BCM 2007 unresponsive refresh every 5-10 seconds

[dima]

Hello,

BCM database residing on a SBS 2003 server (dual HT Xeons, 4 GB of RAM) with
Exchange 2003. BCM database created using the BCM Database Admin Tool. The
database is approximately 800 MB in size. On the client side, we have Outlook
2007 with BCM running on a Windows Vista Ultimate laptop (Core 2 Duo
Centrino, 2 GB of RAM). The user in question has a 600 MB Exchange mailbox,
and is also connected to the BCM database on the server. 1 Gbps internal
network.

With this setup, aside from Outlook being unbearably slow in general, one
particular issue is occurring on a regular basis. When in the "Business
Contacts" section of BCM in Outlook, the list of contacts keeps automatically
refreshing itself every 5-10 seconds. CPU usage spikes up to 10% as a
consequence during every such refresh. The user is unable to scroll down the
list of contacts and stay there, as every time the list refreshes, it goes
back up to the top. Furthermore, Outlook becomes completely unresponsive at
the peak of each refresh. So, for example, when typing an email message, the
text lags behind and appears on the screen between spikes. Very annoying.

The same refreshing happens when in "Business History" section of BCM. It
does NOT seem to happen when in the "Accounts" section, which contains
considerably less contacts.

Launching Outlook with the "/safe" flag make this problem disappear, while
maintaining full BCM functionality (as far as I could tell). In fact, the
"/safe" flag make the entire Outlook program much more responsive. Other than
that, I have no idea what might be causing this bizarre behaviour, or how to
fix it.

Thanks for any help!

 

[dima]

Can anyone help?

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

I have limited expertise to contribute to any helpful answer but I too am
very curious to read more about the described conditions above.

-THP

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Dima:

I would check the synchronization schedule. I'm not in front of a PC right
now that has a shared offline database to detail the commands, but there is
a dialog that defines how often a client will try to synch with the master
database. If you're on an airplane, it might try but can't connect. If
you're on a LAN, it will perform a synch every 5-30 minutes, or you can set
it for Manually.

Let us know if that helps, please.

Thanks,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com

 

[Luther]

Dima:

I would check the synchronization schedule. I'm not in front of a PC right
now that has a shared offline database to detail the commands, but there is
a dialog that defines how often a client will try to synch with the master
database. If you're on an airplane, it might try but can't connect. If
you're on a LAN, it will perform a synch every 5-30 minutes, or you can set
it for Manually.

Let us know if that helps, please.

Thanks,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104www.pinpointtools.com











- Show quoted text -

Launching Outlook /safe will disable all add-ins, including BCM's. The
BCM MAPI store should still work, and the BCM folders show up, but the
BCM menu and forms will be absent.

 

[Nanjuan(MSFT)]

It is possibly caused by the Email auto linking running in the background.
You can reduce the impact of this by going to manage email auto linking and
unselect the email addresses that don't link auto linking.

 

[dima]

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, I'm still experiencing this issue.

Lon: The synchronization schedule you mentioned applies to offline database
settings, so I'm afraid it won't help much. I'm always working from the
shared database, and the offline database is disabled.

Nanjuan: I tried disabling auto-linking by unchecking all email addresses
and folders in the dialog, but the problem is unaffected, and is still there.

It looks like Outlook is constantly reading from the shared database over
the network. The network activity in Task Manager spikes up slightly during
each interval, and the Vista Reliability and Performance monitor shows
OUTLOOK.EXE continuously connected to the database server and
sending/receiving data.

Would any SQL Server settings have an effect on any of this?

So far the only way to work around this has been to either launch Oulook in
safe mode, or disable the BCM COM Add-in in the Trust Center (which
effectively does the same thing).

Thanks guys,

 

[dima]

Alright. It looks like the issue has been solved. The problem went away after
the "Offline Files" feature of Windows Vista was disabled.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Thanks Dima... Could you expand on Offline Files in Vista -- where is that
and what does it do?

Lon

--
___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com

 

[dima]

Hi Lon,

Please see the following:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/93a550df-34cd-4497-85d0-8732602f59591033.mspx
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/02ecf57a-fa36-40be-a5c2-907f51cda1fe1033.mspx

Thanks,

 

[dima]

Another link:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/bb819260-0fdc-4003-bc23-04beac2108bd1033.mspx

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Thanks Dima... did you have the PST/OST file or BCM's MDF file as one of the
ones that synched offline? Or, did just the fact that you had "some" files
setup as offline make this happen?

Thanks,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com

 

[dima]

Hi Lon,

I'm quite sure that it was just the fact that Offline Files were enabled,
period. We did not make any individual files specifically available offline.
Vista was pre-installed with the laptop, and the Offline Files setting had
never been touched prior to this issue. After that, the normal process of
installing Outlook+BCM 2007 just defaulted to having that particular problem,
which was fixed by disabling Offline Files in Vista altogether.

Hope this helps.

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

dima,

Sounds kind of like a surprise situation whereby you just bought a brand new
house from a Microsoft Vista developer and they left the all the plumbing
fixture's faucet valves to your new house open by default. Once you moved in
you noticed all that water kept running down the drain until you had to go
and turn them off manually to end the leaks!

3 cheers for Vista!

-THP