OD grinds to a halt

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JLM
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Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:52 pm

OD grinds to a halt

Post by JLM » Tue Apr 08, 2014 7:52 am

When my office manager runs the monthly production and collections report, no one else can do anything with OD for around 5 minutes while the report runs. We can't see the schedule, we can't treatment plan a filling, nothing.
When my receptionist runs Statements->MoreOptions->(calendar year date range) to give patients a yearly statement for taxes, it's the same thing.

The workstations are i3 windows 7, the server is a 6 core 3.5Ghz with 8G of memory on windows server 2008 that was built 2 weeks ago. The data is on mirrored 1T drives. I had the same symptoms when the server was an i3 with the data on SSD.
Other programs that use the network simultaneously are not having issues while OD is locked up.

We are a one DDS office with 5 treatment rooms and two receptionists.

Is this normal? Is there some tuning that can be done to mysql?


Jim Margarit

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jsalmon
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Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by jsalmon » Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:03 am

It's usually due to the query we wrote not being completely optimized (we might not have had the amount of data that you do when we wrote it, etc. etc.). Sometimes we can speed things up by adding an index to a column in MySQL. What version of Open Dental are you using? If it's a recent version, you can give us a call and we can grab a copy of your database and run it on our end so that we can find the culprit.

If you want to try and find the culprit yourself my best suggestion would be to "Log Slow Queries". Steps for that can be found on http://opendental.com/manual/troublesho ... wness.html. Once on, any queries that chew up your server's MySQL resources will get added to a log file within your data directory.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.

Jason Salmon
Open Dental Software
http://www.opendental.com

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drtech
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Location: Springfield, MO
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Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by drtech » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:14 pm

Hum...we don't every have slowdowns like that and we run those reports. Something must not be right in your database or something in your setup. I would let OD look at it with you. 25 workstations in our office. very little difference on the front end if I have it running on my backup dual core Phenom server or my six core Phenom II. Both are really very fast, although I am running speedy Ubuntu Linux and not windows server (which takes much more power).
David Fuchs
Dentist - Springfield, MO
Smile Dental http://www.887-smile.com

JLM
Posts: 128
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:52 pm

Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by JLM » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:59 pm

Great, thanks for the suggestions. I will turn on the slow queries logging. It also is possible that it is the network switch or even the network cable to the server is bad. Are there any inexpensive tools for evaluating network performance and errors?
Also, do you ever do complete index deletes and rebuilds? A common practice from my Paradox days...Even client/server databases could corrupt an index.

Jim Margarit.

JLM
Posts: 128
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:52 pm

Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by JLM » Tue Apr 08, 2014 2:05 pm

OK, found the db maintenance info. I will run that tonight after work.
Still curious how to dx network cabling issues...

Jim Margarit

dqadri
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Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by dqadri » Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:34 pm

There are a few simple techniques for evaluating network performance. Can you give me an idea of your setup? operating System? Specs on your server, your network switch, some clients?
--
Danish Qadri, DMD

Lake Family Dentistry
296 Lake Ave
Colonia, NJ 07067

JLM
Posts: 128
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Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by JLM » Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:31 pm

Server: amd fx6300 6 core processor 3.5G, Asus MB, 8G ram, gigabit lan, mirrored 1T drives running server 2008r2 in the form of windows 2011 home server
Switch: Trendnet 24 port gigabit switch
Client: i3,4G,win7 Home premium. (11 clients)

I have had cable failures that caused lots of dropped packets and resends but otherwise 'seemed fine'. I was wondering if there was software to do a torture test from point a to b and see if it was running at full efficiency. I wasn't sure that doing a simple multigig file copy would adequately test the connection.

Jim Margarit

JLM
Posts: 128
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:52 pm

Re: OD grinds to a halt

Post by JLM » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:50 am

Epilogue: Tech support remoted in and used the database maint functions to analyze the db, fix errors and optimize the DB. Reports that took 5 - 15 min now are instantaneous. Yay!

Thanks guys!

Jim Margarit

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