Diagnosing Connection Speed Issues

If you are experiencing performance issues with the Claritum System, you might find the following information helpful.

Check your local network

The reduction in performance may be as a result of too much traffic on your office network. Try these steps:

1. Check system performance from another location
   From a home-office or any off-site location, log into the Claritum System and run through some of your standard system routines.
   If the system seems fine from your the off-site location then the problems are within your office network.
   Solution: Contact your IT manager if the problem appears to be within the office network.
    

2. Use a broadband speed checker (such as http://www.speedtest.net/index.php) to measure connection speed
   This test is completely independent of Claritum so if it reveals slow traffic at certain times of the day then there is either too much traffic on the local network or there is a fault with the Internet Service Provider.
   Solution: Contact your IT manager if the problem appears to be within the office network. 

Common reasons for slow throughput across the local network are: 

• Too many very large files being transferred up/down
  Particularly an issue if the Artwork Department uses the same network to transfer artwork files in and out.
  Solution: Install a separate internet connection for the Artwork Department and ensure these file transfers do not traverse the local network.
   

• VoIP telephones are in use and too many calls are being made simultaneously
  Voice calls that go across the same internet connection will generally take priority and each simultaneous call will take more of the available bandwidth, slowing the rest of the network traffic.
  Solution: Install a separate internet connection for VoIP traffic.

 (both of these will obviously need the involvement of your IT Manager!).

Check connections between your network and the Claritum system

If your overall network bandwidth looks OK, there may be a problem somewhere between your office network and the Claritum system. These are harder to diagnose, but a couple of tools can help.

Traceroute

The first step is to trace the route between a desktop machine in their offices and our servers, looking for any bottlenecks. There are a number of free third party tools such as HyperTrace that can do this, but Windows comes with a built-in command line utility that does the same thing. The advantage of using the built-in tool is that you can run it from any machine, without installing additional software. If you use a 3rd party tool to do this analysis, please make sure to the let us know which one.

To capture the trace using the built-in Windows utility:

1. Click Start > Run

2. In the dialog, type "cmd" (without the quotes)

3. In the command line interface that pops up, type: "tracert <yourserver.claritum.com>", where <yourserver.claritum.com> is the hostname you use to access the Claritum system.

The program will spit out some lines of text similar to the screen grab below:

The output shows the servers each packet travels through between your computer and our system and the amount of time it takes each server to respond. By comparing the results when system performance appears good against when it's bad, it may be possible to isolate where the traffic is slowing to a crawl. Response times below 50 milliseconds are normal if you access Claritum from the same country your system is hosted in. Anything above 100 milliseconds may indicate a bottleneck.

If you need help analysing the results, email the output to us. You can cut-and-paste the results into an email easily:

1. Right-click in the window and choose 'Select All'

2. Hit the Enter key. 

3. Open a new email message

4. Right-click in the body and select 'Paste'

5. Address the email to support@claritum.com

6. Please see 'Reporting Connection Issues' for additional information to include

Microsoft Network Monitor

Traceroute is good for checking the route packets are taking, but won't necessarily show up other communications problems, like mangled packets. If the above tests do not provide any answers some more in-depth analysis may be required.

Microsoft provide a free application called Network Monitor that captures far more of the conversation. You can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4865

Once installed and running:

1. Make sure you only have one browser with only one tab open, pointing to the page that is loading slowly

2. Click the 'New Capture' button in Network Monitor

3. Click 'Capture' > 'Start' (or hit F5) to start capturing packets

4. Go to your browser and refresh the page and wait for it to completely finish loading

5. Click 'Capture' > 'Stop' (or hit F7) in Network Monitor

6. In the 'Network Conversations' pane on the left, select 'My Traffic' > iexplore.exe (or firefox.exe if you use Firefox, chrome.exe if you use Chrome)

7. Select File > Save As...

8. In the 'Frame Selection' part of the dialog, choose 'Displayed frames', then save the file somewhere you will be able to find it

The output of Network Monitor is extremely detailed, but isn't easy to understand. Attach the file to an email and send it to support so we can analyse it - see 'Reporting Connection Issues' below. Please be sure you have run all the other tests first.

Mac and other operating systems 

Similar network diagnostic programs are available on almost every operating system. Please contact support for recommendations.

Reporting Connection Issues

If the previous tests reveal no problems with your office network or internet service provider then you will need to report the performance issue to us.

Please ensure you include the following information (otherwise we will not be able to investigate the issue and nothing will get resolved):

1. Which page was being accessing (ie jobbag listings, rfq pages, Pageflex templates on the customer catalogue, etc)

2. What action was being performed (ie searching for item, clicking 'save', etc)

3. Who experienced the problem

4. The time they noticed the problem occurring

5. Which of the tests above have been performed what were the results.

Once you have this information please contact your Super User who will raise a support request on your behalf.