FAQ 706: Why is My Online Diary Running Slowly?

There are a number of reasons why this could be happening, so we will run through some of the possible causes and solutions below.

IF YOU’RE ONE OF OUR HOSTED CUSTOMERS…

Then the issue is almost always going to be your internet connection. When you are hosted, your database runs on our servers and your online diary runs on another server in the same network, so communication between the two is almost instant. If there were an issue at our end, we would be receiving lots of complaints. Fortunately, our servers are highly redundant and an outage is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY. They are even equipped with something called a Dark Fibre network, meaning every single component that is responsible for the internet connection has another identical component ready to jump into action should the first one fail for any reason. This is also the case with other components, even the air conditioning systems that keep the servers cool!

In short, even if there is an outage, we would be back up and running very quickly.

IF YOU HOST YOUR OWN DATA…

Internet Latency(Ping)/Speed

This is an easy one to overlook but is almost Always at the route of the issue. You may also have a good upload/download speed, but if the latency is slow the diary will struggle. To test the latency/ping speed, head to speedtest.net and run a test. We are primarily interested in the ping as highlighted below. (This is the time it takes for your network to send a request and receive a reply from the internet, so the lower it is, the better.) Anything over or near 100ms may start to cause issues. Upload/Download speeds are also important. We used one of our powerful servers for the example below, hence the high speeds, but anything above 5mbps should suffice.

Wireless connections ALWAYS have a higher latency (ping) than wired ones and we would strongly recommend that you DO NOT use a wireless connection for your server PC EVEN IF THE LATENCY/PING IS LOW IN YOUR TEST. The reason for this is that unlike a wired network, the ping speed of a wireless network can constantly be effected by other outside influences such as signal interference etc. Wireless networks are also at a higher risk of momentary drop-outs, which as a worst case scenario, could actually cause data loss in an application that runs over a network like ClinicOffice.

If you are seeing a ping greater than 100ms, or speeds slower than 5mbps even with a wired connection, then you will need to speak to your network provider.

Insufficient Hardware

This basically means that the PC you are using doesn’t have the power to run your database and the online diary connections all at the same time. You can check this by using the Windows Task Manager and looking at things like CPU, Memory and Disk Usage. As a general rule, if you’re seeing anything rise above 80% consistently, then this could be the issue.

The first thing to do would be to compare your PC specification with what we have listed on our website as the requirements for a Dedicated Server. (Half way down the page.)

Even if your PC has a Core i5 you should still be ok, but anything lower will create issues.

Antivirus

If you’re happy that your PC meets our requirements, then your virus scanner can often be the culprit as it runs away in the background, so it’s good practice to add ClinicOffice to the exclusions list. The process for this varies depending on what virus scanner you use but your IT support or indeed a quick Google should be able to help you through.

Providing you haven’t changed any of the default locations for ClinicOffice, then the file paths to add to the exclusions are as follows:-

C:\COv5_Data

C:\Program Files (x86)\Pioneer Software

C:\PGSQL

If you’re still having issues, then a good test would be to temporarily disable your virus scanner to see if this improves things. (Sometimes we have found that even while disabled, certain – even popular – virus checkers still interfere, so a full uninstall may be required.) 

Accessing From Another Country

This is one of the less likely causes but if you are trying to access the diary from a different country to that of where your server is located then speed will be an issue. Each time you click on something in the diary, your device has to make a request to your server, your server then has to process that request and then send it back again. The further the request has to travel, the longer it’s going to take.

This is why big online brands such as retailers/popular streaming services have servers located all over the world and you will be automatically connected to the closest one.

As always, if you have any questions with regards to the above, then please feel free to reply to this post.