reports slow

[Guest]

The underlying queries and subqueries to a complex report run very qucikly
(instantly), however when I try to display the associated report, which has
main body and several (5) sub reports, the repot takes 1 - 5 hours to
actually display on the screen in preview mode, let alone trying to print it.

This wasnt always happening, but now it is. I have tried to split the
database and move the report to a second database to speed things up etc,
compacting etc, to no avail.

is there any possible reason why the report is slow whereas the underlyign
queries run very quickly standalone

 

[Rick Brandt]

The underlying queries and subqueries to a complex report run very
qucikly (instantly), however when I try to display the associated
report, which has main body and several (5) sub reports, the repot
takes 1 - 5 hours to actually display on the screen in preview mode,
let alone trying to print it.

This wasnt always happening, but now it is. I have tried to split
the database and move the report to a second database to speed things
up etc, compacting etc, to no avail.

is there any possible reason why the report is slow whereas the
underlyign queries run very quickly standalone

First make sure the queries are really as quick as you think. You will get a
datasheet displayed when viewing a query when only a couple pages of rows has
bben processed. If you hit the Go-To-Last record button you might find that one
or more of these queries takes a long time to finish.

Second, sometimes your report sections and control expressions can cause the
report to retreat and process sections multiple times and this can even cause
the queries to be re-executed more than once. In rare cases you can write the
result of the queries into temp tables and base the report on those and get
dramatic improvements. I prefer to avoid using temp tables if I can though
because of file bloat issues and because (it just doesn't feel right) to do it.

Does your report make use of [Pages], as in "Page " & [Page] & " of " & [Pages]?
The use of [Pages] automatically causes your report to be processed twice. The
first time so the page count can be determined and then it goes back and starts
all over again.