Avantgo Sync vs. Resco Explorer Network Shares

[Dave Potter]

I have come across an interesting (and frustrating) situation that I thought that I would share.

How to begin... Sorry if this is a little long winded.

I recently began experiencing odd behaviour when synching Avantgo. It would take a long time to initialize the process after the ActiveSync connection was established. I thought that this was an issue with the Avantgo servers - but quicky discovered that it was not through this (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22023
) posting.

Then, Avantgo synch stopped working altogether. I would receive a message on my desktop PC about the mobile unit not responding to a request for out dated content. I restored to a two day old backup - and then it would work again. I would spend about 10 minutes re-doing some minor adjustments that I thought up the previous two days - and then Avantgo sync would stop working once again.

It was obvious that my minor adjustments were the source of the problem. So, I restored the same backup again and then systematically went about applying each adjustment one at a time, then synching, then another adjustment, another sync ... and so on.

Here is what I discovered - the source of the problem was too many, excessively broad network shares setup in Resco File Explorer. (By 'excessively broad' I mean entire drives containing many folders and subfolders and tons of data files)

Why? I don't know. Nonetheless, I found if I made the shares more specific - individual folders or subfolders - and kept the overall number of shares to a minimum, the problem disappeared.

Here is my theory - I have my 'Network' listed as a subfolder of 'My Device' in Resco File Explorer. I have noticed that the PPC's operating system (WM 2003) seems to poll 'My Device' and all of it's subfolders (including the 'Network' subfolder) at seemingly inappropriate times. The more numerous and the broader the shares are under the 'Network' subfolder, the longer this polling process takes. In my case this polling process took so long that it caused the Avantgo sych process to time out.

Does this makes any sense? Has anyone else experienced this or anything like this?

[Dave Beauvais]

Couldn't you just exit Resco Explorer when you're not using it to see if that helps? :) I've got five network drives mapped to the root directory of large drives on four different computers and never notice any slowness that could be attributed to this. However, I'm one of those people who close applications when I'm not using them, so perhaps that's why.

[Dave Potter]

Couldn't you just exit Resco Explorer when you're not using it to see if that helps? :)

Good advise - I always exit applications when I am done using them (I use BatteryPack 2004). In the scenario described above, Resco explorer wasn't even running. In fact, the only thing that was running was ActiveSync.

Wierd - I know. But I was very systematic about troubleshooting this. Keep in mind that once you have mapped a shared resource in Resco - it becomes avaialble in all other applications as well - regardless of whether Resco is still running or not.

The only other potential approach would be to setup 'My Network' as a root instead of as a 'Network' folder listed under 'My Device'.

[Dave Beauvais]

... Keep in mind that once you have mapped a shared resource in Resco - it becomes avaialble in all other applications as well - regardless of whether Resco is still running or not.
I wasn't aware of that. I even have some drives mapped to locations that don't exist on my LAN -- drives used at a friend's house -- and never notice any sluggishness as a result. For what it's worth, I make My Network its own root instead of a subfolder of My Device and am using Resco Explorer v4.30.

[Dave Potter]

The only other potential approach would be to setup 'My Network' as a root instead of as a 'Network' folder listed under 'My Device'.

Update:

I just tried this approach and it makes a significant difference. Avantgo sync seems to initate much more quicky this way (roughly twice as fast). It seems that setting 'My Network' up as a root alleviates the polling issue.

Keep in mind that once you have mapped a shared resource in Resco - it becomes avaialble in all other applications as well - regardless of whether Resco is still running or not.

Apparently this is only true if you have the network setup as a subfolder of 'My Device' in Resco File Explorer.