Home » Archived » BIRT » BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems
| BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems [message #211672] |
Tue, 16 January 2007 10:10  |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: cornel.masson.shazamteam.com
Hi
I am evaluating BIRT for my company as an alternative to Crystal Reports. I
am building a real-world report and, although I started out really liking
BIRT, I have now run into some serious performance problems in the Report
Designer.
I am running the RCP version (Version: 2.1.1.v20060921-1226, Build id:
200609260959) on a fairly recent computer with Windows XP.
1. I am connecting to an Oracle data source (Oracle 10g, using the JDBC thin
driver). It takes *ages* to open up the Data Set dialog (on both large &
small SQL queries). It also takes ages to swap between sections in this
dialog, and, again, ages when you OK to save and close it. When I say
*ages*, I mean >10 secs.
2. Related, but not a performance issue - a bug rather: if you change
*anything* in the SQL query, BIRT throws away *all* your exsting query
parameter definitions! This happens even if the SQL changes did not at all
impact the parameters. This is a real morale killer.
3. On anything but really trivial report designs, the UI quickly becomes
very unresponsive. I have a report with a Grid, some textual elements and
then my main Table element, which has 11 columns. When I resize a column,
for example, the UI lags behind noticably, is slow to redraw, etc. It seems
to get worse when I have been working on the design for a long time (a leak
maybe?).
Also, some UI actions seem to trigger too many repaint events, e.g. when you
delete a column from a table, the 'Property Editor' area seems to flash a
number of times before it settles (after some *time* - again, this is a real
bug-bear).
4. Lastly, something else: *date* report parameters (the last time I checked
the mailing list, this was dismissed as a Sun JRE issue and, hence, will
stay a bug in BIRT???). You cannot have a non-US locale, since, even though
dates will be displayed correctly, you cannot *enter* them into the report
parameter dialog in the locale-correct way: BIRT always tries to interpret
the day/month ordering according to the US locale.
Also, when can we get a *date picker*? 9 out of 10 reports have a date (or
dates) as a parameter, and when last did you see on the Web a date input
field without some sort of date picker?
Are these known issues (I know some of them are)? Shall I register on
Bugzilla and post as individual bugs?
The performance/slowdown issues are such that I cannot see us using BIRT
unless there is some clear indication that it will be fixed in an upcoming
release.
Thanks
Cornel Masson
Shazam Entertainment.
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| Re: BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems [message #211763 is a reply to message #211672] |
Tue, 16 January 2007 11:34  |
| Eclipse User |
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Can you try the 2.1.2 RC build?
http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/build.php?build=M -R1-2.1.2RC-200612260710
Also, please register and log the issues.
Thanks
Jason
"Cornel Masson" <cornel.masson@shazamteam.com> wrote in message
news:eoiptp$aa2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
> Hi
>
> I am evaluating BIRT for my company as an alternative to Crystal Reports.
> I am building a real-world report and, although I started out really
> liking BIRT, I have now run into some serious performance problems in the
> Report Designer.
>
> I am running the RCP version (Version: 2.1.1.v20060921-1226, Build id:
> 200609260959) on a fairly recent computer with Windows XP.
>
>
> 1. I am connecting to an Oracle data source (Oracle 10g, using the JDBC
> thin driver). It takes *ages* to open up the Data Set dialog (on both
> large & small SQL queries). It also takes ages to swap between sections in
> this dialog, and, again, ages when you OK to save and close it. When I say
> *ages*, I mean >10 secs.
>
> 2. Related, but not a performance issue - a bug rather: if you change
> *anything* in the SQL query, BIRT throws away *all* your exsting query
> parameter definitions! This happens even if the SQL changes did not at all
> impact the parameters. This is a real morale killer.
>
> 3. On anything but really trivial report designs, the UI quickly becomes
> very unresponsive. I have a report with a Grid, some textual elements and
> then my main Table element, which has 11 columns. When I resize a column,
> for example, the UI lags behind noticably, is slow to redraw, etc. It
> seems to get worse when I have been working on the design for a long time
> (a leak maybe?).
> Also, some UI actions seem to trigger too many repaint events, e.g. when
> you delete a column from a table, the 'Property Editor' area seems to
> flash a number of times before it settles (after some *time* - again, this
> is a real bug-bear).
>
> 4. Lastly, something else: *date* report parameters (the last time I
> checked the mailing list, this was dismissed as a Sun JRE issue and,
> hence, will stay a bug in BIRT???). You cannot have a non-US locale,
> since, even though dates will be displayed correctly, you cannot *enter*
> them into the report parameter dialog in the locale-correct way: BIRT
> always tries to interpret the day/month ordering according to the US
> locale.
> Also, when can we get a *date picker*? 9 out of 10 reports have a date (or
> dates) as a parameter, and when last did you see on the Web a date input
> field without some sort of date picker?
>
>
> Are these known issues (I know some of them are)? Shall I register on
> Bugzilla and post as individual bugs?
>
> The performance/slowdown issues are such that I cannot see us using BIRT
> unless there is some clear indication that it will be fixed in an upcoming
> release.
>
> Thanks
> Cornel Masson
> Shazam Entertainment.
>
>
>
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| Re: BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems [message #211936 is a reply to message #211672] |
Tue, 16 January 2007 20:51 |
| Eclipse User |
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Cornel, please see my questions below. Thanks for reporting these issues.
--
Gary Xue [Actuate Corporation | BIRT Committer]
"Cornel Masson" <cornel.masson@shazamteam.com> wrote in message
news:eoiptp$aa2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
>
> 1. I am connecting to an Oracle data source (Oracle 10g, using the JDBC
> thin driver). It takes *ages* to open up the Data Set dialog (on both
> large & small SQL queries). It also takes ages to swap between sections in
> this dialog, and, again, ages when you OK to save and close it. When I say
> *ages*, I mean >10 secs.
How many tables/views are visible to the Oracle DB user? How many items are
shown in the data set query editor's Available Item tree? If there are many
(say >100) items there, does it help the performance if you connect to a
smaller DB with fewer objects?
Also does it help if you increase the Java heap memory setting (see item 3
below)?
> 2. Related, but not a performance issue - a bug rather: if you change
> *anything* in the SQL query, BIRT throws away *all* your exsting query
> parameter definitions! This happens even if the SQL changes did not at all
> impact the parameters. This is a real morale killer.
Can you please file a Bugzilla bug for this issue?
> 3. On anything but really trivial report designs, the UI quickly becomes
> very unresponsive. I have a report with a Grid, some textual elements and
> then my main Table element, which has 11 columns. When I resize a column,
> for example, the UI lags behind noticably, is slow to redraw, etc. It
> seems to get worse when I have been working on the design for a long time
> (a leak maybe?).
> Also, some UI actions seem to trigger too many repaint events, e.g. when
> you delete a column from a table, the 'Property Editor' area seems to
> flash a number of times before it settles (after some *time* - again, this
> is a real bug-bear).
What's the Java VM heap memory sett?ing that you use to start Eclipse? Does
it help if you use the following command line to start Eclipse/BIRT?
eclipse.exe -vmargs -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
> 4. Lastly, something else: *date* report parameters (the last time I
> checked the mailing list, this was dismissed as a Sun JRE issue and,
> hence, will stay a bug in BIRT???). You cannot have a non-US locale,
> since, even though dates will be displayed correctly, you cannot *enter*
> them into the report parameter dialog in the locale-correct way: BIRT
> always tries to interpret the day/month ordering according to the US
> locale.
> Also, when can we get a *date picker*? 9 out of 10 reports have a date (or
> dates) as a parameter, and when last did you see on the Web a date input
> field without some sort of date picker?
The parameter dialog expects date/time value input in the current user
locale. So if you user locale's set to US English it expects US date format.
What format will you like to enter date/time values in?
There is an open Bugzilla for a date picker:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=124726 Please watch this bug
for its progress, and add any comments you may have to this bug entry.
>
> Are these known issues (I know some of them are)? Shall I register on
> Bugzilla and post as individual bugs?
>
> The performance/slowdown issues are such that I cannot see us using BIRT
> unless there is some clear indication that it will be fixed in an upcoming
> release.
>
> Thanks
> Cornel Masson
> Shazam Entertainment.
>
>
>
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| Re: BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems [message #212045 is a reply to message #211936] |
Wed, 17 January 2007 08:35 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: cornel.masson.shazamteam.com
See comments interspersed...
"Gary Xue" <gxue@actuate.com> wrote in message
news:eojvf8$lb2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
> Cornel, please see my questions below. Thanks for reporting these issues.
>
> --
> Gary Xue [Actuate Corporation | BIRT Committer]
>
>
> "Cornel Masson" <cornel.masson@shazamteam.com> wrote in message
> news:eoiptp$aa2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
>>
>> 1. I am connecting to an Oracle data source (Oracle 10g, using the JDBC
>> thin driver). It takes *ages* to open up the Data Set dialog (on both
>> large & small SQL queries). It also takes ages to swap between sections
>> in this dialog, and, again, ages when you OK to save and close it. When I
>> say *ages*, I mean >10 secs.
>
> How many tables/views are visible to the Oracle DB user? How many items
> are shown in the data set query editor's Available Item tree? If there are
> many (say >100) items there, does it help the performance if you connect
> to a smaller DB with fewer objects?
[Cornel]: I have 32 schemas, but since my preferences currently limits this
to 20, the Available Items view opens with 20 entries.
There are hundreds of tables & views across these 32/20 schemas.
Unfortunately, all our databases are of this size, so I don't have a small
one to test it with.
What I have now done is to change, in my preferences, the maximum number of
schemas and tables to display, to 1 each, and that makes a difference. This
is sort of OK as a workaround, since I never drag-and-drop from the
available items anyway (I paste in a huge SQL query from my Oracle tool).
However, in general, it still looks like a performace bug: the dialog should
scale well for large databases with many schemas and tables.
> Also does it help if you increase the Java heap memory setting (see item 3
> below)?
>
>> 2. Related, but not a performance issue - a bug rather: if you change
>> *anything* in the SQL query, BIRT throws away *all* your exsting query
>> parameter definitions! This happens even if the SQL changes did not at
>> all impact the parameters. This is a real morale killer.
>
> Can you please file a Bugzilla bug for this issue?
[Cornel]: OK, bug logged:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=170757
>
>
>> 3. On anything but really trivial report designs, the UI quickly becomes
>> very unresponsive. I have a report with a Grid, some textual elements and
>> then my main Table element, which has 11 columns. When I resize a column,
>> for example, the UI lags behind noticably, is slow to redraw, etc. It
>> seems to get worse when I have been working on the design for a long time
>> (a leak maybe?).
>> Also, some UI actions seem to trigger too many repaint events, e.g. when
>> you delete a column from a table, the 'Property Editor' area seems to
>> flash a number of times before it settles (after some *time* - again,
>> this is a real bug-bear).
>
> What's the Java VM heap memory sett?ing that you use to start Eclipse?
> Does it help if you use the following command line to start Eclipse/BIRT?
>
> eclipse.exe -vmargs -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
[Cornel]: No, this doesn't make any difference.
Also, I have now verified that shutting BIRT down and restarting solves the
sluggishness problem to a large degree, i.e. there seems to be some sort of
leak that develops over time.
The problem with the multiple repaints of the 'Property Editor' area is
still there (when you delete a column from a table).
>
>
>> 4. Lastly, something else: *date* report parameters (the last time I
>> checked the mailing list, this was dismissed as a Sun JRE issue and,
>> hence, will stay a bug in BIRT???). You cannot have a non-US locale,
>> since, even though dates will be displayed correctly, you cannot *enter*
>> them into the report parameter dialog in the locale-correct way: BIRT
>> always tries to interpret the day/month ordering according to the US
>> locale.
>> Also, when can we get a *date picker*? 9 out of 10 reports have a date
>> (or dates) as a parameter, and when last did you see on the Web a date
>> input field without some sort of date picker?
>
> The parameter dialog expects date/time value input in the current user
> locale. So if you user locale's set to US English it expects US date
> format. What format will you like to enter date/time values in?
[Cornel]: In the Report Design/Preview preferences, I changed the locale to
United Kingdom. The viewer correctly displayed dates in the UK format.
However, in the report parameters entry dialog, when I enter a date in UK
format, say 6/8/2007 (for 6 August 2007), BIRT still parses it as 8 June
2007 (i.e. switching the day and month around). This has forced me to handle
all dates in US format, which is bad.
>
> There is an open Bugzilla for a date picker:
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=124726 Please watch this bug
> for its progress, and add any comments you may have to this bug entry.
[Cornel]: Cool.
>
>>
>> Are these known issues (I know some of them are)? Shall I register on
>> Bugzilla and post as individual bugs?
>>
>> The performance/slowdown issues are such that I cannot see us using BIRT
>> unless there is some clear indication that it will be fixed in an
>> upcoming release.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Cornel Masson
>> Shazam Entertainment.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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| Re: BIRT Report Designer: serious performance problems [message #212054 is a reply to message #212045] |
Wed, 17 January 2007 09:10 |
| Eclipse User |
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Cornel,
I have spoken to our developers and looks like issues 1 (data set dialog
being slow), 2 (losing data set parameters), and 3b (multiple repaint
events) should have all been fixed in the 2.2 branch. I invite you to try
out the latest milestone build in this branch (2.2M4).
Can you please file bugzilla entries for the remaining issues?
thanks,
Gary
"Cornel Masson" <cornel.masson@shazamteam.com> wrote in message
news:eol8mm$tld$1@utils.eclipse.org...
> See comments interspersed...
>
> "Gary Xue" <gxue@actuate.com> wrote in message
> news:eojvf8$lb2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
>> Cornel, please see my questions below. Thanks for reporting these issues.
>>
>> --
>> Gary Xue [Actuate Corporation | BIRT Committer]
>>
>>
>> "Cornel Masson" <cornel.masson@shazamteam.com> wrote in message
>> news:eoiptp$aa2$1@utils.eclipse.org...
>>>
>>> 1. I am connecting to an Oracle data source (Oracle 10g, using the JDBC
>>> thin driver). It takes *ages* to open up the Data Set dialog (on both
>>> large & small SQL queries). It also takes ages to swap between sections
>>> in this dialog, and, again, ages when you OK to save and close it. When
>>> I say *ages*, I mean >10 secs.
>>
>> How many tables/views are visible to the Oracle DB user? How many items
>> are shown in the data set query editor's Available Item tree? If there
>> are many (say >100) items there, does it help the performance if you
>> connect to a smaller DB with fewer objects?
>
> [Cornel]: I have 32 schemas, but since my preferences currently limits
> this to 20, the Available Items view opens with 20 entries.
> There are hundreds of tables & views across these 32/20 schemas.
> Unfortunately, all our databases are of this size, so I don't have a small
> one to test it with.
> What I have now done is to change, in my preferences, the maximum number
> of schemas and tables to display, to 1 each, and that makes a difference.
> This is sort of OK as a workaround, since I never drag-and-drop from the
> available items anyway (I paste in a huge SQL query from my Oracle tool).
> However, in general, it still looks like a performace bug: the dialog
> should scale well for large databases with many schemas and tables.
>
>
>> Also does it help if you increase the Java heap memory setting (see item
>> 3 below)?
>>
>>> 2. Related, but not a performance issue - a bug rather: if you change
>>> *anything* in the SQL query, BIRT throws away *all* your exsting query
>>> parameter definitions! This happens even if the SQL changes did not at
>>> all impact the parameters. This is a real morale killer.
>>
>> Can you please file a Bugzilla bug for this issue?
>
> [Cornel]: OK, bug logged:
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=170757
>
>>
>>
>>> 3. On anything but really trivial report designs, the UI quickly becomes
>>> very unresponsive. I have a report with a Grid, some textual elements
>>> and then my main Table element, which has 11 columns. When I resize a
>>> column, for example, the UI lags behind noticably, is slow to redraw,
>>> etc. It seems to get worse when I have been working on the design for a
>>> long time (a leak maybe?).
>>> Also, some UI actions seem to trigger too many repaint events, e.g. when
>>> you delete a column from a table, the 'Property Editor' area seems to
>>> flash a number of times before it settles (after some *time* - again,
>>> this is a real bug-bear).
>>
>> What's the Java VM heap memory sett?ing that you use to start Eclipse?
>> Does it help if you use the following command line to start Eclipse/BIRT?
>>
>> eclipse.exe -vmargs -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
>
> [Cornel]: No, this doesn't make any difference.
> Also, I have now verified that shutting BIRT down and restarting solves
> the sluggishness problem to a large degree, i.e. there seems to be some
> sort of leak that develops over time.
> The problem with the multiple repaints of the 'Property Editor' area is
> still there (when you delete a column from a table).
>
>>
>>
>>> 4. Lastly, something else: *date* report parameters (the last time I
>>> checked the mailing list, this was dismissed as a Sun JRE issue and,
>>> hence, will stay a bug in BIRT???). You cannot have a non-US locale,
>>> since, even though dates will be displayed correctly, you cannot *enter*
>>> them into the report parameter dialog in the locale-correct way: BIRT
>>> always tries to interpret the day/month ordering according to the US
>>> locale.
>>> Also, when can we get a *date picker*? 9 out of 10 reports have a date
>>> (or dates) as a parameter, and when last did you see on the Web a date
>>> input field without some sort of date picker?
>>
>> The parameter dialog expects date/time value input in the current user
>> locale. So if you user locale's set to US English it expects US date
>> format. What format will you like to enter date/time values in?
>
> [Cornel]: In the Report Design/Preview preferences, I changed the locale
> to United Kingdom. The viewer correctly displayed dates in the UK format.
> However, in the report parameters entry dialog, when I enter a date in UK
> format, say 6/8/2007 (for 6 August 2007), BIRT still parses it as 8 June
> 2007 (i.e. switching the day and month around). This has forced me to
> handle all dates in US format, which is bad.
>
>>
>> There is an open Bugzilla for a date picker:
>> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=124726 Please watch this
>> bug for its progress, and add any comments you may have to this bug
>> entry.
>
> [Cornel]: Cool.
>
>>
>>>
>>> Are these known issues (I know some of them are)? Shall I register on
>>> Bugzilla and post as individual bugs?
>>>
>>> The performance/slowdown issues are such that I cannot see us using BIRT
>>> unless there is some clear indication that it will be fixed in an
>>> upcoming release.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Cornel Masson
>>> Shazam Entertainment.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
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