RDM 9.0.5.0 extremely sluggish
I am running on a fresh install of Windows 8.1 x64. First installed RDM 6.0, as that's the newest version my company is licensed for (haven't had a need to upgrade). I then decided to download the latest version to run some comparisons and see if there are new features that will make the upgrade worthwhile, but so far I'm quite disappointed.
I upgraded to 9.0.5.0 over 6.0.0.0. Not wanting to break the database with an accidental upgrade, I imported all connections into a local data source and removed my SQL data source before the upgrade. After upgrading, my experience so far as been that the application loads very slowly, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and also any attempt to click on different entries in the connection list is extremely slow, almost as if the application is laboring to load data about the entry being selected.
I have gone through the settings to try and find optimizations, even going so far as to put the application back in classic mode, and while that did help slightly, it's still quite slow. In 6.0, I could click in the connection list in details view and start typing the name of the connection I wanted (we have around 100) and it would be very snappy in navigating to the desired selection. Also, in 9.0, trying to launch a new session, or edit a session, or pretty much any action, seems to result in several seconds of laggy behavior. I did try switching from Access to XML as the local data source, and that did not help at all.
My PC is pretty healthy, running a quad-core AMD processor and 8 GB of RAM, with plenty of free disk space, and no other application runs anywhere near as slow. Any ideas on what's wrong here? Is RDM 9 not liking Windows 8.1 for some reason? Is there junk left behind from the 6.0 installation that's causing trouble?
All Comments (15)
Hi,
For of all you should use the 32 bit version because it's faster. Could you enable the intelligent cache:
http://help.remotedesktopmanager.com/index.html?datasource_caching.htm
How many session do you have? Could you go in Help->Diagnostic and check the Data Source tab page.
David Hervieux
I am using the 32-bit version currently. Intelligent caching is only available for remote data sources. As stated, I'm using local data sources for now, because I don't want to mess up the SQL database we have, which is currently on version 6.0.
The diagnostic shows I have 147 entries in the session list. A few of those are web URLs, but almost all are RDP entries for connections to the terminal server farms we host for our clients. I had the same list in 6.0 without the lag.
What's the size of the data source file?
David Hervieux
Access version is 568 KB, XML version is 145 KB.
Is it only the initial start which is slow. Is it slow if you edit or refresh the file?
David Hervieux
Sorry if I'm not being clear. It's navigating the list itself that is slow. Without any sessions even open, if one session in the list is highlighted, and I click on another, it doesn't instantly highlight, but takes about a half a second or so to show as selected. Also, if I try to navigate through the session list using the up and down arrow keys on my keyboard, it will not go up or down quickly, but instead take about a half second to change selection every time.
Wow this is really strange. Could you go in Help->Diagnostic and start the profiler
David Hervieux
I started the profiler, but just navigating the connection list doesn't generate any logs in that window. Opening the Options dialog and clicking OK did, however, and apparently caused a refresh of the connection list:
LoadConnections [Xml : Test]...
LoadConnectionsFromDataSource...
LoadDataSourceSettingsFromDataSource...
GetDataSourceSettings : 0 ms
LoadDataSourceSettingsFromDataSource : 1 ms
GetConnections...
Xml.GetConnections...
Xml.GetConnections : 30 ms
GetConnections : 33 ms
DoSetConnections...
DoSetConnections : 1 ms
LoadConnectionsFromDataSource : 44 ms
LoadConnections [Xml : Test] : 53 ms
FWIW, I had an old Windows 8 (classic, not 8.1) VM with a trial copy of RDM 8.2 running in it, so I fired that up and loaded in the same connection list, and it does not appear to be suffering from the lag issue at all.
This is really strange. Could you try to switch to the list view mode and verify if you see the same behavior?
David Hervieux
List view, same problem. Tried completely uninstalling, removing all appdata, and reinstalling and re-importing the connection list from scratch, in the hopes that any issues caused by upgrading over 6.0 would be resolved, but the list is still slow. HOWEVER, after going through all the display modes, I found that the problem seems to disappear in tree view. That's the only view that's not slow though. Oh, and btw, the test with RDM 8.2 was in detail view.
So if I understand correctly it's slow when you switch to detail view?
David Hervieux
Well, the act of switching views also takes a few seconds, but yes, in anything other than tree view, navigating the connection list is slow. This includes typing the name of a connection and having it auto-navigate to it. In tree view, very fast, in details view, very sluggish.
edited by ivorycruncher on 11/8/2013
I'm not able to reproduce it. Do you think it could be possible to have an export of your data without the credentials? Could you send me a print screen of your main screen?
David Hervieux
I would rather not send our connection list for privacy reasons. However, I generated a new SQLite data source with 150 randomly-generated Microsoft RDP entries, and can produce the same symptoms with that, so it's nothing specific to my connection list. I also tried with a list of around just 10 randomly generated names, and the same problem exists, so it's not the size of the data source either.
In detail view, if you hold down the down arrow key, it just gets really bogged down trying to scroll down the list, and trying to type a name in the list doesn't work very well, if at all, as the lag seems to hinder proper interpretation of the keystrokes. Even highlighting a section of group of entries in the list (click one, hold Ctrl+Shift, click another one) results in visual lag, as it doesn't instantly highlight all selected entries, but instead highlights them in chunks, or in sort of cascade fashion.
In tree view, while holding the down arrow, it will just fly through the list, and typing a connection name to navigate directly to that entry will work perfectly every time. Also, highlighting a large section of list entries results in instant highlighting of all, no laggy screen-painting effect. Whatever the issue is, it almost seems to be a visual rendering lag issue.
I'm out of town the rest of this week after today, but I think my next step, whenever I get a chance, will be to go back and install an RDM 8.x version and see how that compares.
Could you send me your test database?
David Hervieux