MadCap Software Forums

Yay! I've been screaming for a 64 bit version for a year or two. Now that I have it, Flare ran very slowly on first use right after install. Cursor lagging, 10 - 15 second delays. So, I thought it was Windows 10 Enterprise.

THE SOLUTION: I ran the Compatibility Troubleshooter on the Compatibility tab in the desktop icon's property dialog. (Right click the desktop icon.)

It's getting better, different, but better!

Buck the Tech Writer

Love

I haven't noticed any UI speed differences between Flare 11 and Flare 12, but I have a decently powerful machine. (Intel Core i7, gen 4 processor with 16GB ram running Win 8.1 Pro and a 500 GB SSD)

My Flare 12 installation is positively glacial. The mouse cursor is jerky (with big delays in response), and response to button presses can be measured in seconds. I'm just about ready to go back to using 11.

Could the problem be that 11 is still installed? I'd hate to have to uninstall it only to reinstall if that wasn't the problem...

My PC is a server-class Dell Precision T-3500 with a 2.67 GHz Xeon multicore processor. RAM is 8GB. I'm running Win 7 Pro with the latest MS patches.

Any ideas?

I'm running windows 10 with similar specs. After I ran the compatibility troubleshooter and used Flare for several minutes, Win10 finally determined the settings: Win8 emulation or something like that.

BobB

doc_guy wrote:I haven't noticed any UI speed differences between Flare 11 and Flare 12, but I have a decently powerful machine. (Intel Core i7, gen 4 processor with 16GB ram running Win 8.1 Pro and a 500 GB SSD)

I had my IT folks boost my RAM from 8 GB to 12, which seems to have helped some.

Larry

So you have noticed a slow down? (Sorry I just scrolled up and noticed your post.)

I have a lenovo Xexon processor 4x4 processor, 12 GB RAM, 1TB SSD hard drive, and Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit. And yes, all the mousing and everything is jerky. The support folks have yet to reproduce the problem. I reported it day one.

The only thing that fixed it (by my hand) was:

1. Pin the Flare desktop icon to the taskbar.
2. Over the taskbar, open the properties for the Flare 12 icon.
3. Select the Compatibility tab.
4. Click the Compatibility Troubleshooter button.
5. Click the open the program button and use Flare 12 for up to or longer than an hour. (The more you use it, the better it can find problems.)
6. Save the Compatibility changes. It should run smoothly.
7. You might need to run the compatibility troubleshooter more than once or anytime Flare 12/64 performance slows.

This is their first attempt at a 64 bit release. There were bound to be issues.

Please open a trouble case with Flare support. They need to know another user has duplicated the error.

lgrinnell wrote:I had my IT folks boost my RAM from 8 GB to 12, which seems to have helped some.

Larry

OMG (and other explitives)!

I was running 32 bit ghost script. It never crossed my mind. At this point, Flare 12/64 bit is running normally without compatibility tweaking after installing gs 64 bit.

Still, however, the Flare install program should detect and warn about 32 bit gs and not try to use it. Basically ignore it.

So my fellow Flarians, should you experience slow downs running Flare 12/64. Ensure you are running GhostScript 64bit. Google "Ghost Script 64 bit."

Buck the Tech Writer

Love

Hi,

I'm evaluating Flare at the moment and v12 runs extermely slow for me (win 7 , 64, RAM 8G).
The project is pretty big but it's ok in v11.
Have to continue with v11 until this is resolved.
Hmm

BR,
Petr.

One of my coworkers and I are having all kinds of problems with this version. It freezes, crashes, lags... I switch back to Flare 11 wherever possible, but unfortunately we have enough Flare 12 features implemented that this isn't possible very often.

We both tried the Troubleshoot Compatibility tool, but we're on Windows 7 and the best compatibility mode it can offer for us is Windows XP (Service Pack 2). It runs a little faster in that mode, but I can't save the fixes because XP is not a supported OS. I've started opening Flare 12 through the Troubleshoot Compatibility tool every time because it's better than nothing. I really hope to see some improvements in the performance of this version soon. It's been a huge hindrance to productivity so far. Modifying page layouts in particular has been a nightmare.

jane-tron, might the 32 bit Ghostscript issue be the cause?

Also meeting considerable performance issues that were not present in v10. Flare process CPU increases hugely during even typing, up to 80% if I type fast enough. Mouse laggy, opening/closing stylesheet/topics laggy, missed clicks.

Analyzer stuff was already disabled, and I'm not using source control nor GhostScript.

I didn't have any problem with my installation like that. I guess, I'm lucky.

Now, with the 2016-R2 release there apparently was a slight performance enhancment and now, for me the software seems to run as fast as the former version 11.
Before that with the early version 12 (64 bit) the switching between ribbons took seconds and when entering a text it was displayed on the srceen several seconds after typing.
That was quite frustrating and I could not image the performace of a serious project with hundreds of topics, snippets, variations, images, etc.

Now all is fine again

Kai

I'm on the latest version (r2) and the slowness is unbearable. In fact, it's a pleasure to be typing on this forum because the characters can at least keep up with what I'm typing! I've reported this to Support and they've provided a number of things to check, download, etc. I've done all of that but the program continues to be virtually unusable.

I'm a new user working on a virtually new project, so this is not an issue with a project being too large.

There must be some hardware compatibility or something, because if it was this way for everyone, I can't see how anyone would use Flare. It can't keep up with my typing, or my double-click selects or virtually anything else.

Performance improves slightly when the Styles window is closed, but that just takes it from unusable to horrible.

If anyone has any ideas that Support doesn't know about, I'd love to hear them.

This is an Intel i5 machine running 2.2Ghz with 16GB of RAM. Intel(R) Iris(TM) Graphics 5100. No updates pending.

Nothing else is going on in the background.

I was experiencing the same issues recently with Flare 2016 r2 and Lingo 10. Running the Compatibility troubleshooter on both the applications made a massive difference in the time it was taking to export/build. Thanks to Buck the Tech Writer's suggestion in this forum!

Nope. Compatibility troubleshooter worked once. I'll try again when Lingo has finished exporting a Flare project in a couple of days ....

Hello,

The Compatibility Troubleshooter didn't fix this for me. I've been having the same problem - Flare 11 worked just fine, then Flare 12 and r2 (2016) got twitchy, and Flare 2017 now is almost unusable. All on the very same repositories and content. I removed all the satellite Flare tools (Contributor, etc.) and uninstalled Ghostscript as a first step.

I am running a powerful Dell machine - Windows 7 64 bit, with 16 gigs of RAM etc.
I am really considering going back to Flare 11 - it is just ridiculous that after paying that much money for a Flare licence there would be such fundamental performance issues and no solution for such a long time.

I've got other heavy programs running on the same machine without a problem.

Has any one managed to resolve it yet?

Cheers,
Vozd

Hi,
I'm also having problems. In the past couple of days it's become impossibly slow. I've tried everything people have suggested:
- compatibility troubleshooting
- disabling autosuggestion, xml editor, analyzer, auto reload
- cleaned my output folders
- deleted the analyzer
- opened a test project without source control - same problem
- deactivated all antiviruses
nothing! and since doing all these things it's only become worse.
IT have tried everything they can.
I'm going to try and uninstall...
If anyone in the meantime has found a solution,please let me know!
Thanks in advance

Problem solved!
I reinstalled Flare a couple of times and nothing changed.
Then in Madcap Flare properties I deselected the Compatibility Mode for Windows 8 and everything is back to normal.
I hope this helps anyone else having the same problems.

For me, 64-bit Ghostscript solved the problem.

I thought I had the right version of Ghostscript, but I must have just updated the 32-bit version.

Windows Compatibility had no impact.

So one person said use compatibility checker - which sets Flare to be compatible with Windows 8

Then someone else said they have success when they turn that off.

Hmm, guess I can try both but that's confusing!

Also installed 64-bit ghostscipt - hope it just installs over the 32-bit one, if it's there, 'cos I don't see any info here on how/where to find it and no search results on my laptop.

thanks for the tips, lots of stuff to try but too bad I need to
super-slow, to the point of unusable

If your version of Flare has just now become slow, there are two things that come to mind immediately based on recent comments/experience:

• - Nita Beck found that the Fall Creator's update caused a significant amount of lag. She solved this by rolling back the update.

• - My coworker does not have the Fall Creator's update, but was also suddenly seeing a lot of lag. After 4+ hours on the phone with support, he solved this by installing the 32-bit version of Flare instead.

Hopefully one of these will help!

sorry, but how to 'roll back the update'?

Flare doesn't usually accommodate this so wonder how that's done?

cayennep wrote:sorry, but how to 'roll back the update'?

Flare doesn't usually accommodate this so wonder how that's done?

Roll back the Windows Fall Creators Update, if you have it. Not anything in Flare. All Flare versions seem to be similarly incompatible with that Windows update.

ah, sent off a support ticket mentioning this as it wasn't specified that it was windoze, not flare.

however, after _much_ digging (none of the answers on the web match what I see in the UI, there's no rollback option), I found the kb number and don't seem to have it installed.

next step, I guess, is to try the 32-bit version of flare