Navigating a share is fine. Opening a file is slow.

DLEE · 03 Oct 2020

WINDOWS VERSION 1909 (OS BUILD 18363.1082)
I'M EXPERIENCING THE SAME PROBLEM AS THE THREAD BELOW WHICH WAS POSTED IN MID JANUARY OF THIS
YEAR. NOTHING ON THAT THREAD (NOW CLOSESD) SOLVED THE PROBLEM(S). TRIED A NUMBER OF POSSIBILITES
THE USUAL, VIRAL PROGRAMS, FIREWALL, WINDOWS SECURITY, ETC. NOTHING WORKED. I BELIEVE IT HAS SOMETHING
TO DO WITH INDEXING. ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. PEER TO PEER NETWORK CONFIGUTATION, THREE STATIONS, ALL WIN10 PRO SAME VERSION, ONE IS THE SERVER CONTAINS THE DATA). SERVER IS ALSO WORK STATION,
BUT PROBLEM EXISTS EVEN WITH NO APPS RUNNING ON THE SERVER.

Running Windows 10 Pro 1903. We have five systems, all running the same version of Windows. One acts as a 'data server' and has three internal drives. Drive 1 is for boot/system purposes only. The other two are used for data storage only and are shared as Data1 (L:) and Data2 (M:).

From my PC (and all others), I can navigate L: and M: fine in File Explorer - pop in and out of directories with no delay. But if I double-click on a PDF file, it will take about 20 seconds to open the file. Once Adobe Reader is up and running, however, double-clicking on subsequent files opens them immediately (about 1 second). This same behavior is seen in other apps (like Word) in which the initial file takes a long time to open, but once it is opened, other files open up right away. Once the app (Word, Reader, etc) is closed, the delay shows up again when I try to open something new. This also happens when simply starting a clean session of Word: Slow for the first doc. Fine for others after that. (Note: There is NO delay in opening a split Access database - the front end of which is stored on the C: drive.)

(Additional information: Copying a very small file (16kb) from a shared drive to my desktop introduces a pause - 10 seconds or so - at 99% progress before it finishes the task. Then, additional files (125MB) drag over right away - as in about 1-2 seconds. I waited about 15 minutes and tried it again and found the delay with the first file dragged again.

Yesterday, I disconnected from all shares and powered down my system. On the 'server', I created a new user, went into the sharing permissions, and added that new user with full control. I then powered up my system and mapped the drives to the shares, logging in with those new credentials. Everything worked as it should at that point: Initial opening of files was as fast as it should be. That was at 2pm yesterday. Today, everthing is fine until about 10am when the delay suddenly reappeared. And that's where I am now.

Anything obvious jumping out that I should look at? At one point - maybe a month ago - we weren't having these delays.

Thanks in advance,
John
Last edited by nhanimator; 17 Jan 2020 at 11:22.
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dalchina · 04 Oct 2020

To establish a point of reference: if you open a file on the same PC with those programs from scratch (i.e. no networking involved), how long does that take?

DLEE · 04 Oct 2020

To establish a point of reference: if you open a file on the same PC with those programs from scratch (i.e. no networking involved), how long does that take?

Files open quickly (1-2) seconds if the file is local. Does not matter if app is already open or not. Again if the open is across the network 15-20 seconds no matter how the file is opened. If a file is opened and then the app is minimized any subsequent files open and save quickly for that app as long as the minimized app with the open file stays open. The specific app must be open with a file, word, excel, adobe reader. etc.

Appears to be one of the stations. That workstation is the server where the data is located. In migrating sample data to the other stations and trying them as 'servers' files open normally. So one solution is to move the data to one of the other stations. However that does not get to the root of the problem on the current workstation/server. The problem might simply come back.

dalchina · 05 Oct 2020

I BELIEVE IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH INDEXING.

Presumably you have search indexing enabled on the 'server' PC.

I suppose you could conceive of a situation where indexing progresses whilst the server is in use- a new user is created and indexing (or something else?) starts and when complete or it hits some problem causes the delay.

Search indexing should normally not impact performance when all is well (it backs off with only a little activity).

Is indexing in fact complete? (Indexing Options). You could readily check if there's a difference in server response with indexing complete or not.

Clearly you can test this: e.g. under the new user, deselect most items indexed in Indexing options, run for the same period without indexing and see if any issue arises.

From an analytical point of view, you can capture all activity on your 'server' with MS's procmon (Process Monitor) - ideally this is done with as lttle as possible running, as the log can be huge - it includes all registry transactions and all process activity. Filters (technical) available.

Inspecting the log at the time when a slow response is experienced might show you some repeating pattern, which then has to be interpreted at a higher level of abstraction -> 'what is it and what do I do'.

Does the server's task manager show any difference in resource use when response is slow?

Consider disabling any security software for test purposes.

Check the disk(s). Hard Disk Sentinel (trial) - SSDs too- is great at providing really informative analysis (as it just did on another thread- where an indexing -related problem was reported).