A healthy PCLaw system is quick. If time entries lag, reports take minutes or the screen freezes when you save, something specific is wrong and it can be found. Start by narrowing it down.
Narrow it down first
Three questions point to the cause:
- Is it slow for everyone, or one person? One person means their computer or their connection. Everyone means the server, the network or the database.
- Is everything slow, or one task? If only one report or one screen is slow, look at the data behind it.
- When did it start? Slowness that began on a particular day usually follows a change: a Windows update, new antivirus, a new server, an upgrade.
Causes on the network
Wi-Fi. PCLaw workstations should be on a wired connection. A file-based database over Wi-Fi is slow at best, and a dropped connection in the middle of posting is a common cause of damaged data.
VPN straight to the office server. Running PCLaw on a home computer with the data back at the office, over a VPN, is the most frequent cause of "PCLaw is unusable from home". The right way to work remotely is remote desktop, or a hosted desktop, so that PCLaw runs beside its data and only the screen travels over the internet.
Old or failing network equipment. A single bad switch or cable can slow every workstation behind it.
Causes on the workstation
- Antivirus scanning PCLaw. Real-time scanning of the PCLaw program and data folders slows every read and write. Ask your IT provider to add the exclusions recommended for your version.
- Too little memory, or a computer still running on a mechanical hard drive.
- Mapped drives that no longer exist. Windows pauses while it looks for them, and PCLaw pauses with it.
- A default printer that is offline. PCLaw checks the printer when preparing reports and bills, and waits when it does not answer.
Causes on the server
- A server doing too many jobs. PCLaw sharing a machine with email, file storage and backups will be slow whenever the others are busy.
- Not enough memory, especially for SQL Server, which performs best when most of the database fits in memory.
- Slow or nearly full disks. Keep at least 20 percent free on the data drive.
- Backups or antivirus scans running in working hours.
Causes in the database
On the c-tree edition:
- Indexes in poor condition after years of use or an unclean shutdown. Run Verify Data Integrity with everyone out of PCLaw and review the results.
- More users than a file-based database handles comfortably. If slowness rises with the number of people logged in, this is the likely cause, and it is the main reason firms move to SQL Server.
On PCLaw Enterprise (SQL Server):
- No maintenance. SQL Server needs index maintenance and updated statistics on a schedule. Without them, queries slow down gradually over months.
- SQL Server Express limits. Express uses little more than 1 GB of memory for data and caps a database at 10 GB. A firm that has outgrown it will feel it everywhere.
- Auto-shrink turned on, or a transaction log that has grown out of control because log backups were never set up.
- Memory left unconfigured, so SQL Server and Windows compete for it.
Causes in the data itself
- Many years of history with nothing closed or archived.
- Thousands of open matters that are really finished. Closing inactive matters shortens nearly every list and report.
- Reports run for all dates when a date range would do.
- Fiscal years left open long after they ended.
What you can safely try yourself
- Restart the workstation, then try again.
- Move the workstation to a wired connection.
- Run the slow report for one month instead of all dates, to see whether data volume is the cause.
- Check free disk space on the server.
- Ask whether anything changed on the day it started.
What to leave to a specialist
- Changing SQL Server settings
- Rebuilding or repairing data when integrity errors are present
- Anything that involves moving, shrinking or deleting database files
Slowness is sometimes the first sign of a database in trouble. If it comes with errors, crashes or figures that do not agree, read 5 signs your PCLaw database needs immediate attention before doing anything else.
A proper performance review
We find the cause by measuring, not guessing: the network, the workstations, the server and the database are each tested, and you receive a written list of what to fix and in what order. It is part of our PCLaw support service, and for SQL Server systems our PCLaw SQL Server service. Contact us to book a review.