Sonny Software

I have a very large database (about 42.600 entries and 13.000 pdf attachments), working on my iMac and MacbookPro. BE goes slower and slower. To attach a new document takes appr. 15 to 20 seconds at least. Sometimes it does not respond for a minute or so. Database verification is ok. After synchronizing the databases on my Macs I have to rebuild quite often (two or three times a week). Do you have any idea what to do with that?

Hi,

You should increase database cache (Preferences). Experiment with this, but I'd got to 25 MB and see if that's optimal. Too much will slow down performance, too, so don't just assign a very large amount.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks, Jon. Giving 25 MB to cache helps a bit, waiting for attachment takes 9 to 11 seconds now. Still very long if you have to manage tens or hundreds of files a session. Additionally, BE doesn't respond quick when you change from Finder into BE, it always takes up to 10 or 20 seconds with the coloured ball to wait. Do you have any other suggestions?

Try 27, or 30. At some point you'll see the maximal improvement that increasing cache will give you (you have to quit and relaunch Bookends for the new setting to have any effect). And if you're getting a lag from just going from the Finder to Bookends, it may be that you have so many apps running that you don't have free memory and are paging apps to disk. If that is indeed the case (it certainly may not be), quit some apps and see if that helps.

Jon
Sonny Software

That doesn't help at all, unfortunately. I have no other apps running except Safari, and 4 GB working space. Even changing groups or filling some terms in the search field take 10 to 20 seconds. On the other hand, there is no statement that BE is not responding in the quitting apps window!

The time to change groups will grow as the database becomes very large just because of the time it takes to populate many thousands of lines in the list. Search times should stay relatively quick, though, so if you get 10 hits from a search it should still be very responsive. I can't explain why moving from the Finder to Bookends would be slow, though, because Bookends does very little on activate. Of course, the speed of your computer affects all of this as well. If you've maximized the benefit of increasing the database cache and the lags are still troublesome, you might consider breaking the database into two.

Jon
Sonny Software