Flare 4 slower than Flare 3.1

Richard Ferrell · Post by **Richard Ferrell** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:17 am

If you are still having these issues, We do ask that you open a support request, This allows us to better track the issue, and try possible soloutions.

https://www.madcapsoftware.com/support/contact.aspx

help_dude · Post by **help_dude** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:39 am

[deleted post in attempt to stop the discussion from going further off track] please reply via PM if further discussion is necessary.
My apologies for any inconvenience. Thanks!

Post by **RamonS** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:55 am

And dropping obnoxious comments in public forums helps the situation how? Couldn't it just be that the various reports of slowness are due to very different reasons that are specific to the user's hardware and / or project? And often enough three Microsoft patch tuesdays or reboots later stuff works right. And since you went back to using version 3 there may no current information to tell if the problem still exists.
You should contact MadCap directly and inquire about the status. Although the support folks hang out in the forums from time to time (which is very uncommon in the software industry), this is still a peer-to-peer forum of Flare users. You are barking in a place where there isn't even a tree.

i-tietz · Post by **i-tietz** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:01 am

ts, ts, ts, ... hi there folks ...

@RamonS: I understand users being angry about performance. If you have a lot of work to do and time is running short people tend to get nasty because of yet another detail delaying their work. Not everybody has the time to produce a 4-digit-number of posts in not even 3 years time

(although I'm thankful for a few of them).
You might complain - and you do frequently - about Microsoft issuing patches every day, and that their software is rubbish. Why not be more tolerant with another user saying exactly that about Flare 4? And to say sth pro Microsoft: The DO issue patches, they learn and their software is improving almost permanently. I shudder thinking back to when I was working with Word 1.2 or 6 ...

@help_dude: This is only version 4 ... MadCap is learning too. They are permanently improving their software and have an excellent support

- especially compared to other sw companies.

I'm working in the IT business for more than 20 years now and I could tell horror stories about rotten software from Adobe, SAP, Oracle and IBM that I have been using for decades already ... and about their "support" ... and the fact that they don't seem to learn ... and the fact that they make the user feel like a nasty fly that needs to be kept at bay ... and about developers that run short off trying to get into the privileged health insurance for artists (we have sth like that here in Germany).

I'm sure MadCap will learn from this and find beta testers with less than high end hardware on their desks for the next version ...
Mind you - our QA department has that sort of "lesser" hardware in their testing lab and executes that sort of performance test with our software. In case they haven't got it yet: Maybe that would be a good start for the MadCappers to avoid sth like this for the next time?

Post by **RamonS** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:23 am

I do complain about Microsoft for not issuing patches for things known and proven to be broken since almost a year. Besides that, if Microsoft would spend as much money on QA as they do on marketing their products would indeed be better and leave less room for complaints.
The comment was that MadCap doesn't communicate with customers and does not update them on the status of things. I don't see Microsoft doing that, especially not through peer-to-peer forums. So rather than venting here contacting support with a case number is the more promising approach.
And my post count, for the most part it was a work necessity as the last two places I worked at were Flare shops, but for over a year now it is plain hobby. And there are several others with as many posts....

i-tietz · Post by **i-tietz** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:50 am

RamonS wrote:... is the more promising approach.

Ah, yes - as promising an approach as complaining about MS in a MC forum? Sometimes temper gets the best of us - YOU should know that ...
Flaming somebody else for sth you do yourself is definitely outside netiquette.

RamonS wrote:And there are several others with as many posts....

And how many of them have an opinion as "sharp" as yours and express it in these forums? Sorry to say - I didn't come accross a lot of provoking posts, but quite a few of them are from you. That's why I tried to intercept ... not with a lot of success, it seems.

I'm looking forward to those technical posts of your's that are rather excellent.

By the way - is there a netiquette list somewhere here? Would some MadCapper care to insert it, maybe in the FAQ?

Post by **RamonS** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:25 am

And I often get the heat for my posts as in this case. Just to point out the obvious: Flare as any other MadCap product is 100% Microsoft based and MadCap generally produces Microsoft-only solutions and only later amends them to work with other platforms/applications. That alone causes that any flaw in the underlying Microsoft products (namely DotNet and Windows) is inherited by the MadCap products. So complaining about the shortcomings of these Microsoft products is not as detached from the MadCap products as you make it sound. I often criticize MadCap for the Microsoft only approach. I have my theory as to why they went that way, but the problem is that this choice in several cases does not include the best-of-breed technology available. Being that tightly bound to Microsoft products as Flare is causes that the Microsoft problems in Windows/TFS/Word/DotNet are becoming Flare problems. That shows when the recommended way to counter a problem is to reinstall the DotNet runtime....

Post by **SteveS** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:27 pm

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I think its time to take this part of the discussion off the forum and into the confort of your own homes (or email addresses)...

bbuchko · Post by **bbuchko** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:58 am

@help_dude: I know from experience that you need to present a legit case before companies are willing to spend money to fix problems. I'm sure Richard just meant that submitted tickets provide a lot more compelling evidence than a 6-page thread where half of the posts are gurus and techs offering suggestions and the other half is partly composed of multiple posts by the same users. I know it's frustrating, but 4.0 has only been out for about 2 months; I'm confident they'll be updating it to make it faster and more stable soon.

Personally, I'm thrilled with the level of support MadCap offers and with their responsiveness in general.

KevinDAmery · Post by **KevinDAmery** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:45 am

To add to Bob's point, it's one thing to know that a problem exists, but it's another thing altogether to have isolated when and how it happens. I know that Madcap is commited to finding and fixing issues, but I also know that they aren't large enough to have armies of testers working on fleets of systems that let them reproduce every possible scenario. Any concrete information that user's can provide them will help in isolating the exact cause of the problem. This is especially important in a problem like this one that seems to affect some users very badly but not affect other users at all. Yes, it's a real issue, but since it isn't happening across the board it's harder to nail it down.

(my $0.02 after putting on my software tester hat.)

Richard Ferrell · Post by **Richard Ferrell** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 9:55 am

We are very seriously looking into this issue, and that is why we are asking everyone to open a support ticket, this allows us to better narrow down the issue. We want to fix this as soon as possible need everyone's help.

https://www.madcapsoftware.com/support/contact.aspx

Gary Niemen · Post by **Gary Niemen** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:27 am

Just an update: Demonstrated our Flare 4.0 responsiveness issues to MadCap support the other day - shared screen and phone. We had a good session. It seems that the problem has been slightly narrowed down to "Flare 4.0 working over a network". There was also an issue with the debug version not disabling the text renderer.

forfear · Post by **forfear** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:13 am

Richard Ferrell wrote:We are very seriously looking into this issue, and that is why we are asking everyone to open a support ticket, this allows us to better narrow down the issue. We want to fix this as soon as possible need everyone's help.

https://www.madcapsoftware.com/support/contact.aspx

Here's a possible solution...just tried yesterday.
Check and make sure that
- .NET Framework 3.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 2.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 3.5 is installed.

After i installed it...i haven't had the massive big performance problems i had experienced as before. I discovered .NET Framework 3.0 was not installed when i tried the ZIp and Email project feature and i got a small notice that .NET Framework 3.0 .
So I got it from Madcap Software downloads section and so far things have been better.

After I did that..Flare worked much better overall...ie. the XML editor was a wee bit more responsive, no more gradual slowdown i think. There are some other mini bugs but not that big compared to the slowdown i had.. So ppl..if this solution works...please pin it..and make it known...please please make it known.

Previously i had .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.5. I thought .NET Framework 3.5 was inclusive of .NET Framework 3.0. apparently not. So give it a shot...and let's see what the community says.

my computer was a fresh installation.

Nonetheless

Telemarker · Post by **Telemarker** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:58 am

forfear wrote:
Richard Ferrell wrote:We are very seriously looking into this issue, and that is why we are asking everyone to open a support ticket, this allows us to better narrow down the issue. We want to fix this as soon as possible need everyone's help.

https://www.madcapsoftware.com/support/contact.aspx
Here's a possible solution...just tried yesterday.
Check and make sure that
- .NET Framework 3.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 2.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 3.5 is installed.

I just installed the .NET Framework 3.5 too (I had the .NET Framework 3.0 installed already) and there is indeed a speed increase. I'll have to wait and see if the speed drops off as the day wears on, but the general impression is positive.

Nice tip forfear, thanks for sharing that.

help_dude · Post by **help_dude** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:26 am

forfear wrote:Here's a possible solution...just tried yesterday.
Check and make sure that
- .NET Framework 3.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 2.0 is installed.
- .NET Framework 3.5 is installed.

I saw this post and got excited. I noticed that I didn't have 3.5 installed (didn't know it was out). So, I installed it. Sadly, no change.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.
I have the following .NET Frameworks installed:
- .NET Framework 1.1
- .NET Framework 1.1 Hotfix (KB928366)
- .NET Framework 2.0
- .NET Framework 3.0
- .NET Framework 3.5

Potential good news though. I understand that Flare 4.1 is due out in about a month or so. This is supposed to address this issue. Can't wait to use all the cool v.4 functionality again!

Gary Niemen · Post by **Gary Niemen** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:05 am

Unfortunately, didn't solve it for me.

Richard Ferrell · Post by **Richard Ferrell** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:47 am

For anyone who is having slowness issues can you try the following to see if corrects the issue.

On the main menu â€“ Click [Project] -> [Add Page layout] -> Choose Default.flpgl -> name it anything and click the ADD button.
Click Back on [Project] -> [Project Properties] -> Defaults Tab.
Set the [master Page layout:] to the new layout you just created above.
Click OK.

Hopefully this will correct the slowness issues, Let us know if this works for you!

help_dude · Post by **help_dude** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:35 am

Richard Ferrell wrote:For anyone who is having slowness issues can you try the following to see if corrects the issue.
-On the main menu â€“ Click [Project] -> [Add Page layout] -> Choose Default.flpgl -> name it anything and click the ADD button.
-Click Back on [Project] -> [Project Properties] -> Defaults Tab.
-Set the [master Page layout:] to the new layout you just created above.
-Click OK.
Hopefully this will correct the slowness issues, Let us know if this works for you!

I tried it. But regretfully, it didn't work for me.
My bug number is 23549 "slowness problem with Flare v.4.0," in case you want to track my particular issue against this procedure.

P.S. It's reassuring to see you guys seriously addressing this! Thanks Richard!

Gary Niemen · Post by **Gary Niemen** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:17 pm

Shockingly, amazingly - this little fix seems to have worked for us. I am hesitant to say it - but I think we might now be able to start using Flare 4.0.

Richard Ferrell · Post by **Richard Ferrell** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:46 pm

If the above mentioned workaround does not work, then this maybe addressed in an upcoming service release for Flare.

forfear · Post by **forfear** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:23 am

Gary Niemen wrote:Shockingly, amazingly - this little fix seems to have worked for us. I am hesitant to say it - but I think we might now be able to start using Flare 4.0.

am so glad it helped!

It worked for us...only thing now that i am working with one mega project, and global project imports, with projects stored in source control...compilation takes much much longer. When a target is built Analyzer and the Build process work concurrently together, each Import copies items into the master project repeatedly whilst the compilation tries to keep up as well each time..the hard disk gets a good work out. the output is great but the process is long.

Telemarker · Post by **Telemarker** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:02 am

Richard Ferrell wrote:For anyone who is having slowness issues can you try the following to see if corrects the issue.

On the main menu â€“ Click [Project] -> [Add Page layout] -> Choose Default.flpgl -> name it anything and click the ADD button.
Click Back on [Project] -> [Project Properties] -> Defaults Tab.
Set the [master Page layout:] to the new layout you just created above.
Click OK.

I noticed a small increase in speed... nothing like the gain from disabling the GDI+ text rendering or installing the .NET Framework 3.5, but it's dong its part to bring things up to a reasonable level of usability.

The only drawback for me is that it's not a 'global' fix, I really need one that's in place when I start Flare and stays there for the next time I start a project. As I'm currently working on updates to around 40 projects, the time/effort required to remember to go through all the hoops to get Flare to run quick enough almost outweighs any speed increase!

Thanks for the tip and for keeping us up to date with things Richard.

jessemds · Post by **jessemds** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:32 am

WOW!

I installed the new dot net (3.5). That didnt make a difference. Then I did the following:

On the main menu â€“ Click [Project] -> [Add Page layout] -> Choose Default.flpgl -> name it anything and click the ADD button.
Click Back on [Project] -> [Project Properties] -> Defaults Tab.
Set the [master Page layout:] to the new layout you just created above.
Click OK.

That made all the difference. Amazing...

BTW, Flare was only slow when accessing a project from a mapped network drive, shared from a Win 2008 server. Locally everything has always been fast enough

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