singer search slow

[bugspappaw]

When I access the singer search while someone is singing, it takes a while to come back with the requested singer and sometime halts the display screen of the karaoke song while the singer is singing. This just started a couple of weeks ago. I have deleted files from my computer to give it more space but that didn't seem to help. I have a Dell XP 2gb hard drive with a 500gb external harddrive where I have stored my karaoke files. Thanks.
bugspappaw

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by bugspappaw

I have a Dell XP 2gb hard drive with a 500gb external harddrive where I have stored my karaoke files. Thanks.
bugspappaw

You have probably made a mistake in your above statement when you say you have a 2gb hard drive on your dell computer. I exspect you mean memory.

There are several things you could do, check how much free space you have on your c:/ drive they recommend to have at least 25% free, defrag your hard drive, another thing that can help is to leave the window open but minimize it to the task bar till you need it.
The more you add to it the longer it will take to open, you may want to edit it if it's getting unmanageable.

[bugspappaw]

Thanks. I have already deleted stuff from the computer, defragged my hard drive, and I do leave the window open. I am running 4.21 but I will be upgrading to 4.32 next week. I'm hoping that will take care of it. I am going to start deleting some of my singers and or selections this weekend also.

[ddouglass]

What Roy was saying about too much is if you have a lot of singers with a large amount of songs for each then it will be slow to open and can cause problems if it is a very large selection.

[bugspappaw]

Well, my singer database got corrupted last night in the middle of my show. THe name title completely disappeared and I couldn't add anything to the singers database. Adding was not a problem for me since it would put the song on the list to sing. It was my fault as I deleted singers from the database after I deleted their songs in the Hoster search. That wasn't a good idea. Now I've got to find out how to reindex the database because I don't want to add the other singers back. ANy suggestions?

[Roy Dennis]

Afraid you've lost me here. Are you adding singers from the search dialog or from the main screen book id widow or some other way?
When you say "Title" completely disappeared, are you referring to the Title tab at the top of the search window or the column Title below the key change buttons in the search window ?

Or are you referring to the Title column on the main screen or some other Title ?

You delete singers from the singers tab in the Singers database.
If you just want to delete some of their songs not the singer select the songs tab and delete from there.

When you say you deleted songs from Hoster search, how did you do that as there isn't a delete button there.

Or did you mean Hoster Edit dialog ? If you deleted songs from there then they would have to be re-imported.

[bugspappaw]

I upgraded to 4.32 and my singer/song datbase is not working properly. WHen I pull up a singer, I get the singer but sometimes I don't get their songs. I get someone else's songs under their name. I have to hit enter several times to get it to re-index. SOmetimes it does sometimes it doesnt. Also, sometimes when I add a new song to their database, it puts their name out twice in the list. It eventually corrects itself and shows just one name. It seems the index problem happens about half-way through the singer search. I have looked at the Access databases and the ratio of songs to singer and id's to singer look correct. I did have problems in the past from where I had deleted singers and songs and had to manually adjust them in ACCESS, but they look ok. Is there anyway to reindex the database without totally wiping it out and readding the singers and songs manually? This problem just compounds the slowness of the song returns for my singers. THanks.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by bugspappaw

I upgraded to 4.32 and my singer/song datbase is not working properly. WHen I pull up a singer, I get the singer but sometimes I don't get their songs. I get someone else's songs under their name. I have to hit enter several times to get it to re-index. SOmetimes it does sometimes it doesnt. Also, sometimes when I add a new song to their database, it puts their name out twice in the list. It eventually corrects itself and shows just one name. It seems the index problem happens about half-way through the singer search. I have looked at the Access databases and the ratio of songs to singer and id's to singer look correct. I did have problems in the past from where I had deleted singers and songs and had to manually adjust them in ACCESS, but they look ok. Is there anyway to reindex the database without totally wiping it out and readding the singers and songs manually? This problem just compounds the slowness of the song returns for my singers. THanks.

From your previous posts and now this it sounds like your singer's database is still corrupted. You may have caused that by making changes in Access. Hoster uses the older format for Access from Access 97 and if you have made adjustment/changes in a newer version then this can cause problems.
There is no way to re-index it like you can do with the Songs database. So manually re-entering them may be the only way to do it. The way I would do this is to rename the existing file so Hoster doesn't see it. Then open the renamed db in Access and use it to guide you through re-entering the data in Hoster.

[bugspappaw]

Thanks for your response. So you saying after I make my copy delete the entire singer search and re-enter from scratch including each singers name and pull their songs again?

[mce05]

I'm also having the same problem(s) with the the singer search. I did not change anything in the database. I have three computers all with the same singer/song database. 8200 records 1400 singers. Most songs for one singer - 384

1. Oldest Computer is a Dell Inspiron 9300. Intel Pentium M 1.60 GHz ,2.0 GB of ram. 120 Gig internal HD, 320 Gig external drive. Windows XP Pro.

2. Home built. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66 GHz, 8.0 GB of ram, 3 - 1 terabyte hard drives in a raid 5 array. Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

3. HP E-500f, AMD Phenom II X6 1045T Processor, 8.0 GB of ram, 1.5 terabyte HD, Windows 7 Pro.

Until a couple of weeks ago #2 has been used as the show computer for the past two years.. Has run quick and flawless. I upgraded to #3. At the same time I updated all three computers to the current Hoster 432.03. All three are experiencing the same problem now. I made the changes as required to run Hoster.

I ran a comparison test of loading Margie's 384 songbase. They all would load at different rates and more than once would pull up the songs for the singer above hers. Time wise the laptop was the quickest (55 seconds). Computer #2 took 87 seconds. Neither one seemed to bother the lyrics or audio. I haven't had time to test the time for the HP. I do know that not only does it take longer but it will show "Singers Database not responding" if you wait long enough it might or might not start working. Is there a limit to the number of songs one singer can have in the Songs Database? I didn't have this issue until the last upgrade.

We have been working around the issue by doing a song search.
p.s. Doing a song search on "the" neted several hunderd songs almost instantly on #2.

I can submit a ticket if you like, also I can email the singers database if you want to test it.

Thankyou,

Cort Stratfull
MC Entertainment

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by mce05

I'm also having the same problem(s) with the the singer search. I did not change anything in the database. I have three computers all with the same singer/song database. 8200 records 1400 singers. Most songs for one singer - 384

1. Oldest Computer is a Dell Inspiron 9300. Intel Pentium M 1.60 GHz ,2.0 GB of ram. 120 Gig internal HD, 320 Gig external drive. Windows XP Pro.

2. Home built. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66 GHz, 8.0 GB of ram, 3 - 1 terabyte hard drives in a raid 5 array. Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

3. HP E-500f, AMD Phenom II X6 1045T Processor, 8.0 GB of ram, 1.5 terabyte HD, Windows 7 Pro.

Until a couple of weeks ago #2 has been used as the show computer for the past two years.. Has run quick and flawless. I upgraded to #3. At the same time I updated all three computers to the current Hoster 432.03. All three are experiencing the same problem now. I made the changes as required to run Hoster.

I ran a comparison test of loading Margie's 384 songbase. They all would load at different rates and more than once would pull up the songs for the singer above hers. Time wise the laptop was the quickest (55 seconds). Computer #2 took 87 seconds. Neither one seemed to bother the lyrics or audio. I haven't had time to test the time for the HP. I do know that not only does it take longer but it will show "Singers Database not responding" if you wait long enough it might or might not start working. Is there a limit to the number of songs one singer can have in the Songs Database? I didn't have this issue until the last upgrade.

We have been working around the issue by doing a song search.
p.s. Doing a song search on "the" neted several hunderd songs almost instantly on #2.

I can submit a ticket if you like, also I can email the singers database if you want to test it.

Thankyou,

Cort Stratfull
MC Entertainment

First lets get the terms right. You have two database files. The main one is the Songs.mdb (Songs database) file which has all the songs listed that you have imported. The second is the Singers.mdb (Singers database) file which has the singers name and the songs they sing.
There is no limit on how many songs a singer can have listed. However realize that the more one singer has the slower it will be to open their list. Anything over about 200 is going to be extremely slow, thus the times you listed. The different rates would be depending on processor speed, other processes running, memory available, and a lot of other things within the individual computer.
I would recommend parrying down that 384 to about half. I am sure there are a lot of songs the individual has not sang for a very long time and most likely will not sing again. Same with any others you have that are very large.

What version did you upgrade from? If you were using one several versions back, then yes it may seem slower now with 4.32 because there are more features that have been added.

[mce05]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

First lets get the terms right. You have two database files. The main one is the Songs.mdb (Songs database) file which has all the songs listed that you have imported. The second is the Singers.mdb (Singers database) file which has the singers name and the songs they sing.
There is no limit on how many songs a singer can have listed. However realize that the more one singer has the slower it will be to open their list. Anything over about 200 is going to be extremely slow, thus the times you listed. The different rates would be depending on processor speed, other processes running, memory available, and a lot of other things within the individual computer.
I would recommend parrying down that 384 to about half. I am sure there are a lot of songs the individual has not sang for a very long time and most likely will not sing again. Same with any others you have that are very large.

What version did you upgrade from? If you were using one several versions back, then yes it may seem slower now with 4.32 because there are more features that have been added.

Thanks for the response and the clairfication about the two databases. I do understand that I must now pare down the songs to 200 or less. What I don't understand is why that seems to apply to only version 432.03. I also hope that every one understands that there have been many minor changes since last September.

06/08/2003 original install of Hoster 3.108 on Inspirion 9300 laptop

There were many upgrades in between..

9/30/2010 installed 431 upgrade.. no problems
10/07/2010 installed 431.1 upgrade .. no problems
12/09/2010 installed 432.01 upgrade .. no problems
2/14/2011 Installed 432.1 upgrade .. no problems
3/?/2011 Installed 432.03 upgrade ... problem

If you noticed the slowest computer (laptop) ran the fastest whereas the newest with the fastest prossessor (HP) runing windows 7 pro was the slowest.

Also under the help tab of hoster checking about, still show the version as 432 not 432.03.. I also find it a bit confusing .03 is smaller than .1 (personally I would have used .3 as the newest version)

In conclusion I hope that you now understand that in one month the amount of of songs a singer has did not significantly change. But the last update did slow considerably the time it takes to access them.

Cort

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by mce05

Thanks for the response and the clairfication about the two databases. I do understand that I must now pare down the songs to 200 or less. What I don't understand is why that seems to apply to only version 432.03. I also hope that every one understands that there have been many minor changes since last September.

06/08/2003 original install of Hoster 3.108 on Inspirion 9300 laptop

There were many upgrades in between..

9/30/2010 installed 431 upgrade.. no problems
10/07/2010 installed 431.1 upgrade .. no problems
12/09/2010 installed 432.01 upgrade .. no problems
2/14/2011 Installed 432.1 upgrade .. no problems
3/?/2011 Installed 432.03 upgrade ... problem

If you noticed the slowest computer (laptop) ran the fastest whereas the newest with the fastest prossessor (HP) runing windows 7 pro was the slowest.

Also under the help tab of hoster checking about, still show the version as 432 not 432.03.. I also find it a bit confusing .03 is smaller than .1 (personally I would have used .3 as the newest version)

In conclusion I hope that you now understand that in one month the amount of of songs a singer has did not significantly change. But the last update did slow considerably the time it takes to access them.

Cort

The last part of the upgrades is the month it was put out. Thus .03 is March. What is being updated is the amount of songs in the builtin database for the information for importing. This has been growing by 4-5,000 songs per month since this new system has been put in place.

I would suggest using a computer cleaner program that can optimize your computer. A couple good ones are System Mechanic and CCleaner.
I also suggest that you defragment your drives occasionally since Hoster does access the drive quite often, then this can speed up that operation.

XP is a smaller and really faster operating system, where Windows 7 is very large and requires a lot more memory than XP ever needed.

[swany]

Don't know if you have done it yet but you can speed up your search a little by shutting off a lot services you don't use but are up and running in the background.

One source I use is www.blackviper.com and print off the tweaks for my operating system. Takes a while but then it helps.

[mce05]

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it. Swany I will try your suggestion of Blackviper.

Cort

[bugspappaw]

Are you still having problems with your singer search database? I deleted all my entries and manually added them back, but I"m still having the same problems.....singer comes up (slowly) and it's a hit or miss if I get their songs, usually returns the first singer with the beginning initial's songs or it goes into not responding mode which then locks up my singer. I'm really disgusted. It's taking a lot of time which I don't really have time for during a show. Did you resolve your issues and how? Thanks.
bugspappaw

[admin]

You can read all of the "published" changes to each version at: http://www.mtu.com/upgrades/hoster.htm#500

We have cleaned up a lot of code subroutines, and I would not be surprised if the Singers dialog now works faster. Try the demo first to see for yourself: http://download.mtu.com/hosterdemosetup.exe

I have added a task to our specs for Hoster 5.xx to study speeding up the Singers search and display. Some of the delay is alphabetizing the list for you, which we didn't do in early 5.00 beta test versions. Our Testers complained and we added alphabetic ordering, which you can also change by clicking the title of any column.

We expect to release Hoster 5.01 today. After that, we will do some upgrades to our Software Development System that may bring unexpected benefits such as speeding up searching.

We use the Access 97 "Jet Engine" as it is a freely distributable version to run Access. It is only about 8MB, and may be part of the slow-down.

If we convert to the Access 2000 "Jet Engine", also freely distributable, it is 60MB, and would expand our downloadable "Hoster Installation File" from 23MB to ~75MB. This would be a LARGE project, and will not be put ahead of Tempo change, which will be THE next major feature we add. Also, we don't know this conversion would bring any speed improvement at all.

Everyone would have to convert their existing Songs Database to the new format, which WILL take up more room also. This... is a monumental effort and not to be done lightly. We expect the burden will fall on our shoulders to do this conversion for you. We're not jumping for joy to do this!!!

[bugspappaw]

I don't want to upgrade to 5 yet, but I need to know how to delete the access databases and start over. I thought I had done it previously, but maybe I didn't do it right. I had to renter the singers names and all their songs, but the singer numbers are not concurrent which I thought they would be when I re-added them. Can you give me direction? Thanks.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by bugspappaw

I don't want to upgrade to 5 yet, but I need to know how to delete the access databases and start over. I thought I had done it previously, but maybe I didn't do it right. I had to renter the singers names and all their songs, but the singer numbers are not concurrent which I thought they would be when I re-added them. Can you give me direction? Thanks.

I am a bit confused. Why do you need to have the singer numbers be concurrent? The only thing that number is used for is internally in the Singer's database. When you use the Singer's database it lists the singers and their songs alphabetically.

If you really want to start over the database files are located in C:\\MTU\Hoster. The main database is called Songs.mdb and this is all your songs imported into Hoster. There is a second back-up copy called Songs_backup.mdb.

The Singers database is called Singers.mdb.

[bugspappaw]

My song/singer database files do not have .mdb extension and I can edit them. When I loaded my trial version of 5.0 on another computer, I noticed they had the .mdb extension and I couldn't access them. If I rename my 2 files on my laptop and reload the latest version of my software, will it recreate 2 empty databases for me to add to? Thanks.