topic Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network in Installation & update

Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 21:43:21 GMT

I've read several forums about navigation problems in AC, all of which point to upgrading hardware or updating software. Our office is currently running AC 8.1; all of the computers here are G5's with 1.8Ghz processor, 1GB RAM, and OS 10.3.3 (except for the server which is a G4). we are finding that it takes an extraordinarily long time to navigate the network with AC (and we know that it is AC because this problem does not occur with any other application), sometimes taking 30 sec-several minutes to view the contents of the next folder. It's not the network either; we use CAT5 wiring between all the computers, connecting them with a Lynksis router.

Our next problem is that we cannot sign into a TW project from another computer (after spending such a long time locating the file to open ); .PLP's are accessible only from the computer that they were created on originally. If I try to sign into one from another computer, AC brings up a blank screen as it would when starting a new project with the title "untitled." Help?

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

__archiben — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 21:53:43 GMT

it sounds as though you have could have some permissions problems (amongst others).

how are your sharepoints set up?

also - we have one G5 in our office full of G4s - i have noticed a slower network response from it with archiCAD and had our network support guys out to investigate: nothing. it isn't greatly affecting us though. i am keeping my eye on it in the hope that i may find something a little more tangible to report.

~/archiben

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

jclewis — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 05:36:43 GMT

We've had the same problem. Starting with 8.0 on OS 10.2, Graphisoft products (AC & PM) have behaved poorly across networks--no other software has displayed these problems.

With 8.1 and OS 10.3, however, the problem seemed to be solved. Now, with OS 10.3.3, it has returned. By playing with the network, we have managed to reduced the wait to 5-10 seconds, but it's still there. Once again, no other software has this problem--in fact, its almost instantaneous with other software.

This is a Graphisoft-Apple interaction problem of some kind. I have corresponded with Tech support, but have never received a response.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

__archiben — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 08:27:57 GMT

have you both upgraded to the v2 patch? there is a considerable speed increase across the network as well as working in archiCAD generally.

i think that is a worthwhile upgrade even though it brings a few issues with it, ( http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=2089&start=40 ).

i am also beginning to suspect that bryan's problem with the G5s could be something slightly different than the slow network navigation generally noticed with AC/PM prior to v2 - see my post further up the page.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

jclewis — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 02:27:07 GMT

Yup.

Slowdown occurs on 8.1v1 and 8.1v2 and with ALL hardware that we've tried (anytime we try to connect across the network.)

jcl

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 22:27:03 GMT

When logging into another computer in the office we just sign in as a guest for ease in setting up the network.

What issues does the V2 patch solve?

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 18:48:51 GMT

We had this very same problem with AC 8.0 and 8.1 running OS 10.2. So we updated to OS 10.3 and it fixed the problem. And you are correct about it coming back with the update to OS 10.3.3. Worked fine with OS 10.3.2. I thought maybe it had something to do with browsing through the server with network button on the finder as apposed to actually connecting to the server and having it mount it on my desktop. But I changed the setting for that so now they don't mount on my desktop and this problem still occurs. If anyone figures this out please respond back here. Such a pain to wait 10 seconds to nagivigate through all the folder.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Aussie John — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 22:17:13 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
have you both upgraded to the v2 patch? there is a considerable speed increase across the network as well as working in archiCAD generally.

Yes I agree with Ben there isa definately a major improvment to networking in the v2 release. Even opening files on the one computer is faster

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:28:41 GMT

Re slow opening of files. Until finding this discussion I thought I was alone. Our network consists of 1Gb hubs and CAT5 cabling with a windows 2000 server with AC running on 5 G5's all dual 1.8 or 2.0 with OX 10.3.3. The only thing I can really add to the debate is that selecting a file from recent documents in AC using File/Open works fine, even for files stored on server; sadly no good for teamsharing though.

Even tried a clean install on 1 machine but made no noticeable difference.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 15:26:11 GMT

Aha!
I was looking in the wrong forums.
We have only just recently started to experience this problem, in the past couple of weeks. We have worked for quite a while now, without experiencing the extremely slow navigation times as described in this thread. However, in the last few weeks we have had some instances of this occurring so I would say that the symptoms have just recently appeared.

We all are running AC8.1 v1 and OSx.2.8, and our sever runs osX.2 server, we have a ethernet 10/100 network and just purchased a new 10/100 D-link 24 port switching hub. It seems that upgrading to AC8.1v2. seems to be on the menu, however, before I do that, read on!

When opening an AC project, and browsing for a project, the finder navigation is extremely slow. Opening projects from recently opened projects or from the local folders seems fine. Teamwork also has this problem, as does plotmaker. Originally, I thought this was related to our DSL connection, because coinciding with this problem, was an apparent slowdown on our DSL. When I shut off the modem/router (and restarted the server) the navigation slowdown went away.

Then we tried to determine what about the DSL was wrong and we could find no errors with the hub/router/modem/cables.

So we plugged the DSL back into the network and lo a behold the navigation slow down occurred again. But! The symptom, however, comes and goes! for instance, at the moment, navigation is fine, and here I am on the DSL connection sending email. I can't test if removing just the DSL and not restarting the server will fix the problem, because there is no problem at the moment. So it is the variability of this slowdown which is causing us problems.

Lately also, we have had trouble getting networked library parts from within archicad, such as stairs made in stairmaker and stored in the Job library on the server. I assume this is a related problem.

Besides upgrading everyone's AC, should I do something like repair permissions on the server or peoples client machines? This behavior has made out office extremely shaky and we need this problem resolved soon, hopefully without resorting to taking DSL away from everyone!

Thanks!
Katie Bertsche

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:02:11 GMT

Katie, found your posting interesting.

Our problems seem to really manifest themselves at the time we upgraded our network and added a DLS router but this appears to be working fine. GSUK offered us a possible solution involving editing one of the plist files on the G5's using OSX Terminal. Tried this on several machines and it made some improvement but not much better so have sent bug reports and system profiles of every Mac to Graphisoft for analysis. I share your frustration. Our office is up against deadlines where teamshare would really help but reluctant to use again until problem solved.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:36:51 GMT

well, I have just upgraded one computer so it has v2, and the problem re-appeared. removed dsl from the network, problem not solved. disconnected from the server and reconnected, problem not solved. restarted computer, seems to speed things up ...opening the 'open' window gives me the spinning ball but once it is open it seems to work ok. so now I have solved nothing.

what is a safe way to work on these things then? move the files to a local machine to work on them, then upload them to the server to be backed up at the end of the day? I don't know whether to tell the guys to try working or not

I am at my wits end with this.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 18:02:30 GMT

Katie - you're not alone! We're having this problem as well, and it all seemed to start about the time that these upgrades to AC got loaded. Except for teamwork files, I'm recommending to staff that they pull files off and work locally all day, saving back tothe server as you mentioned. With teamwork, if they can save a draft and be server-independant, that's a solution, too, but changing workspace becomes difficult. No easy answers yet.

Not every machine has the problem browsing, and it comes and goes on others. It seems to relate in some way to the status of our network.

I shall attempt to explain the problems- forgive the lengthy post!

The other problem we now have (to which I have only yesterday guessed a connection) relates to our DSL and the way that our IP addresses are assigned. Our DSL line is very low bandwidth, and til recently hasn't been a big problem, other than slow web browsing or long file transfer times. It is shared by about 15-20 staff. In the last month or so, we've been COMPLETELY losing our connection to the internet. According to the DSL provider, it is because of VERY LARGE quantities of data going across the connection. Nothing in our usage pattern has changed, and we are not virus laden (blessed Mac). This leaves only an application that has changed its use of the network - ArchiCAD, perhaps?

I wonder whether AC is routing all of its communications with the network out through the router to our ISP and then back to the IP addresses assigned by the ISP. Seems likethat could account for a high traffic volume. (I should also mention that the outages have occurred mostly on days when everyone is in the office, and then at about 9:30 AM when everyone gets into the CAD operations after returning the first calls of the day)

What I really need to do is get our network consultant in touch with someone at GS Techsupport who understands how AC talks across a network, and how they interact. That is, if anyone as GS understands how it works, too...

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 13:27:39 GMT

Just wanted to report to the list that the fix supplied by graphisoft tech support to modify the AC plist preference file (and upgrading to v2) seems to have solved our network slowdown thing.
so email your friendly tech guy today and get the instructions for using the terminal to do scary things to your preferences! Hopefully the fix will work for other people as well.

cheers, and thanks!
Katie Bertsche

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 18:16:01 GMT

I have just experienced this slow down for the first time even though nothing has changed in our setup since we upgraded our ArchiCAD last month.

I have applied the fix to the ArchiCAD preference file as described by US Tech Support. But I an now experiencing the same browsing slowdown in PlotMaker.

Should I add the same key to the PlotMaker preference file to fix this problem?

Thanks.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 15:41:05 GMT

Katie wrote:
...email your friendly tech guy today and get the instructions for using the terminal to do scary things to your preferences!

Could you post those instructions?

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 16:25:10 GMT

See http://12.98.13.110/ Record #795

From US Tech Resouces:

- Find the build number of your ArchiCAD (in the ArchiCAD menu, select "about ArchiCAD" and find the four-digit number in the bottom-right corner of the window)

- Find com.graphisoft.acXXXXYYY.plist file. (XXXX is the build number you just found out, YYY is the language version of your ArchiCAD. e.g. com.graphisoft.ac2284USA.plist) It is located in userhome/library/preferences

- This is the file you have to edit in Terminal window.

- Open Terminal

- type: defaults write com.graphisoft.acXXXXYYY InputOutput -dict "DisableCrossPlatfromMountingFeatures" "<true/>"

This is like editing the registry on PC. It will create a new key in the com.graphisoft.acXXXXYYY.plist file called "DisableCrossPlatfromMountingFeatures" (note that the spelling mistake "Platfrom" is deliberate) and set it to "true". This will disable some routines that ArchiCAD uses to translate MAC location names to names recognized by windows. The only result of this is that if you open a file saved by a such modified ArchiCAD on a PC, it will not automatically find the necessary libraries. If this office is MAC-only, this will not cause any inconviniences at all. Of course this also will not make the files unreadable by PCs.

If you edited the com.graphisoft.acXXXXYYY.plist file like this, please open com.graphisoft.acXXXXYYY.plist in TextEdit and make sure that you find this script somewhere in the text:

<dict>

<key>DisableCrossPlatfromMountingFeatures</key>

<true/>

</dict>

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 17:47:38 GMT

yep, you can do the same thing to plotmaker. the plist file is called com.graphisoft.pmxxxxyyy we had to do that this morning, when the slowdown appeared...

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 17:59:13 GMT

All right, I'll give it a try.
Thanks.

BTW, greetings to you SE Conn. My wife grew up in Old Lyme. We should be out there this fall.

Re: Slow Navigation of AC Acroos Network

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:13:50 GMT

Thank you gays!
Finally I got rid of extreme slow browsing in finder.
Did a test a couple of days ago and it took me 28 min to X-REF 8 different .dwg-files!!
I'm managing 30 users who are all nagging me about the slow 8.1, some of them refused to work in 8.1, this is a relief.
Thank you!