Very Slow Multi-User Access

[The_Doc_Man]

Turns out our traffic was being routed from Birmingham to Coventry and then back to Birmingham.

In our case, the traffic was from New Orleans, LA to Norfolk, VA and back again. Same concept, about 6 network hops counting the routers involved. Excruciatingly slow - and then we changed sub-domains to keep it all local. Had to change mail from Outlook to CDO, lost the ability to automatically send digitally signed e-mails, but everything else worked about 50-100 times faster.

 

[iamchemist]

The concept of a persistent connection is not related to the hardware.

A persistent connection, in this context, refers to keeping a table in the back end open continually from a form in the front end.

The problem is, as the_Doc_Man outlined, that each time the front end needs to use a table in the back end, it has to negotiate a connection with other front ends which also want to use the back end. By keeping a form which is bound to a small table in the back end open constantly in the front end, that negotiation for a shared connection -- or reconnection -- is avoided, which should speed things up.

Many developers do this by binding a form to a small table and opening that form when the accdb first opens. The form is often hidden. It's only function is to maintain that persistent connection. See also the comments in Post #11.

Again, not a factor of routers, ethernet ports, etc. It has to do the the interactions between the multiple front end databases.

I appreciate the explanation of Persistent Connection! I will work on making that happen.

However, I am confused in that I thought several of you had told me "the Ethernet Switch definitely has to go to speed up the Database Operation". I thought that advice had to do with Persistent Connection. If it does not, then is there any good reason for the Ethernet Switch to go away in our Network Configuration at all?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The question is, what kind of switch do you have? Can you give us a name brand and model number so we can look it up? Because your prior description of what it does is the source of our concern. To be honest, I've never heard of a switch doing what you described. I need to know what it really does in order to correctly diagnose this problem.

As to "the Ethernet Switch definitely has to go to speed up the Database Operation" - EITHER the Ethernet is or is not the source of the problem, but until we know which kind of switch it is, "keep it" or "toss it" is up in the air.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

@iamchemist

I think there is a bit of a "duck test". I tried to add a link to a "duck test", but the shortcutvwas longer than I wanted.

You are describing a situation exactly like one that is caused by the absence of a persistent connection. One user works fine. Concurrent users experience a slow down.

Our conjecture is leading us to suppose that your setup is not enforcing persistent connections. Maybe it's not easy to test. However, In a corporate environment you would have thought you would have a server shared by all users on the same LAN without too much trouble or cost. A NAS device might suffice. One of your PCs might be able to act as host. I am not exactly sure how to set it up, but I am sure you deal with someone who does know how. If not you most likely need an IT advisor to manage aspects of your computer organisation.

Note that using access requires all concurrent users to share a LAN. You won't get adequate speed either if all users are not on the same LAN, which is why terminal services are recommended if you have users working from remote locations.