Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Why is 8.2.2 slow and how do we fix it?

I have been using version 8.2.2 now for a week. Fortunately, the upgrade went smoothly on my peer-to-peer network, both on my main computer (i7/Win 8.1 Pro) and 12 clients (most i3 or i5/Win 7 Pro or 8.1 Pro), all with gigabit network cards. I have not had the major slowdown issues that others have described, although open/close windows is a bit slower. Nothing like the 5-6 seconds though that others have posted. So I consider myself fortunate, and appreciate the great job the tech staff member did efficiently upgrading my office.

However I find it very irksome that, as with most AC updates, there are a number of new bugs associated with the update. Jon has started a different thread about these, but my staff and I wonder why with every AC update there are new issues that affect workflow. Why, for instance, does the cursor and template text now fly down to the bottom of the window after each template is inserted? Why do the lot numbers and VIS dates of immunizations now have to be retyped after the same vaccine is recorded? Why does the order of messages in the Message box now reversed? It is inconceivable to me that part of the certification process for updates doesn't include stepping through each of these basic tasks before the version is released.

Most new applications have bugs when a new version comes out. I just think it happens more often with AC. Not sure the code base is as perfect as say Office or Adobe. And, it seems that every major upgrade 6 to 7 to 8 always has to be rushed out due to some deadline.

Compare that with Microsoft Office. 2013 was released in October 2012. Office 2016 is projected to be released at the end of 2015. That's over three years to get it right. And, knowing Microsoft, it will likely be early 2017 to get it out. There is no government mandate that Microsoft Office PowerPoint be used meaningfully. So, they can go through the proper alpha, beta process. Given 8.0 had to be put out quickly, then 8.2 had to fix everything previously. Now it is slow, so 8.2.3 has to be put out quickly. It will fix the slowness (we hope) and fix the bugs you are referring to (we hope), but the new code will ultimately bring out new bugs.

Also, while it isn't completely fair to compare AC to Microsoft, Apple or Adobe; most of us don't use Word quite as much as AC. I think it is fair to say that on a given workday, the number of hours the providers and staff spend using AC is significantly higher than on other applications, so you will find the bugs and notice them more.

It would be great to just hear once that AC is working on version 9, which should be out in January 2016, and the only reason for the new version is for increased functionality and correction of most issues.

Hello,

I have tested AC over a 3 month period to find out why the chart closing is so slow. It has to do with the way the account data is indexed through SQL, and they are not actively working on the issue as far as I know.

During my testing I found only one thing that sped the process up-- CPU clock speed. I installed the fastest hard drives, network, memory, etc.. I got a linear increase in speed as I sped up the CPU. The number of cores is completely irrelevant to the speed of sign off. I started off with an HP server with 2 CPUs and total of 16 cores running at 1.8 GHz clock speed. Some of my long term clients with a lot of encounters took up to 60 seconds to close. When you hit Sign Off or the Accounts Tab and watch the performance monitor, only a single thread of a single core will be maxed out. Thus, raw clock speed is all that matters.

This is generally not desirable on a server, but I liquid cooled the AC server and have the CPU overclocked at 4.6GHz and the speed increase was incredible. I also essentially made "Gaming Rigs' for all of the client computers in the office. So, at the end of the day, I assembled 13 computers by hand and it works great. You can't really buy overclocked computers for office work. They always have expensive graphics cards and are very large for small office desks. Good Luck

Dr. Joe from Arizona

That has always been the case for SQL Express. See my earlier post:


Are you using hard drives or solid state drives?

How does the speed compare to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiikIJSwlB0

I'm on 6.3.3 and have not wanted to upgrade. However, I will have to upgrade for ICD-10. I am considering buying new hardware, as I believe my 'server' is running a core-2-duo and dates from 2009. Yes, it is still working fine with version 6. Any suggestions on the hardware? (Opens can of worms)

I'm using an 18 ssd drive RAID 10 array with Areca 12Gb/sec specs. I also upgraded to full version of SQL with absolutely no improvement. The speed on this system does not change even when I used a 4 drive RAID 5 array or even a single SATA drive hooked to the motherboard. The speed problem is with the database indexing or the way the application interfaces with SQL. I just don't have to patience to grind through the process of optimizing the thing for them. Mine runs quite fast and they will eventually get it fixed.

Yes, I have the sa password from Amazingcharts, and no I won't give it away. I was entrusted with it a long time ago to help with a problem with a much earlier version of AC.

Or with the way it caches data.

I have the password. I'll give it away.

well RRHC that info may likely stop my consideration of new hardware and maybe consider a new EMR instead, getting close to time to storm the bastille; what is the email addresses of the CEO of AC and Pri-Med

See PM.

RRHC, what CPU are you using that's overclocked?

I need an 18 SSD RAID....

^Single PCI-E SSD will match the IOPS without the controller overhead.

As a followup:
It's also a pretty risky configuration. RAID 10 provides a single drive fault tolerance per subset. Essentially, with an 18 drive RAID 10, you have 9 sets of 2 drives. Each pair of drives in operating in RAID 1. Then the 9 sets are operating in RAID 0. If two drives in the same set fail, you lose the entire array.

1A/1B = Pair 1
2A/2B = Pair 2
...
9A/9B = Pair 9

If you were to lose 2A and 2B, everything is gone. I would advise people against it unless you have taken the risk into account.

Just upgraded to version 8.2.4 on the cloud today.
Time to open charts has gone from about 4 seconds to 2-3 seconds or less.
Time to close charts has gone from 3-4 seconds to instantaneous.
Big improvement, I'm happy to report.

Michael Jacobson
NYC

Sounds like everyone is going to get differing speeds. I have been using 8.2.4 with no difference.

Intel 4790K running 4.8 GHz with water cooling. Over time you have to drop the clock. The processor seems to age faster. You can also set single core performance much higher than multicore to get much higher speeds without overheating.

I know about the RAID issues but I have backups running during the day incrementally through SQL backup. You don't need this level of hard drive performance. It didn't help with the speed. A RAID 5 or 6 SSD works great.

Would you by change be willing to give up that sa password. We're migrating to Athena and need to get a copy of the database to migrate the database.

You don't need the sa password for that. All you have to do is shutdown the Amazing Charts SQL Server instance and copy the database files to another computer then mount the database under that computer's copy of SQL Server 2012 or 2014 Express/Standard.

Note that if you use SQL 2014, it will upgrade the database files to the new 2014 format so you will not be able to use them in previous versions of SQL again.

JamesNT