This article shows you how to troubleshoot and fix performance issues in Quickmap, whether Quickmap is running slowly or is slow to start up.

Quickmap Is Slow To Start Up

If you find that Quickmap is slow when starting up, such as hanging when drawing layers, but is otherwise fast once it loads, this is typically because of one of these reasons:

• Quickmap is trying to load layers and there is a network timeout when trying to access the data
• You are using Quickmap 8 and the Quickmap.mdb file was built by an old version of Microsoft Access

Slowness Due To Network Timeout

If Quickmap is going slowly, the biggest cause of this is a network timeout. Basically, Quickmap may be set up to point to a data location that doesn’t exist or responds slowly, and Quickmap goes slow while Quickmap is waiting for Windows to tell it that a file or folder is not accessible. To fix this either:

• Test if it’s slow to copy data from the Data Directory to your local machine (Such as copying the \Data\Legal\App folder to a the C:\Temp folder on your PC). If this is slow, there’s a problem outside of Quickmap. This could be network, antivirus or hardware.
• To rule out Quickmap loading data that doesn’t exist, upgrade to the latest version of Quickmap 8. Then click Tools -> Diagnose/Repair -> Repair Quickmap, then tick each box and click “Yes” to remove the layers with no underlying data.
• In Quickmap 7, navigate to the following registry locations (start -> Run -> regedit.exe), and remove references to computers, data or network locations that no longer exist:

HKEY_Classes_Root\Quickmap\SurveyPlan
HKEY_Classes_Root\Quickmap\Image

Finally, it might be that the data is held on a network drive, which has not yet been connected. If this is the case, you may see a little red x on the drive when you open “My Computer”. Opening the drive in Microsoft Explorer prior to launching Quickmap is a workaround for this.

Slowness Due To An Old Quickmap.mdb File

If you upgraded from Quickmap 7 at some point, your Quickmap.mdb file might be based on a very old version of Microsoft Access. Whilst this isn’t a problem for Quickmap 7, this will cause Quickmap 8 to load slowly or appear to hang when drawing layers.

To fix this, copy the Quickmap.mdb file (stored in %userprofile%\Documents\Quickmap\) to create a backup, then upgrade the file in Microsoft Access to a later version (at least 2003 format). To do this, open the file in Microsoft Access, then click Tools -> Compact and Repair Database. Depending on how old the file is, you may have to upgrade the file in Access 2000, then upgrade it again in a newer version that can read Access 2000 files.

If you are struggling, send us the file and we can upgrade it for you.

Quickmap Is Slow After It’s Loaded

A big cause of Quickmap going slowly is having the Quickmap data in a different geographic or network location than the Quickmap clients. For example, if your Quickmap data is stored in the Auckland office and you have Quickmap running from a remote laptop or another office in Wellington, accessing the data over a VPN, Quickmap would run slowly and have issues accessing the network drive.

As is best practice with any software, the software’s data should be stored in the same place as the software. For Quickmap this means either having standalone installations for remote users, or a local copy of the data (which can be maintained using the Quickmap Data Download Manager or by copying the data with scripts), or having a Terminal Server set up at the location of the data for remote users to access (which can even be a Published Application so it looks like Quickmap is running locally to the user).

We DO NOT recommend synchronizing data with a service like OneDrive or Dropbox.

If Quickmap or one of it’s components is still going slow after this, the next thing to determine is why it’s going slow, or rather what about it is going slow. To do this:

1. Press CRTL + SHIFT + Esc, then click on the Performance tab.
2. Run Quickmap and perform the function that makes it slow. Keep an eye on the CPU, Memory and Disk to see which is taking the biggest hit.

• If CPU goes close to 100% for more than a split second, the CPU usage needs addressed.
• If Memory is high (90%), then memory usage needs addressed.
• If the Disk gets higher than 10%, then there is likely a disk problem.

Once the resource is identified as slow (CPU, Memory or Disk), we need to repeat the test again and view the Processes tab, sorting by the appropriate resource type (CPU / Memory / Disk) to list the program with the highest to lowest usage.

If Quickmap is using most of the CPU or memory, then there may be an issue with your Quickmap installation, reinstalling may help.

If CPU or memory usage is high and shared with other programs, there is likely a performance issue with your PC (maybe your PC hardware isn’t fast enough, your antivirus scanning is excessive or another program is at fault). The most likely issue is the antivirus. QuickMap should not take longer than a few seconds to draw a screen of information, even on a slow network. If its taking longer than a few seconds, then contact you system administrator to take a look at the virus scanner on the PC that is running slow (rather than look at the server). Custom Software doesn’t provide support for configuring virus scanners, but recommends that you exclude the Quickmap directories (specifically it’s *.mdb, *.qik and *.exe files).

If your disk usage is high, then you most likely have an impending hardware fault with your disk. In this case, you should take the opportunity to backup your disk in case it fails and replace your hard drive with a new one.

If Quickmap is going slow and it’s not clear why with the above tests, you may have something else going on that it too complex to troubleshoot in this help article. An example of this might be if you have a network loop or internet connection that’s going slow, in which case you should contact your IT person for assistance.