HELP! Large Version 6.1b Reports Use 100% CPU on PC

We work with some large sets of data in my company, 500,000 to a million records. We just upgraded to version 6.1b and even saving a simple table report with no variables or calculations and one tab with close to 500,000 records uses 100% CPU on my PC and the % saved never moves at all. I have version 5.1.6 on a really old PC behind me that is a total dog and I can run the same report in a few minutes and save it as a .rep in 1 minute but I’m having no luck at all with saving the report as 6.1b even on a one year old PC that is supposed to be twice as powerful as my PC. Has anyone else found this problem and a possible resolution?


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

This sounds like a memory issue. I’d try to boost up the memory on your machine. The old machine may be ‘older’ but it may have more memory.


indy (BOB member since 2004-04-08)

Thanks but I never had this type of problem with 5.1.6 reports that were 500,000 records so I’m shocked the version 6.1b would need so much additional memory. We also tried to run this report on someone else’s PC in our group who has a brand new supposedly twice as powerful PC and were seeing the same type of performance hit on the CPU and the % saved never moving. It only takes one minute to save this report in version 5.1.6 on a 5 year old PC.


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

That’s a bit of a swine. I reckon it would be worth your while recreating the report in 6.1b just to see…On the whole 6.1.b will be able to cope just as well as 6.1.b but there is always the exception. I think the report conversion process can sometimes ‘disable’ the newer version a bit - it has to work harder - my guess would be that the report saved in version 6 still retains a little bit of ‘I remember when I was version 5’ - if you see what I mean.


Nick Daniels :uk: (BOB member since 2002-08-15)

Nick, I had some user complaints so I decided yesterday to write a brand new 6.1b report that returns around 500,000 records and this report never wanted to save in 6.1b on anyone’s PC. So I created the exact same report in 5.1.6 on the awful test PC next to me and it saved in one minute with no problem. I just rewrote the report in 6.1b on my PC and closed all other software and moved to the spare PC. When I turned around right now BO had crashed on my PC with an unhandled exception error. Do you work with 500,000 row data sets in 6.1b? We are all on Windows 2000 OS in my company.

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Eeek! Well it’s a good test at least :? It’s okay on yours but not the test PC and similar ones are no good on various user PCs. Oooh, this could a bit of a git. Urmmm, have to say we don’t deal with volumes like that - but if you have to then that’s that. I assume you don’t have any flexibility for summarising?


Nick Daniels :uk: (BOB member since 2002-08-15)

We have users that actually need to work with these large amounts of data and if I have to tell them that 6.1b can’t handle 500,000 records they are going to start screaming for us to roll back to 5.1.6 which is probably totally impossible by now. They were mad when I told them that BO said 1 million was the breaking point for version 5.

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Wow :shock:

Comforting to know others have the same problem …
Can’t offer you a solution, but I’ve experienced the exact same thing!!
ver 5.1.6 to 5.1.8/6.1b
My company also generates reams and reams of data and I’m very familar with 100’s of 1000’s of rows of data in reports.

Techsupport has not been helpful … :cuss:

My workaround has been to dedicate certain pcs and servers in the ver 5.1.6 and run problematic reports on them.
:expressionless:

Tom


tomattm :canada: (BOB member since 2003-07-31)

Oh no, this is not what I wanted to hear today. :x What exactly has tech support’s response been to your case? What is largest number of records that you have been able to save in a report? What is your OS on the PCs? Are you running all client/server software? How are you handling keeping track of version 5 vs. version 6 reports? We are unfortunately a mostly ZABO shop with only 5 client server licenses left and my boss isn’t going to want to dedicate an entire server to running the old 5.1.6 ZABO for the users who want a half million row report.

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Is this a known problem with 6.1b/6.5 - that it can’t deal with 100,000’s of rows? We have a number of reports that generate in excess of 500,000 rows, some of which can’t be summarised due to the data in them - at present we’re on 5.1.5, which can cope, but we’re looking at moving to 6.x in the future - this would be a major sticking point.

Ann.


Rummers :uk: (BOB member since 2002-09-02)

I’m not having any luck with saving 400,000+ record reports on my PC in 6.1b but the same exact report created in 5.1.6 saves in 1 minute on a much older test PC right next to me. We are all on Windows 2000 SP4 so I don’t know if this issue is OS specific or not.

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Heather, did you open a ticket with Business Objects tech support?


Andreas :de: (BOB member since 2002-06-20)

Andreas, I opened a ticket yesterday and have answered some questions from tech support but so far I have received no useful information.

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Hi there,

I’m not sure if this will help… but it certainly worked for performance issues in 5.1.8

Add the following value to the registry:

New DWORD:
Named: Nicer
Value: 0
Path:
HKLM\Software\Business Objects\Suite 6.0\default\BusinessObjects\Busobj Configuration\BusinessReporter\

###Remember messing with the registry can cause big headaches###
oh and it’s completely unsupported :slight_smile:


Reporter Bloke :uk: (BOB member since 2004-05-20)

Oh and ask techsupport about Bug 1092933


Reporter Bloke :uk: (BOB member since 2004-05-20)

Thanks for the bug info, I took a look and this definitely sounds like my problem. Does anyone know anything else about this bug and if BO has any plans for a resolution in the near future?

Heather


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

Now you’ve got the bug number I’d get back to your tech support person, give them the number and see what they can find out for you. There is sometimes something on the bug list giving an indication…


Nick Daniels :uk: (BOB member since 2002-08-15)

I checked the buglist - unfortunately it has no pipe info - this is the bit where they might say to be fixed via a CSP etc. So I’d be interested to hear what you find out.


Nick Daniels :uk: (BOB member since 2002-08-15)

Nick, Thanks for the info. I escalated my case with tech support and let them know that it is related to this bug and that I need an update on the possibility of a fix with a time frame for it. My director is furious about this issue :reallymad: so I also contacted my sales rep to complain and to ask them to help us with getting a resolution. I don’t know what we are going to do in the interim to meet business needs for processes that need to run million record queries. I’m sitting here pulling out my hair and waiting for a call from my sales rep or a tech support manager at BO.


Heather Homestead (BOB member since 2002-08-19)

do they think that this bug is database specific or not? btw, what database are you running this against?


csievert :denmark: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)