Very slow to open iCash file

MonHawk

Member
Hi,

I've been meaning to ask this for a while now - it happens with all the versions. I know you say that iCash can cope with a huge database, and I agree that once open, the performance is really fairly good.

However, it takes me a very long time to open my file - my file contains transactions since 1st September 2013, and is 24.4 MB. I decided to time it today, and it took 2 minutes and 29 seconds.

This is with all versions - I am on the latest 7.5.8. It is not just today, it's each time, I've got used to it that I open it and go and do some other stuff in the meantime. This is also why I so often get caught by my computer going to sleep, and then when I come back to it, I have to wake up my computer and then iCash crashes (I mentioned this in a separate post a few weeks ago).

Can you tell me why opening is so slow?
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Have you checked the document? Rebuilt indexes? Optimize the document? You can do all that from the iCash File Manager.
 

MonHawk

Member
I have just done all three.

The file size went down to 24.3 MB.

The time taken to open was 2 minutes 37 seconds (it had got slower :wink: )

Presumably you test with large iCash files with lots of data - what opening times would you predict?
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Files should open in a couple of seconds whatever the size. iCash documents are SQL databases actually. What can be slow however is creating backups. Go to the preferences, 'Document' panel and deactivate the creation of backups.
 

MonHawk

Member
Yes! That was it! Oh my goodness what a difference.

Now I just have to remember to do backups often...

Would it please be possible to have a preference option to do backups when closing instead of when opening? Or maybe to be asked on closing whether to backup? That feels more natural to me anyway than doing it on startup.

I would really really appreciate this change. I have to stop the backup on opening, because it literally does take 2.5 minutes each time. But I am too worried about not remembering to backup manually.
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
The backup is on open because a hard crash or system crash may corrupt a document. As far as I know it is the main cause of problems however hard crashes and system crashes are rare. Furthermore the iCash documents are bulletproof. You will find out it is difficult to break them, including with crashes.

Anyway I will look at that and why it becomes so slow.
 
I've got the same issue, but in my case the startup takes 15 or 20 seconds (5MB database). After disabling backups, it takes only 1 second to start :shock:
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, it looks like the backup code is too slow and becomes too slow when the file grows in size.
 
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