Question Why oh why has my shared database slowed down?

[connexion]

I'm using Access 2003 over a 100Mb network.

The back end is about 100Mb and the front end is about 10Mb so nothing too big and they are compacted every few weeks to keep them trim.

When the back end isn't being shared it opens pretty much straight away over the network (about a second).

As soon as a user logs into the front end the back end takes about 8 seconds to open.

If you are logged in as the only user reasonably heavy searches return results in about 3 seconds but a very short time after another user logs in the same search takes about 8 seconds to run.

2 users sharing a database shouldn't be pushing anything to it's limits!

Recently I upgraded Symantec to Endpoint Protection and this seems relatively stable now. I would blame the drop in speed on that except to say the drop is only experienced when the back end is being accessed by more than one user.

Any ideas on what to look for anyone? "8 seconds isn't a long time to wait but it's a long time while you're waiting"! :banghead:

Vince

 

[jdraw]

You say this database has BE and FE. Tell us about the FE. Is there a separate FE for each user on their local PC?
Have you indexed your tables?

Have you been through this list

 

[connexion]

Hey jdraw that's a good list!
Well worth working through as it left me feeling like my indexing is pretty poor, even though up to now it's worked fine.

The users have copies of the front end on their local machines.

Occasionally I have created a new backend and pulled the existing backend through. The last time I did this it seemed a struggle, perhaps it caused a problem?

 

[jdraw]

Have users relinked to your modified BE tables? Is that automatic?
There are routines for relinking.

 

[connexion]

I've always doen this by relinking my own copy to the backend and then copying my front end onto the other users machines.