nFS bug fixing

Discussions about using and improving the new FamilySearch online application.
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mikael.ronstrom
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Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:22 pm
Location: Sweden

nFS bug fixing

#1

Post by mikael.ronstrom »

I've been using nFS now for a couple of months and it's a great tool
and everyone I show it to get immediately very excited.

However my question is about how we can assist in improving its
quality. It's often slow, even more often hangs up and sometimes
even hangs up the web reader. I've used Safari on MacOS X,
Firefox on Mac OS X and Firefox on Ubuntu 7.10 and Firefox
on Windows.
techgy
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Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:48 pm
Location: California

#2

Post by techgy »

mikron wrote:I've been using nFS now for a couple of months and it's a great tool
and everyone I show it to get immediately very excited.

However my question is about how we can assist in improving its
quality. It's often slow, even more often hangs up and sometimes
even hangs up the web reader.
You've already taken the first step and that's posting your questions here in the forum.

Also, at the bottom of every page of NFS is a "Send Us Feedback" link where you can notify the engineers of problems and obtain answers to questions. This feature is the quickest way of getting your "feedback" to those who need to see it. Be sure you read the "What's New" area in the Help Center as any new features will be noted there.

I don't know if there are any teams currently operating doing evaluations of the software. I think that for the present they're depending upon feedback from the users like yourself.


Thanks for your comments.
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Jesse Smith-p40
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Location: Oregon

#3

Post by Jesse Smith-p40 »

mikron wrote:It's often slow, even more often hangs up and sometimes
even hangs up the web reader.
I've noticed it's extremely slooooooooooow when you try to access a family with a ton of duplicates (Think *Possible Duplicate: 1 of 45* or even higher.)

About the only way to speed it up would be the server geting a ton more RAM added to it. *hint*

Seeing something like this....

Image

and not being able to get Ordinance Requests from them can drive you insane. Another sore spot is going through a lot of duplicate checks, only to get this annoying message...
The following records could not be combined for these reasons:

The combined record would be too large.
So why waste time trying to combine them if they will be too large??!!! :rolleyes: All this combined could easily make some one give up on the NFS!

No bug would need to be fixed for the speed, just, oh, a yottabyte of RAM, would need to be added!!!
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techgy
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#4

Post by techgy »

Jesse Smith wrote:I've noticed it's extremely slooooooooooow when you try to access a family with a ton of duplicates (Think *Possible Duplicate: 1 of 45* or even higher.)

and not being able to get Ordinance Requests from them can drive you insane. Another sore spot is going through a lot of duplicate checks, only to get an annoying message...

So why waste time trying to combine them if they will be too large??!!! :rolleyes: All this combined could easily make some one give up on the NFS!
Keep in mind that NFS is still in Beta :) It hasn't reached the official status of version 1.0 as yet. I'm sure they're aware of the problems, especially the response speed. This is the primary reason why the product hasn't been released into the SLC and Idaho areas of the US yet. Because these areas have such a heavy population of LDS that until the NFS system is ready to handle the workload, those areas are not opened up to its use.

With that said, I don't think any work for our ancestors is a waste of time. It's obviously disappointing to find that you have to use other techniques and additional effort to resolve a problem. President Hinckley's primary reason for starting the NFS project was to eliminate the duplication of temple work. Merging of the records is of primary importance to be sure that we identify those of our ancestors who have already had their work performed. I'm on my soap box again.

I'm sure you're not the only person who's had issues with NFS. I'd suggest that you provide feedback to the engineers regarding the problems you encounter by using the "feedback" area of NFS (bottom of each page).

Hopefully, these and other problems will be addressed as the Church continues to develop the software.
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Jesse Smith-p40
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Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 2:45 am
Location: Oregon

#5

Post by Jesse Smith-p40 »

Yep, I know doing work for our ancestors isn't a waste of time, just the part where you spend time trying to merge duplicats...only to get that error would be.
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garysturn
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Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:10 am
Location: Draper, Utah, USA
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#6

Post by garysturn »

Jesse Smith wrote:Yep, I know doing work for our ancestors isn't a waste of time, just the part where you spend time trying to merge duplicats...only to get that error would be.
I know there has been a lot of feedback sent in regarding how slow the system is. They are building a new version of the program to try and resolve the speed problems, you can try using it at familysearchlabs.org, click on Family Tree and log in with your new FamilySearch user name and password. I have noticed the same slow loading in some of the functions in the newer program. This makes me think the speed problems are in the way they are retrieving the data and how they are storing the data rather than the amount of memory on the servers or how they have designed the pages. I have noticed the same slow retrieval speeds with the FamilySearch certified programs, so it is not in the software design.

It appears that they have designed the system where there is a list of all of the combined records in a main folder then when loading a list of the names they retrieve those records one at a time by searching for each of those records by their ID#. So if that is correct when there are 80 records in a folder they are doing 80 searches to find and load the 80 combined records. So if there are 1000 users each loading a name with 80 combined records in it you have 80,000 searches taking place all at the same time. Imagine taking this public and having 100,000 users at one time.

In my account I have 380 names reserved for ordinances, when Family Tree loads those names, it first loads a list of all the numbers then begins loading each record one at a time. It takes several minutes to search and load the entire list. You have to sit an wait for the list to load before you can do anything else.

Maybe what needs to be done is to add another field to each record to store the combined folder ID# in, then with one search you could pull all 80 records with the same ID#. The records would each retain their own unique ID# but would also have a field to store the folder they have been combined into as well. Another field could also be added to each record to store the ID# of the user who has put that name in their reserved temple list. A query could then be created for combined records sorted by this ID# so all of the records that have been combined into one folder (those with the same ID# in this new field) could all be sorted and stored together, this would allow loading almost instantly instead of taking minutes. Another query could be created sorted by the reserved ID# to speed retrieval of reserved temple names.

It seems to me this would be much faster than loading a list of numbers then searching for each of those records one at a time.
Gary Turner
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russellhltn
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#7

Post by russellhltn »

GarysTurn wrote:Maybe what needs to be done is to add another field to each record to store the combined folder ID# in, then with one search you could pull all 80 records with the same ID#.
I'd leave that to a DBA (Database Administration) expert. While it only takes one search, it could be a very intensive search - for a net loss in speed. Not to mention being yet another way the system could get out of sync with itself.
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