Handling Slow Access and Crashes
Help! PubGizmo/FileMaker Pro is Slow/Crashing!
Both slowness and crashing are frustrating occurrences, and we are sorry for these experiences. There can be a variety of causes, some of which are us, some of which are you, and some to chalk up to the mysteries of computers and networks.
Background: How PubGizmo Works
As a sidebar, it helps to isolate your issue if you understand how PubGizmo operates. This is somewhat technical, so you can skip it if you just want suggestions to help with your problem.
PubGizmo Runs Within FileMaker Pro
PubGizmo runs under FileMaker Pro in somewhat the same way a Word document runs under Microsoft Word, except that PubGizmo's data is located on a server (computer) in the cloud (connected to the internet), which in a way makes it more like a Google Sheet (which is why multiple users can use PubGizmo at the same time).
Getting Data and Making Changes
You use FileMaker Pro on your computer to access it on the server where it is hosted, and data moves back and forth between your computer and the server. For example, when you open a Title record, PubGizmo tells FileMaker Pro to communicate to FileMaker Server in the cloud to fetch all the Title data, and display it for you. When you make a change, e.g., you add a subtitle or keyword, the data gets sent back to the server and written to the record. Changes are immediate.
Moving Data Takes Time
It's important to understand that moving data takes time. The more data you're moving, the longer it takes.
Computation Adds Complexity
If the data requires computation, like calculating royalty amounts, that increases the time required, especially if you are running a complex calculation, such as escalation.
"Expense"
We talk about the factors of data volume and computational strain in terms of "expense." It is expensive, in terms of computational power and data mobility, to run a hard calc on a ton of data.
Imagine a briskly selling book, with many sales records. Each record is a piece of data, and when you open a Royalty Statement, all that data has to be collated, and then the royalty calculations must be run. A book with a 1000 sales involves 10 times more data than one with 100 sales.
Add a complex calculation, specifically escalation, and it's a recipe for slow access, so slow, in fact, that it may appear to be a crash (when really it's a freeze, which will respond, given time – see below).
Factors That Affect Speed
Many factors affect the speed of your PubGizmo experience, some of which are controllable, and some which are not:
- volume of data being accessed and moved
- complexity of calculations
- your internet speed (provider, and also your connection to your router – bad WiFi can slow you down)
- your distance from the server (i.e., distance from either Toronto or Vancouver, depending on which server your solution is hosted)
- your computer's speed (physically, and depending on the state of its operating system)
- PubGizmo programming efficiency – how PG is built to handle data. We are making frequent improvements by running calculations on the server (which is quicker, since data need not transit between the server and your computer; an example is import processing – we run this on the server, which is what is happening when you see that an import is "PENDING"), and by caching and pre-calculating data.
Is it a Crash or a Freeze?
We should distinguish between a crash and a freeze. These are different events, and require different handling.
Crash
A crash means FileMaker Pro has quit. All windows have disappeared from the screen. There's no spinning beachball, no hourglass.
On a Mac, you'll usually receive a dialogue that tells you FileMaker Pro has crashed, with a few options: re-open, report the problem to Apple, or cancel. If you look at the Dock, the icon is gone, or, if you keep the icon in the Dock, there's no black dot below the icon to indicate it's running.
On Windows, it no longer appears on the Taskbar. If you look at the Task Manager, FileMaker does not appear. Note that a message indicating FileMaker has stopped responding could be crash, but it could also be a freeze, per below.
Freeze
If FileMaker Pro is still running but unresponsive, it has frozen or stalled. There's a good chance it's still alive, but it has stalled, or is hesitating, possibly because it is:
- running a complex calculation
- attempting to fetch a large volume of data from the server to display, or to calculate
- struggling to negotiate a bad network connection
- impeded by your computer's speed
- struggling with a heavy server load (unlikely)
Wait it Out
In this situation, you may just have to wait for PG to yield data and update – give it a chance to complete its processes, and your results will appear. It can take many seconds, or even many minutes, in extreme cases, to respond. Take a breath, take a break, make a cup of tea.
Data Volume and/or Complexity
Frequently, the nature of the operation you are trying to perform, or the volume or complexity of data you are trying to access, will help you understand why the freeze is happening.
For reference, these operations will be slow:
- Opening royalty statements with escalation and/or lots of sales records
- Using the Reporter with many of record selected, or covering a large span of time
- Viewing records in List View, especially Royalties if the amount column is toggled on (PG must calculate royalties for all the statements in the view, which invokes hundreds or even thousands of calculations).
If some records are predictably quick, and others are predictably slow, e.g., "I know when I open this Royalty Statement it always takes a while," you know that things are operating normally (even if waiting sucks), because there's a consistency to the slowness.
What to Do
Crashes
Isolated
An isolated crash can be dismissed as a one-off. Computers crash, software crashes – we don't always know why. Just re-open FileMaker, connect to PubGizmo, and continue where you left off.
Chronic
If you are suffering chronic, not infrequent crashes, something more serious is going on. There are a host of possible causes, and solutions:
Computer Problem
Do other programs also crash? If yes, then the problem lies with your computer, either the hardware or your operating system. Windows is more prone to this kind of issue that macOS. The best bet with either is a complete wipe and reinstall of your computer; it's not a trivial task, but it can yield significant improvements, not just in terms of stability, but also computer performance. You can find on various tech sites information on how to perform a wipe and reinstall. The most important step is to back up your data, since the "wipe" part involves deleting everything on your computer.
If your problems survive a wipe/reinstall, it could be an issue with your computer hardware, for example, bad memory, a failing hard disk, overheating. This is best diagnosed by a professional.
FileMaker Pro Application Problem
If only FileMaker crashes, uninstall it, and reinstall. This will ensure that your installation of FileMaker is not corrupt.
Freezes
All Records, Operations
If you experience freezes (PubGizmo eventually responds), and it doesn't seem to matter what you're looking at (e.g., just a basic Contact record), something is impeding the exchange of information between your computer and the data on the server. This could be:
Poor Network Connection
If your internet is slow, access to PubGizmo will be slow. You can check your speed by going to speedtest.net and running a test. Faster is better, but at a minimum your up and down speeds should exceed 10 Mbps. Either or both of your internet provider speed or your network connection (e.g., on WiFi, but weak signal) can impede network traffic. If you rectify these issues, things may improve.
Are You Far Away?
Wait, are you away, connecting from somewhere other than your press's location? Your speed/freeze issue may be due to network latency caused by distance. The physical server that hosts your solution is optimized for your press's physical location; we have two servers currently, and they are both in North America (Toronto and Vancouver), so if you're in Frankfurt, you are far away, and it takes longer for data to travel between your location and the server.
Slow Computer
An old computer or a computer problem (corrupt OS, see above under "Computer Problem") can impede access to PubGizmo.
Some Records or Reports
Big sellers, or contracts with complicated clauses (escalation), or, worse-still, combinations of the two, will be slow to render. Try to limit your access to these records.
Improvements Coming
We have in our PubGizmo development plan a big update in the works that will cache sales data, instead of reading each sales record individually. This will yield a major performance improvement. Stay turned for updates.