Slow retrieval of assembly

We have about 8 Pro/E users working from a common network drive. No
Intralink (thank god).

Beginning last week, one user has found that retrieving an assembly or
assembly drawing went from about 30s to over 6 minutes. Nothing has
changed to my knowledge about the workstation or network drive.
Identically configured workstations retrieve the same files over the
network at normal speed. His computer has no other known issues.

I've sort of ruled out network issues since I can browse and 'dir' the
folders in question at normal speed. Our search.pro is used by all and
is reasonably well pared. I can't find anything new/relevant on PTC
KB.

He's running WF3 build F000. Some of us are running build M030, which
I'll try installing tomorrow, but I'm interested in any ideas where to
look and what to look for.

Dave

 

If all the other machines pull this file at a decent speed, then odds
are network hardware.

Put his machine on a different port on the switch, change his network
cable, and, if that doesn't fix it, swap his NIC for another users.
Make sure his network properties aren't throttling him to 10 baseT as
somethimes people switch their NIC properties by accident.

Make sure his working directory for trail files, swap, etc is on his
local machine.

Set 'trail delay' to be 300 seconds in config.pro.

How full is his local drive? if it's more than 75% is put in a bigger
one. Otherwise defrag it.

 

Thanks for the ideas John. This is definitely specific to his machine
- my workstation (identical in most ways) took 30s to pull an assembly
that took 6-1/2 min on his. I'll try retrieval on his workstation from
other computers on the network too - that should rule out most hardware
problems since we're on a switched LAN.

He defragged the driver over lunch; it's below 50% capacity. I'll also
clear out his trail files - I suspect he may have half a billion of
them.

I did have a little bit of time to check his network performance
outside of Pro/E, and it seemed to be 100% fine. But I will take
damaged hardware into account, but it seems odd that it would manifest
so intensely in one area (Pro/E retrieval) and not apparent in any
other way.

Dave

 

Okay, well, if you can copy / paste big files to & from your server at
the same sort of speed from this box as the others, then I guess that
validates your network. Could be worth comparing his config .pro with
yours & make sure his working directory isn't on the server?

 

Config.pro's are identical. We did a big file copy off the network
drive (as prep to run the model locally for comparison) and the network
utilization stayed at/above 10%.

I did the troubleshooter's cardinal sin and changed two things at once
- I moved some old trail files (he had trail.txt.560 to trail.txt.1500
in his startup directory on his hard drive, and a total of 2000 files
in that folder) and install WF3 build M030. Then things were back to
normal.

Due to the fact that build F000 was working nice and fast until last
week, I suspect it was the raw number of files on that local folder
causing the problem and the build update had no effect. I don't think
it matters anymore which one was causing the problem in any case.

Dave

 

Oh, and thanks for your help. I find it immensely helpful to have
another brain storming so as not to miss any big questions before the
troubleshooting gets detailed.

Dave