Version 8.0.1 very slow and greedy on system resources

[bentleybloke]

I'm in the process of upgrading from 7.0.5 to 8.0.1. 7.0.5 works for me perfectly, starting instantly and recording changes I make instantly. v8.0.1 takes over 1 minute to load (even with nothing else running on the computer) and takes ages to record even the smallest changes - like changing one word in the short description - taking cpu usage to 100% in the process.

Here's what I've done in the process of transferring my products.

1. created a mirror of my site in version 7 so that I'm not working on the live site.
2. deleted sections, duplicates and customvars that I'm not going to be using.
3. switched to a clean layout and change all templates back to standard ones.
4. compacted the database
5. created a snapshot
6. imported snapshot into v8 and let it upgrade it.

Actinic 8 upgraded the site, the first time it converted my customvars to the new variable type but didn't copy any of the values over into the new variables. So I started again and imported the snapshot again. This time it worked. I went through all of the layouts and deleted any upgraded ones that I don't want.

Everything seems fine, the site is completely default using the executive theme at present and all of the templates and settings are as factory, except with products.

So my real question is: Has anyone experienced extreme slowness in v8 compared with v7? If so, have you found a solution?

[Jan]

How many products and sections do you have?

Regards,

[los_design]

Actinic Treacle Syndrome is very common once you have a large product database, it is not Actinic in this instant that is the issue but the relationship with Access....

The number of items is key here if it is low, then there may be another issue.

Regards

[Mike Hughes]

I have had extreme slowness with the V8 beta. No solution was found and I haven't worked with V8 for a while.

i'm not convinced with the 'it's an access problem' suggestions as my V6 has no such problem and neither does the original posters V7.

It looks to me as if somewhere there's a coding bug in V8 that needs to be found and sorted.

Mike

[los_design]

Hi Mike

Not stating it is an Access problem, just stating that the larger volumes seem to make Actinic and Access slow down considerably.

For example

V7 SITE - Items uploaded 4500 no speed issues
V7 SITE - Items uploaded 18,500 get a coffee while you change screens (empty the database and it is back to normal)

The same with V8 sites.

I am not saying a performance bug does not exist, just that in our experience we have found the problem to be the relationship between Access and actinic.

(Spent a many a good afternoon with Techno chewing the fat over this one ) and I am certain (as are others) that there is no resolution to the speed issue (currently ) when you have a store that has in excess of 10k items, to ensure your 'local' pc performs up to speed.

Regards

[Mike Hughes]

Hi D.

I'm sure actinic is starting to creak at the seams with a large database. In my case there's only about 2,000 products so I know there's something else at work here.

Part of the problem could well be related to the V8 upgrader which is why it's proving hard to pinpoint what the problem is. Actinic upgrades have always been painful and it's a complete PITA that there's no way of importing an existing business (orders and products) into a clean V8 design.

Mike

[paulh69]

certainly doesn't appear to be an access problem. I have our own product database here with more than 365,000 products and access is always very fast. Actinic however takes around 19 seconds to open/close a product in a file with only 5001 records. Actinic has been noticeably slower since v6. most likely too many indexed fields in the database?

[brian.mc]

I've also noticed a significant slowdown on v8 compared to v7. We've got less than 1000 products, but find evey aspect slower. Takes 2 -3 times as long to load, even very minor changes to text take up to 1 minute to apply ( 10 seconds or less for same operation in v7), and snapshots take at least twice as long to import/export.

[paulh69]

Seem to be at least 9 indexes just in the product table - most allowing duplicates which makes them even slower

is an index really required for anything other than the product reference and short description?

[los_design]

certainly doesn't appear to be an access problem. I have our own product database here with more than 365,000 products and access is always very fast. Actinic however takes around 19 seconds to open/close a product in a file with only 5001 records. Actinic has been noticeably slower since v6. most likely too many indexed fields in the database?

Yup, just to reiterate, it is actinics relationship with access that appears to be the problem not access as we too have large non-store db's for clients with much larger content qtys.

Hope that explains our position on this topic a little clearer than earlier this morning

Regards

[bentleybloke]

I'm glad it's not just me!

The snapshot that I have imported from v7 has 56 sections and less than 1000 products. It originally had double that with all the duplicates etc. and records were updated instantly in v7.

Actinic however takes around 19 seconds to open/close a product in a file with only 5001 records.

I'd be quite a bit happier if my copy only took 19 seconds.

I phoned actinic support yesterday and was told that they would try something at their end and come back to me within the day. No return call yet, which is disappointing. I've emailed several support enquiries recently which have also gone unanswered apart from the initial message that "we're looking into this" or "we're checking with development".

N.B. I'm not talking about uploading or refeshing a site, I'm talking about just transferring a site to v8 and updating it's contents within Actinic on a local machine (with the preview turned off!).

[FlashGordon]

Slow, Slow, Slow, Slow,......

Yes v8 has started going slow for me too. Actinic claims it can handle 20,000 products - I don't have this many yet!

I have developed systems in MS Access and can confirm that the number of indices can effect performance. It is usually not just too many indices on one table but indices on a number of tables and how they are used.

Has anyone tried a PC with a faster CPU and more memory?
If so, please can you share the details - CPU, Memory, Any Performance Improvements?

I notice that Actinic is absent from this thread!

I would have expected Actinic to have this problem AT THE TOP OF ITS LIST OF THINGS THAT NEED DOING URGENTLY.

[bentleybloke]

v8 doesn't even walk

I've got 8.0.1 on my laptop which is:

• Samsung M40
• Windows XP Home 2002 SP2
• Intel Pentium Centrino 1.8GHz
• 512MB RAM

The above runs 7.0.5 beautifully with far more content and 8.0.1 won't even walk

[Lee Grovelands]

Slow!



V8 is virtualy useless! We have around 7000 products, it takes 3 minutes to load (loading everything into the system memory) then every time you make even the smallest change it re-loads everything again locking the system up! GREAT....glad I havent got 20,000 products like its supposed to handle!

So basically V8.03 is currently worthless..... can we have a solution please actinic?

[Mike Hughes]

Until this get's sorted, you can avoid the system locking up at every change by turning off the preview window.

The way things are now, actinic appears to update the database before updating the preview. If you turn off the preview then it doesn't update the database until it needs to (if you do a purge, manual preview, etc).

This is based on my experience rather than anything I've heard from actinic.

Mike