Abhishek Reddy — Tue, 09 Apr 2002 03:22:14 +0000

Quote:
Originally posted by Sparklebug
Thought I'd add a PS to this thread. The forum has mysteriously cured itself of slowness and is back to normal. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened either. It seems that when we get inexplicable error messages or extreme slowness that the trick is to completely ignore it for a few days ... and then it will all just go away without anyone from our end doing a thing (and our hosts claim they know nothing about what the problem could be).

Reminds of that story..whatsit? "The Shoemaker's Elves" or something.

I agree with detox. Access really isn't much of a DB. Not a good choice for something as heavy as a discussion board (even one with as few as 10 users).

I'd seriously consider switching databases.

detox — Tue, 09 Apr 2002 02:40:09 +0000

Access is so temperamental! I only develop on SQL server MySQL or msde 2000.

Too many unknown errors. I remember reading somewhere that access was never intended for use on the web....

someone correct me if I am wrong...

Sparklebug — Thu, 04 Apr 2002 14:34:45 +0000

Thought I'd add a PS to this thread. The forum has mysteriously cured itself of slowness and is back to normal. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened either. It seems that when we get inexplicable error messages or extreme slowness that the trick is to completely ignore it for a few days ... and then it will all just go away without anyone from our end doing a thing (and our hosts claim they know nothing about what the problem could be).

Does anyone else think this is a bit weird? It's happened about three times now in slightly different ways and nobody has been able to explain it thus far. Do we have a ghost in our machine maybe?

The link seems to be when the Access database has been re-uploaded one or more times - then it starts running really badly, then after a few days it goes back to normal. Maybe the database gets traumatised in the transfer? Maybe it just hates me!

Anyway ... just thought I'd fill in anyone who might be remotely interested.

Bug

Peter J. Boettcher — Mon, 11 Mar 2002 13:17:48 +0000

You can add your tables to the existing SQL database. Just use the import wizard in Enterprise Manager to import from your existing db (Access) into the SQL database.

Sparklebug — Sun, 10 Mar 2002 23:45:10 +0000

Hi Detox! This forum was actually put in after our bad development agency experience - it is a free one from webwizguide.com and the only free ASP one we could track down and implement ourselves. The one our agency left us with was actually far worse in terms of functionality and nobody used it at all!

Anyway, the reason for using Access is partly because I believe we need new software (and skills?) to work with SQL databases and currently we're very poor. Also, we already have one SQL database on the site (created by someone else) and are only permitted one with our hosting package without paying an additional amount. However, I'm wondering how difficult it would be to add the forum files onto the same database and run it that way. Would that be difficult?

Bug

detox — Sun, 10 Mar 2002 14:13:34 +0000

I have to agree with Peter there, I do not see why a forum would be developed with an access backend, apart from cost etc. I assume this was all done by that bad dev firm you guys were having probs with at the end of last year?

Best bet would be to follow peters lead and reload the db. It took me 40 seconds to load the page.......

Peter J. Boettcher — Fri, 08 Mar 2002 13:34:50 +0000

That first page is pretty slow! I can't understand why this is happening after simply removing data. Can you maybe try creating a new empty database in Access then using the "Get External Data" command to import your tables and data? Maybe there is something pooched in that .mdb file.

SQL Server is so much better for this stuff!

Sparklebug — Thu, 07 Mar 2002 22:10:50 +0000

Hi Peter. The database filesize is only about 570k. On the front page it presents the list of central forum topics, numbers of posts in each, and the name of the most recent poster. There is also a section listing the 5 most recent posts, and another which tells you how many posts there are in how many forums, when the last post was made and by whom. You can see all of this in action at ethics.org.au/new_forum

To present all of this information the forum uses four different tables (forums, topics, threads & authors) and also refers to a table containing basic formatting information plus date and time format preferences. There is a separate ASP 'language' file from which is called most of the wording used.

To me this sounds like quite a lot going on ... but the forum was working at a reasonable speed until I removed some information and I have seen it working elsewhere (on a vastly more busy forum than ours) and it seems to be fine.

Thanks!

Bug

Peter J. Boettcher — Thu, 07 Mar 2002 14:17:05 +0000

What is queried on the main page? How large (file size) is the database? It must be something in the query that is making it take so long. Having breaks in the autonumbers shouldn't effect performance.