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Appleshare IP Upgrade Problems

I have just moved our C&P Data File from a Shared G3 MiniTower running ASIP 6.1 and Mac OS 8.5.1 to a Dedicated G4 running ASIP 6.3.1 and Mac OS 9.0.4

My users (14 of them, all Mac, using C&P 4.04) are reporting odd behavior when using C&P since the move. They say (I'm trying to get more precise descriptions) that the system pauses when they are tabbing through fields. This is a new problem that popped up after the server 'upgrade'.

Here is a sampling of the messages from my users:

> C&P is sluggish entering new invoices in AP while trying to enter a vendors > name and also entering jobs and tasks. These are the areas that I have > noticed > so far. ---

> I've been noticing more and more that the program as a whole is slower. When > I > try to unpost, or delete an invoice it is sluggish. When I try to run reports > it is sluggish. These are just some of the things I noticed today. ---

> THE SYSTEM IS NOW VERY SLOW. > > 1. When entering an invoice, it takes a while to tab to the next > entry. > > 2. Getting in and out of reports takes a long time. ---

> I don't mean to keep bugging you, but after I've entered an invoice and tabbed > out of it, sometimes my top menu bar for C&P will be screwy. Sometimes the > file menu won't be there or when I drag across file or view or whatever I > won't > get what I dragged across, I'll get one of the other menus. The slugishness > seems to be getting worse, I get frozen for minutes at a time doing anything, > there is not just one application that feezes me.

> Here it is: Looking up Chart of Accounts it took 2 mins. In A/P tabing to > task - slight, net cost slightly longer, save even longer. Also in A/P > sometimes when I would tab the cusor was not showing up on the screen and it > would take several (?) seconds to show up or if I had input the task code, the > numbers would not show up for awhile. Found that as the day passed, the > system was slow in the morning but alot slower in the afternoon.

I'm curious is anyone else has made a similar upgrade and seen/solved similar problems.

I have recently (in the last two weeks) re-org'd and re-indexed the Data File.

Thanks in advance!

Matt Murray MIS ACM Aviation http://www.acmaviation.com

If you are running AppleShare 6.3 you really should have OS9 on your clients to make sure you are getting the best throughput. Of course your hub/switch/network set up plays a HUGE part on how your network works. Still going through 10MB hubs rather than 10/100 switches?

There is an AS client that you can install on pre 9.0 clients to upgrade the client so it works better if you don't want to upgrade the machines to 9.0

In our 10/100 switched Shared G3 network system we don't seem to have many problems but sometimes the first launch hangs and we have to force quit the and the re-launch and it comes up right away. This is the only weird issues I can report.

Not sure if this helps but hoping it does....

Chandler Briggs SMITH BOWEN

Ram on the server?

> I have just moved our C&P Data File from a Shared G3 MiniTower > running ASIP > 6.1 and Mac OS 8.5.1 to a Dedicated G4 running ASIP 6.3.1 and Mac OS 9.0.4

Ram on the server? ASIP has a huge overhead. Our recently retired ASIP (V6.2) server was a G3 official Apple Server with 512 megs. I found that acceptable but slower than it should have been.

Also, if you moved it to another machine take a look at the physical layer of your network surrounding that machine. Are you now on a high traffic hub? C&P is a pretty high traffic program.

And last, ASIP defaults with Web server and Mail server auto starting, if you are not using those shut them down.

Jim Kennedy Manager Information Systems Bill Brokaw Advertising Inc.
www.billbrokaw.com www.brokawnewmedia.com

You need to get you ASIP all upgraded to current version. Get both servers operating with the same OS and ASIP.

Matt Hegge Technology Officer/Graphics Specialist Studio One, Inc.

Does the logon process to the network take longer as well?

We had something similar and had to go to each work sight and correct the log on problem.

Jon Glass

Keep in mind that the first person who logs into C&P each day generates the startup e-mails. You will normally see a clock on the screen while this workstation is sending e-mails. Can take up to a few minutes if you have many e-mails generated by C&P. The second or later person to log in on the same day will not experience this, which is why force quitting the workstation and logging in again does not generate the e-mails.

Kent Richardson C&P List Server Administrator

A few things to check...

If your new G4 has gigabit ethernet, you may have a conflict between your Mac and your hub/switch.

From Apple: IMPORTANT: The duplex mode of an Ethernet link to a switch is not detected if the switch's port is not auto-negotiating. If the switch's port is not auto-negotiating, your computer will detect the appropriate speed but default to half-duplex. If the switch's port at the other end of the link is configured for full-duplex, a large number of late events can occur on the link. Set the switch's port to auto-negotiate where possible. If this isn't possible, then set the switch's port to half-duplex. For more information, see the documentation that came with the Ethernet hub.

Additionally: There are also known conflicts with the new Macs and switches using Spanning Tree Protocol. Spanning Tree Protocol is something that detects undesirable loops in your network. If there are no loops, you can disable it.

You can also put a small "dumb" hub between your G4 and the switch which will mask the Spanning Tree Protocol from the Mac. This is an easy test.

For more info on Spanning Tree: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n30922

Confirm the following: Remove OT AutoPush Support from the Extensions folder.

Remove any SNMP extensions.

On the server computer, turn off Remember recently used items in the Apple Menu Options control panel.

In Sherlock, select Index Volumes from the Find menu and select the Schedule button. Disable indexing for all days.

Turn off virtual memory in the Memory control panel.

Keith Casey

The server has 384MB of RAM and is located on the same 100BT switch that our 12 users are on, one user is a few switches away, but those are connected via fiber. Web and Mail are off.

Last night I upgraded the three 8.6 machines to 9.0.4, and verified that all users are running AppleShare 3.8.8

This morning, the problem was still there, so I scratched my head a bit and thought of a few other things to try. I locked the port for the server to 100BT Half-Duplex, and switched ASIP from AppleTalk and TCP to AppleTalk only. All users were connecting via TCP/IP, that was the only other difference from the old server (besides hardware and software versions), now, they are all connecting via AppleTalk. So far so good...

I'm still a bit confused though, TCP/IP file sharing is supposed to be faster, but my users can attest, it was crawling.

You said you recently retired your ASIP server, what did you replace it with? just curious...

Matt Murray MIS ACM Aviation http://www.acmaviation.com

Verify that your are connecting your users via TCP/IP. If your user's computers have checked the box to automatically mount the server, this mounts it via Appletalk during startup. To mount the server automatically via TCP/IP, mount the server then make an alias of it and place the alias in system folder/startup items.

I realize this does not answer your actual questions but might help clarify part of the answer, good luck!

One other thing I have noticed... In situations where the computer has been set up with sharing (standard OS9 file sharing) then ASIP installed, then the sharing setup changed. ASIP seems to struggle with this scenario. My resolution was to reinstall OS9 to a new folder and reinstall ASIP with the correct ASIP admin info put in during the OS9 install. Since the OS9 install wants to walk you through the network and file sharing set up, this step can be problematic... Well, it has happened to me anyway.

Chandler Briggs SMITH BOWEN

Make sure the volume is shared and the privileges are correct. You may have to give administrative privileges to users.

Also, make sure your database is on it's own drive, with no other files being accessed or copied to it. This is recommended by C&P.

Matt Hegge Technology Officer/Graphics Specialist Studio One, Inc.