SQL Editor -- slow key response when typing

Hi. Typing in the new editor seems slow, you can see and feel the delay as characters get slowly displayed. This most becomes frustrating when I use Backspace to delete a bunch of chars on a line... Also, just to test, i pressed and held a key. As keystrokes were shown in the editor, the Task Manager was displaying a 24% CPU utillization for the dbvis PID There is no configuration for 'keystroke' delay, is there? Anyone else seeing this? Product: DbVisualizer Personal 8.0 Build: #1689 (2011/06/16 12:10) Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM Java Version: 1.6.0_24 Java Vendor: Sun Microsystems Inc. OS Name: Windows XP OS Arch: x86 OS Version: 5.1

Thanks for the response, Hans. Truthfully it's gotten so bad DBVis is almost unusable. I'll see if someone in our IS department can get us upgraded and I'll let you know if that helps. Regards, Ray *UPDATE* (6.26.2014): So we updated from 9.0.6 > 9.1.9. There is some improvement at startup with decreased keyboard buffering. After a few minutes, the buffering behavior returns, but it's not as bad as before. So the result is that it's improved but not resolved with the update. And again, this is over VPN. I've only been physically in the office once since the update and at that time I didn't notice the buffering as much. There are other applications that I use over my connection, but this is the only one with the buffering issue so I don't think it's the connection, itself. Edited by: Ray Koski on Jun 26, 2014 3:38 PM

Hi Ray, Have you tested other Java applications over the VPN? If you are connecting using RDP, also try to disable all Windows effects and fancy themes. They can slow things down and also cause other issues with Java applications. Best Regards, Hans

Hi Hans, Yes, I use others. Just for comparison of "likes" I also use TOAD, another java-based query tool. I don't see these same issues. Not using RDP, though. However, I put the UI "Look and Feel" to "Windows" - doesn't seem to help, after restarting DBVisualizer. Ray

Hi Ray, Please describe in detail the bad behavior you see. This thread started out talking about slow performance when typing in an SQL Commander editor. Is that what you experience as well, or do you see some other performance issue? Please also describe your configuration in more detail. You say you do not use RDP. Does that mean that you run the DbVisualizer GUI locally on your laptop and access a database on a server over a VPN? Do you have a way to test the performance of the VPN itself? Best Regards, Hans

Hi Hans Thanks for your response and assistance. The original topic of this thread is what brought me here -> slow keyboard response in the SQL editor. In addition, the interface also freezes, meaning the scrollbars do not work, no buttons will accept a mouseclick, and no other action can be taken on the interface. When and why does this happen? I don't know. It appears to happen randomly with some frequency. After a few moments, the interface "thaws" and becomes usable again so I suspect it's the same buffering as the keystrokes the original poster was asking about. Currently, I'm using the laptop from two locations. One is offsite and accesses the server through the VPN. When I'm onsite I connect to our company network more directly and don't really see same problems. Previously, I had a desktop PC that connected using a RAP device on my local network connection and didn't really see this issue. Sorry, but I'm not sure how to test VPN performance. Thanks Ray

Hi Ray, Thanks for the clarifications. How frequently would you say it's stalling like this? Is it like every 30 seconds or so? Do you have your home folder (and therefore the DbVisualizer settings folder) on a remote disk? Do you have a lot of SQL Commander tabs with large files open? For testing the VPN performance, maybe you can copy a large file over it and time it to see how many bits per second it handles. Best Regards, Hans

Hi Hans Yes, the user preferences directory is on a network drive. I have a lot of history there, as well. I'm sure that's part of the startup slowness, but doesn't satisfy me regarding why there is general slowness and intermittent freezing. To tell you the truth, I'm actually noticing that the buffering of keystrokes isn't as bad now as the freeze/lag of the interface. I can't pin down any particular thing I'm doing that initiates the behavior. If I scroll the editor, if I open a file, if I make an edit then try to execute (either by keyboard or toolbar button) it lags momentarily then resumes. I'm stumped. Ray

Hi Ray, Please disable the Auto Save feature just to see if that is what is causing this. You do so by setting the special property named dbvis.-AutoSaverRunInterval to 0. Please see thus Users Guide for how to set the special property: http://confluence.dbvis.com/display/UG91/Special+Properties Note! Make sure you remove the leading hashmark on the line for the property. Enable debugging for DbVisualizer in Tools->Debug WIndow and then restart DbVisualizer. You should see a message saying that Auto Saving was not started. If disabling Auto Save solves the problem, we at least know what is causing this. You can then minimize the problem by setting the property to a longer interval, e.g. 120 seconds or even longer. Best Regards, Hans

Hi Hans Good news! Turning off AutoSave seems to have remedied the issue. It's so much better now. What I didn't do was to reset the value as you suggested to a longer interval - currently it's disabled. Since I'm not entirely clear what is being "saved" by AutoSave, can you tell me the consequence of not turning it back on? Many thanks! Ray

Hi Ray, Auto Save saves the content of all open SQL Commander tabs at the specified interval, so that you do not lose any edits if DbVisualizer would crash or if you exit without saving. I suggest that you enable it again but with a longer interval. Best Regards, Hans

Hi Hans, So just to be really clear, it sounds like you're saying with AutoSave off DBVis won't save the tabs on exit if I don't manually save them? Thanks Ray

Hi Roger Thanks for the clarification. To your questions 1. I understand why you're asking the question, but it's not something I'd ever do naturally. Once I take out the hammer I tend to start hitting nails with it. Unfortunately, I don't have access to change files on my C: drive - our IS department has the machines locked down so I'd have to get someone to even test this for me. If you guys wanted to move some of this functionality away from those config / pref files and put them in the interface somewhere it would help, but that's up to you, of course. 2. I don't think it's the case. Auto saver is currently turned on with a 5-minute interval. This has helped tremendously. Though it's still pretty apparent when the saving is happening, at least I can do work in between. 3. I wish I could answer this question (and the others) a litle better. I will tell you that from my experience it's not the case. The slowness could happen just scrolling the text of the query with no results at all. It could happen just typing some statements with or without any results int he grid or it could happen scrolling the results of the grid. Not sure if you read the entire thread or not, but I used to have a desktop PC here (off-site) with a RAP device instead of a laptop with a VPN connection. When I was using that previous setup, I had no such issues - it was just like being physically located in the office and I never experienced any issues at all. As a corollary, and I was going to search the forums or start a new question, the SQL History has almost the same issue. When I'm off-site I can click the button to see my history and it will take almost forever to load. Everything stops until that history window comes up (meaning the GUI freezes). I was at the office yesterday (using this same machine on a docking station) and I was able to get the History window up in a short time. Now I've been waiting over 10 minutes and it's still not up. Ray

Hi Roger Thanks for that great suggestion. I really don't have all that access, though. These machines are pretty locked down and our IS department would probably request a business case document to even install the JDK (and would likely reject the request). Sorry. As it stands, I have had our site support person set the AutoSave to 10 minutes now. I found that has really helped to reduce the hang and allows me to do my work. Others in my goup who also use DBVis have done the same and report similar results. The other (related?) issue I mentioned regarding the history taking so long to load turns out to not be such an issue. I had set the maximum entries to a really high number which I've now reduced to something like 5,000. What's worse is I tried to archive some of the history items by creating an archive folder for last year's stuff and I zipped the older items. (Yeah, I know you're probably shaking your head). Apparently DBVis was reading all those items (there were quite a few). So I got rid of the zip file and the archive folder and it seems to have helped. Now, instead of taking literally 20 minutes or more it opens in 3 minutes. So that's that. I can now use DBVis and with a little patience I can review my history so I will say thanks to you and Hans and consider this issue solved. Regards Ray