Actinic Runs dead Slow on MAC under Parallels

[CarolineL]

Phew - thought I was going mad - I have exactly same problem as nileshpa.

Actinic running dog slow on Parallels. Running Actinic 9.02 in XP SP3 on Parallels 4. MacBook Pro, allocating 2Gb of 4Gb to VM.

Tried so many clean installs its untrue !!!

My current thoughts were the location of the Sites files - mine are on the Mac HD, not on the VM - could this be the problem?

During latest install, I tried to configure Actinic to store sites on c drive on VM - but the registry settings were incorrect (Actinic couldn't find database settings).

As nileshpa points out - Actinic is the only reason I'm having to run, support and maintain a Windows PC (Dell 4Gb, Vista).

Desperate for help please !!

Could Actinic please look at investing in a Mac program for all us die-hard Mac users developing web sites but using Actinic for e:commerce?

Yours in sympathy..........

[nileshpa]

Thanks for the post, Caroline.

I thought I was the only person struggling with porting Actinic across. The only other app that I needed ported was Sage L50FC 2007 , which went in first time & gives me no hassle at all.

Actinic on the other end has given me no end of grief since I first upgraded to V9.0.2. By porting onto MacBookPro would have freed up my dell Server to act as a backend server for the ePos system that I'm implementing. At present, it looks highly unlikely & therefore will have no choice but to leave Actinic on this server and look at alternative solution. Perhaps, its about time I ditched Actinic.

Nilesh

[NicolaUK]

I'd hazard a guess that sites being in an 'alien' place is definitely going to throw a wobbly with Actinic.

[CarolineL]

Thanks Nicola - Anyone got any idea how to force the sites onto the Parallels space, not the Mac HD? During the v9.02 install there is an option to relocate the sites directory, but the registry settings don't seem to reflect the chosen directory.

Is there a way of moving the sites once the program is up and running?

Can I import a snapshot to a separate directory and point the app there?

Nileshpa - I am persevering with this, I hope you can too !! Actinic is the choice of my clients. Could be a Snow Leopard issue? There have been a number of compatibility issues with SL and 3rd party apps (e.g. Mozy back ups).

[Cheapprices4u]

hi ill try this later on a mac
to make it clear you have parrallels with XP and actinic on thats it yeah?

[CarolineL]

I have XP SP3 on Parallels 4. However, also have Office 2007, and DW8 loaded - not running.

Have tried install on clean XP, but still runs slow.

Actinic installed to C: on XP, but sites loaded auto to Documents Dir on Mac HD Home.

MacBook Pro 4Gb with 2Gb assigned to XP. 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.1 (SL).

Appreciate all help - thanks

[nileshpa]

Update:

I believe I may have resolved this, possibly by way of cheating. This is what I did yesterday.

1. Uninstalled Actinic altogether & deleted all SITE1 folders.

2. Downloaded trial copy of Parallels V5 that got released recently. Fortunately, as I only got the MacBookPro & Parallels just 2 weeks ago, I was entitled for a free upgrade. The Licence Key wont come until a few days later but Trial version allows 14 days.

3. Installed V5 insitu as an upgrade to V4. Checked setting on this. Restarted XP Vm a few times after ensuring the settings are 1 CPU, 2048Gb memory & paging on Windows XP set to System managed.

4. ReInstalled MDAC 2.6
5. Installed MS Office 2003 so MS Access as a full product is available.
6. Clean install of Actinic which I had to be really careful with. I went with what Caroline had suggested i.e. installed it onto the C Drive. This option is available when you specify what users you also want to allow to use the application. If you say all users, the default filesystem seem to be the C:\programs Files folder.

7. After the install, started the sample website & checked that out. Looked OK. Forced a repair of DBs via Controlpanel --> Adminstration --> ODBC connectivity.
8. Restored the last backup i.e. *.ACD file of my own site. Repaired again similar to above.

9. Invoked a Site preview & saw it ran with reasonable pace, similar to my Dell.
10. Compacted the DB - No problems.
11. Backed up the DB - No problems
12. Uploaded the website under testmode. It complained about a couple of scripts not present but that could be my host.

My conclusion is as follows:

A) MDAC 2.6 is definately mandatory. MS Access, installed as a full product may help with ODBC connectivity as it may enforce additional Registry settings.

B) Data Folder should not be on a shared filesystem. This could be crucial as Actinic must be waiting quite a while trying to fetch data from the DB. If the site is large, then it may seem eternity. I have at least 10k products with numerous sections. Checking HTML pages show 2330 pages. Quite large I would say.

C) App Optimisation on V5 may be better but I'm not convinced as the system settings is the same as V4. I'm sure (A) & (B) above are all it takes.

I'm going to let it run for a week or two in parallel with my Dell. If its looks OK, I'll switch over then & free up my DELL. Hope the above helps.

For comparision, the spec of the hardware is:
DELL Server - 2.66 GHZ, 2 GB Mem, 160Gb HD running Win XP PRO SP2
Mac Book Pro - 2.66 GHZ Duel 2 Core, 4 GB mem & 320GB HD running OS X 10.6 (SL)

BTW- Many thanks to all of you. Your posts on this thread has really helped & guided me.

Kind regards
Nilesh

[nileshpa]

Correction on my last post - Point 6 refers to location of the SITE1 folder not the installation of Actinic software.

nilesh

[CarolineL]

Thanks Nilesh - I'll give this a try (hopefully tmrw) and post my results.

The MDAC 2.6 is new to me? Will follow your instructions and stick to V4 Parallels to see if it works without upgrading.

Hopefully, will post huge thanks tmrw.

[CarolineL]

YES !! Thanks to everyone - I now have a fast, functioning Actinic site on the Mac - I'm so pleased.

Goodbye PC !!

Thanks to Nilesh for the instructions - FYI it works on Parallels 4.0.

This community works for me.

[NicolaUK]

Nice one

[Benjamin Dyer]

Excellent work Nilesh!

If you are happy I would like to get your comments into the KB. I followed your advice and got my install running much better as well.

Ben

[nileshpa]

Thats good news, Caroline. I'm very pleased for you.
Its what they say, Team work. My thanks also to the community & those who have contributed to this thread.

Ben - No issues putting it into the KB if it helps anyone.

Nilesh

[gabrielcrowe]

i just noticed this thread.

for those who skipped through, here is the solution:

use VMware Fusion.

its just better.

not a single problem for me, i have billions of testing things in my sites list, i flog the thing to within an inch of its life, and it still performs.

OSX 10.5.6 / XP

Here is a MEGA performance boost:
DONT use vmdk files. create your xp machine in bootcamp, then let vmware use that as your vm.