RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

szang — Tue, 26 May 2015 17:34:58 GMT

This problem has been solved by reinstalling gINT with an update to version 8.30.04.285. Not sure if it was the reinstall or the gINT update that solved the problem. A very elusive problem to track down.

RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

Kathleen Holcomb — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 18:53:24 GMT

Do you mind sending the project, import and correspondence file so that we can troubleshoot this? Kathleen.holcombATbentley.com

RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

szang — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:42:45 GMT

The project file is a local file (not network) stored as a .gpj and only contains a few borings.

RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

Kathleen Holcomb — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:32:49 GMT

There is quite a wide variance in import times. Are you importing to a SQL database? Importing to SQL would certainly be slower than importing to Access. But that wouldn't account for the wide variance.

RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

szang — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:24:26 GMT

Yes I have some extraneous rows in my spreadsheet and several irrelevant sheets in the workbook as well but not a LOT. Each of 5 sheets has about 1000 lines, some of which are relevant and many of which are not (this confirmed by hitting Ctrl+End in each sheet). To determine what in each sheet was causing the long import times I created a series of sheets progressively deleting portions of the irrelevant data. My results were not repeatable and confused me, so I took the original sheet (which in previous versions of gINT took about 30 seconds to import) and imported it repeatedly. My procedure was: delete previously imported data in gINT, Import the file using my correspondence file, time how long the import took, repeat. My results are listed below.

Trial 1 = 4.0 minutes
Trial 2 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 3 = 2.0 minutes
Trial 4 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 5 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 6 = 2.0 minutes
Trial 7 = 2.5 minutes
Trial 8 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 9 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 10 = 0.5 minutes

Close gINT and then restart gINT
Trial 1 = 1.0 minutes
Trial 2 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 3 = 1.0 minutes
Trial 4 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 5 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 6 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 7 = 2.0 minutes
Trial 8 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 9 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 10 = 0.5 minutes

Close gINT, reboot machine, restart gINT
Trial 1 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 2 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 3 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 4 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 5 = 2.0 minutes
Trial 6 = 2.8 minutes
Trial 7 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 8 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 9 = 0.5 minutes
Trial 10 = 0.5 minutes

As you can see, many times the file imports ok, taking the expected amount of time (0.5) minutes. However there are times when it take up to 8 times as long (in this timed test, sometimes it takes even longer). This time is consumed building the temporary file tables. Observations indicate that it is not consistent which table takes more time, sometimes it is the first table, sometimes the third etc. Once built the import is always very quick. Note that with this test you can not blame differences in the file being imported or the correspondence file since each import uses the exact same file and it is untouched between each trial in fact the import dialog comes up with the previously used file names on each successive trial and I do not change them. This is also not a network problem because all files are stored on the local machine. ProjectWise is disabled in gINT. gINT version is 8.30.04.206. Operating system is Win 7. Only program that may have been running in the background during these trials is Microsoft Outlook which should not be interfering to such a great degree. I suspect this has to do with how the import module is allocating memory for the temporary file. I note that when the times are long CPU usage goes up to 100% and my cooling fan kicks into high. As indicated previously I did not have this problem on versions of gINT from a few years ago (same import file, same correspondence file). The change may have something to do with switching from Microsoft Jet to SQL server as the import engine.

Any light you could shed on this would be appreciated. I can tolerate a 30 second import if it is consistent. a 5 minute import makes me think something went wrong.

RE: Excel import takes much longer than previous versions

Kathleen Holcomb — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 16:12:40 GMT

I have seen this happen when the Excel file has a LOT of empty rows. To check this, put your cursor in the first cell. Hit Ctrl+End. This will move the cursor to the last cell with data. If it goes to the bottom of a lot of empty rows, delete the empty rows. Repeat on each worksheet. Please let us know if this fixes the problem.