Main Menu Command Button "Ghosting" issues

[Johnrg]

Hi There,

We are getting a database developed in Access 2010 and have been plagued with "ghosting " issues from the main menu command buttons.

The developer cannot replicate this in his sytem and can't explain why it is happening or seem to come up with a definite fix. As he refines the code in each form the issue gets better but it never really goes away and is quite bad in one of our main forms in the DB that does lots of despatch processing for us.

The DB has been designed to open in a main menu with command buttons to open forms. These are hidden in the background when forms are opened but in some/alot of the forms, when we choose a command button function that runs alot of code, updates tables etc we quite often get "ghosting" from these main command buttons on the main menu. If the mouse is somewhere near where a command button is on the main menu it becomes visable over the top of the form we are working in. If you move the mouse, two, three main menu buttons can appear. The function usually runs ok and the "ghost" buttons disappear at the end of it, but they can appear for a couple of seconds while code happens and tables update.

We have tried every screen setting under the sun but nothing seems to fix it.

The only thing we seem to be able to track this issue towards is that it DOES NOT happen in newer PC's running windows7 but only seems to happen on PC's running XP, office 2002, 2003 etc. These are most of our PC's unfortunatlly.

The backend is on a seperate drive on the main server and we get the issue using runtime and the full version of access 2010.

Can anyone help, has anyone every seen this issue?. Both our programmers say they have never heard of it before, or seen it in Access.

Its getting a bit frustrating to be honest!

Any direction would be great.

Thanks
JohnG

 

[vbaInet]

I think it's more of a network issue than an Access thing. It just sounds like there's not enough resources during the Repaint process hence some lagging is experienced. Just a hunch.

How is the network speed? Are you using a terminal to connect to some machines?

 

[Johnrg]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply.

I think that our connection with the front ends and back end is pretty good. For example my PC, that has these ghosting issues is connected at 1GB to the main server.

I also run a test front end direct on the server. It sits in the same "host" folder as the backend and I access this session via remote desktop from different locations and different PC's to test, so all I am seeing is screen shots really. The server is a XP machine and these remote sessions have the exact same ghosting issues I see when running the frontend on my PC. My thinking is that this would mean it can't be a network or speed issue if both files are in the same location, the repainting, if any should be super fast.

I know alot of the screen "painting" has been turned of to try and reduce bad screen update flicker we are also getting in the forms.

I think it is a "terminal" server, but thats a bit beyond me what difference that would make if the connection speed is good.

Seems strange that the windows 7 PC's don't have this issue if its a speed issue. I suppose they are newer/faster however so that would help but its does explain why the remote session direct on the server ghosts as well. If its speed related this should be the best performing of them all.

Anything else anyone can reccomend to look at or check.

Thanks

JohnG

 

[vbaInet]

It still sounds like a network issue, but perhaps not speed related. Win 7 have dual processing so that's probably why they seem to handle it seemlessly.

Have you tried a direct LAN connection to the server? No terminal services, no remote connection.

 

[Johnrg]

Thanks for the reply.

I think you mis-understand our remote connection.

In this case BOTH the frontend and backend are stored on the server, in the same drive, so there is no physical "connection" required.

The database runs a little quicker but we STILL get the ghosting problem in this example.

Surely this rules out a network or speed issue when the problem still occurs when the database is set up and running this way (frontend and backend in the SAME drive on the SAME server)? unless I am missing something here?.

Again, the commom denominator seems to always be XP machines.

Thanks

Anyone got any other ideas?

JohnG