you open the front end and double click on
the linked table you see the ten records instantaniously, BUT! when
another user logs into the same test 1 front end and trys to open the
table, ie the table open on 2 machines simultaneously it takes 17
seconds to open.

Has anyone had the same problem since switching to windows 2003 server?
This application ran perfectly before and we have tested the client
application at our office at it works perfectly without any kind of
delay.

Sorry for the length of the post.

Thanks

[JP]

gd*****@tlpsystems.co.uk wrote:

Hi

Wonder if anyone can help me. I am running an access 2000 application
with the backend on a server running windows 2003 and a seperate front
end on each users machine.

When i designed it, it was designed with a link table so that the user
is always connected to the back end but since the server was upgraded
the application has developed a horrible problem. It takes ages to open
any of the forms.

As a test under the same workgroup i created a table called "table"
with one field called "field". I populated this table with ten records
being the words one through to ten. I created this table in a back end
on the server called test 2.

On the individual machines i created a front end called test 1 and
linked to the test 2 back end on the server.

As you would imagine when you open the front end and double click on
the linked table you see the ten records instantaniously, BUT! when
another user logs into the same test 1 front end and trys to open the
table, ie the table open on 2 machines simultaneously it takes 17
seconds to open.

Has anyone had the same problem since switching to windows 2003 server?
This application ran perfectly before and we have tested the client
application at our office at it works perfectly without any kind of
delay.

Sorry for the length of the post.

Thanks

[David W. Fenton]

gd*****@tlpsystems.co.uk wrote in
news:11**********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com:

Hi

Wonder if anyone can help me. I am running an access 2000
application with the backend on a server running windows 2003 and
a seperate front end on each users machine.

When i designed it, it was designed with a link table so that the
user is always connected to the back end but since the server was
upgraded the application has developed a horrible problem. It
takes ages to open any of the forms.

As a test under the same workgroup i created a table called
"table" with one field called "field". I populated this table with ten records being the words one through to ten. I created this
table in a back end on the server called test 2.

On the individual machines i created a front end called test 1 and linked to the test 2 back end on the server.

As you would imagine when you open the front end and double click
on the linked table you see the ten records instantaniously, BUT!
when another user logs into the same test 1 front end and trys to
open the table, ie the table open on 2 machines simultaneously it
takes 17 seconds to open.

Has anyone had the same problem since switching to windows 2003
server? This application ran perfectly before and we have tested
the client application at our office at it works perfectly without any kind of delay.

Have you tried deleting the linked tables and entirely recreating
them? The situation you descibe happened to lots of us in the early
days of Access 2000, which added a bunch of cached data to the
linked table definition that was not present in earlier versions of
Access and which doesn't get updated when you relink tables by
changing the Connect string.

I lost further business with one client because of it, and it was
only because I didn't know that with A2K you often can't move the
app from your work setup to the production environment by just
relinking the existing table links -- you have to delete them and
recreate them to get rid of cached data that is valid only for your
prototyping environment and not for the production environment.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Gilz]

Hi again

Thanks for your reply and the suggestions you made.

The problem is that the case of previous cached being an issue isn't
possible here.

The simple back and front end described in the original post were
created on the clients machines so there was no existing data from our
office machines. And still when 2 users access the one table with 10
records there is a delay of over 12 seconds.

As you mentioned yourself that this problem had cost you a client in
the past, we ourselves will be in a similar position if we do not
manage to rectify the problem very quickly.

Gillian

[David W. Fenton]

"Gilz" <gd*****@tlpsystems.co.uk> wrote in
news:11**********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com:

The problem is that the case of previous cached being an issue
isn't possible here.
How so? Are you creating the links on the production system?
The simple back and front end described in the original post were
created on the clients machines so there was no existing data
from our office machines. And still when 2 users access the one
table with 10 records there is a delay of over 12 seconds.
In the case where I had this problem, the forms opened
instantaneously in my working environment. When I took it to the
client and updated the linked tables, it was taking over a minute
to load the same forms (which loaded one record at a time). Once
the form was open, though, it worked fine.

When I deleted the linked tables and recreated them in the
production environment, the problem went away.
As you mentioned yourself that this problem had cost you a client
in the past, we ourselves will be in a similar position if we do
not manage to rectify the problem very quickly.

It's not clear to me from your answer if you really are deleting
the links and recreating them for the production environment. If
you haven't tried that, I strongly suggest that you do so.

Also, you might want to look at Tony Toews performance FAQ:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm

You might want to try the trick of opening a persistent link to the
back end data file, but I've never actually had an app where this
made any noticeable difference (of course, almost all my apps have
a persistent link to the back end, anyway, since I use a cached
CurrentDB() reference).

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Gilz]

Thanks again for you reply

The small test database with simply one table were created at the
clients machines and have never ever been near our computers,
so i don't see how the cached data could be a problem

I created them to test whether the problem was something at the client
side.

As for the full application we already have one of those link tables
that ensure the user is always connected to the back end.

I haven't been at the client office this week but i will try deleting
the linked tables completely and then re-linking them but i'm
pessimistic that this will make any difference since the tiny database
created brand new on the client server displays the same problem when
it has only 1 table with 10 records.

Gillian

[David W. Fenton]

"Gilz" <gd*****@tlpsystems.co.uk> wrote in
news:11**********************@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com:

Thanks again for you reply

The small test database with simply one table were created at the
clients machines and have never ever been near our computers,
so i don't see how the cached data could be a problem
You're misunderstanding what I mean by "cahced data." It's not data
from the tables that's being cached, but metadata about the MDB that
you're linking to, and the network topology involved.
I created them to test whether the problem was something at the
client side.

As for the full application we already have one of those link
tables that ensure the user is always connected to the back end.

I haven't been at the client office this week but i will try
deleting the linked tables completely and then re-linking them but
i'm pessimistic that this will make any difference since the tiny
database created brand new on the client server displays the same
problem when it has only 1 table with 10 records.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the actual data stored in the
file -- it's all about metadata.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

[Gilz]

Hi

Thanks for sticking with me and this problem.

At the client site yesterday i did as you said and deleted the link to
the test table and then recreated a fresh link.

When you open the front end on the user machine and double click the
table linked to the back end it opens and displays the ten rows
instantaniously.

But still when any other user logs on to there front end and double
clicks the table it takes more than 12 seconds to open the 10 record
table.

I re-created the links on all of the users front ends and still i have
the same problem.

This problem is begining to drive me bananas!

Gillian

[Jim81]

Are you sure the persistent link that David talked about is really connected? Do you have code that shows you what machines have locks on the database? Your problem sure sounds like the the ldb problem.
Jim