Slow performance on Snow Leopard

[Pat McMillan]

Microsoft is aware of sporadic reports of serious performance degradation in
Excel 12.2.1 running on Snow Leopard and is currently investigating. It
appears that the problem is related to specific printer drivers on Snow
Leopard when Excel is in Page Layout View and that a temporary workaround to
the problem is to switch to Normal view (View/Normal). While we investigate
this problem, we will continue to monitor this forum for more information
that might help us in our investigations.

Thank you,

Pat

--
Pat McMillan
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corp.
This posting is provided �AS IS� with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[sh...@officeformac.com]

Pat, I am sure you are right, and I wish that were true. But for me, Excel worked really fine even after I upgraded to Snow Leopard. That's when I realized my Office 2008 did not have auto-update installed. Microsoft support helped me out with that last week. So auto-update works now, but looks like it was at the price of speed on Excel. Now I can't even move between cells, enter data or scroll up/down page without some kind of unknown process going on in the background.

It is so very unusual. I don't think Microsoft support knows what's wrong as they are yet to even acknowledge my email.

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks. I let a representative of our technical support team know about this
performance issue yesterday, so hopefully they'll be more helpful in the
future.

Are you able to change your view to Normal view? Does that make the
performance problems go away?

Thanks,

Pat

On 9/30/09 6:52 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"sh...@officeformac.com" <sh...@officeformac.com> wrote:

--

[Bernardo]

Hello Pat

I have the same problem with Excel, but using the Normal View didn't
fix it.
Waiting for MS solution!
Thanks.

Mac OS X 10.6.1
Excel for Mac 2008 12.2.1

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks Bernardo. Do you still have the problem if you change to Normal view,
then quit and restart Excel?

Thanks,

Pat

On 10/4/09 9:30 PM, in article
a1857e08-d87b-49dc...@g6g2000vbr.googlegroups.com, "Bernardo"
<bpco...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Bernardo]

Hi Pat

When I open an existing Workbook, if it opens in Page Layout the
problem is present, even if i change to Normal view.
When I open an existing Workbook, if it opens in Normal view the
problem is not present until I change to Page Layout. If I change
again to Normal, the problem persists.

The solution that is working for me is:
1. Change the Excel Preferences>View>Preferred views for new sheets to
Normal.
2. Every time I open a Workbook that was previously saved using Page
Layout change it no Normal view, save, close and open again.
3. Don't use the Page Layout (until MS fix the bug!).

Thanks for your attention,

Bernardo

Mac OS X 10.6.1
Excel for Mac 2008 12.2.1

On 5 out, 13:29, Pat McMillan <patmc...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Thanks Bernardo. Do you still have the problem if you change to Normal view,
> then quit and restart Excel?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pat
>
> On 10/4/09 9:30 PM, in article

> a1857e08-d87b-49dc-87b7-0b073c3bf...@g6g2000vbr.googlegroups.com, "Bernardo"

[Christ...@officeformac.com]

Hi, everybody. I have exactly the same problem. I am using an HP printer. If I delete the printer in the preference pane, Excel works like a charm. If I install again the printer... Excel becomes very slow in a page view. I also notice that on an another account (my wife's) Excel works good even if the HP printer's driver is installed. Hope it helps.

[Go...@officeformac.com]

Hi Also thanks, I only experienced the slow down when I upgraded last week. Very frustrating. The change in view hasn't helped. Im anxiously waiting a fix as I find I now have to use my windows computer for work. Thats a real bummer!

[Marie...@officeformac.com]

Hi!

I have the same problem - but Bernardo's work around solution above is working for the time being.

As extra information I can say I too have a HP printer. I haven't tried to uninstall it to see if anything changes though. However, if I create a new account for my Mac, Excel works just as it should without me having to do anything.

[Xin...@officeformac.com]

Thanks for reporting back, Marie! This performance degradation only happens with a handful of printer drivers. The new account you created may associate with a different printer (printer driver). Another possibility is that the default paper size is set to "US Letter" in "system preferences - > print & fax" for the new account. After investigation, we found "US Letter" is immune of this slowness.

Thanks,
XinXin
Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

> Hi!

[J_Se...@officeformac.com]

I have also been having this problem, and also traced it back to being an issue with HP printer drivers (I'm using an A4 print size). If a printer using the HP driver is set as the default printer under System Preferences/Print & Fax, then the slowdowns occur. If you select a printer using a non-HP driver as the system default, no slowdowns occur.

I have outlined the various steps I took to find this in this thread on the Apple discussions site, including an instruments trace that shows the CUPs calls during the slowdowns. The message below links to the useful posts

<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10308110#10308110>

Other users have since confirmed the HP driver involvement. Hopefully this extra info will lead to a fix,
J

[EricAm...@officeformac.com]

Thanks! After contacting AppleCare and searching several fora, this workaround 'solved' my problem.

the problem I was having since I upgraded to Snow Leopard:
- very slow start-up and responses in Excel 2008 (formulas, changing worksheets etc)

Switching to 'normal' view helped!
My standard printer: HP OfficeJet Pro L7600

[John McGhie]

Yes. Keep checking the HP website: they have an issue with their Snow
Leopard drivers, and they will resolve it fairly soon, I am sure.

On 22/10/09 7:12 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"EricAm...@officeformac.com" <EricAm...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name

[Dan...@officeformac.com]

Well just to confirm I'm suffering from the same symptoms.
Indeed changing the print page from A4 to US solved it, but not a workaround I would like to use in the long term.

Mactopia team, thanks for the support and please keep us informed of progress in solving the issue with HP.

[John McGhie]

Hi Daniel:

You would need to stay across the Apple and HP websites now...

Microsoft would report this issue to Apple, because Apple owns the printing
subsystem that the Microsoft code is calling.

It's Apple's job to report it to HP, because HP supplied the driver that
Apple distributed and is calling from their print subsystem.

Microsoft would then stand back, because they do not own either piece of
code and thus have no control over the issue.

Cheers

On 29/10/09 10:26 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"Dan...@officeformac.com" <Dan...@officeformac.com> wrote:

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,

[silverba...@officeformac.com]

Just to add to this topic, I have been having a similar problem. There is always a background process using 90%+ of my computer memory when entering data in a cell. Its very frustrating, and even uninstalling and re-installing excel did not solve the problem. I run a HP Photosmart C5180 All in One printer. I look forward to HP/Apple/Microsoft sorting out this problem.

Regards

[John McGhie]

Yep: That's the "Bad HP Printer Driver" problem. Remove the HP printer
driver altogether from the system, then check Apple downloads.

Replace it with whatever is the latest one they're offering.

There were some new ones appeared last week. They know they have an issue
and they're on it...

Cheers

On 3/11/09 4:23 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"silverba...@officeformac.com" <silverba...@officeformac.com>
wrote:

[silverba...@officeformac.com]

[silverba...@officeformac.com]

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately this has not solved my problem. I'll keep checking back in the hope that Microsoft/HP find a solution.

[Xin...@officeformac.com]

Hi J,

Microsoft is currently investigating this performance degradation. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the investigation done with 12.2.3. Please stay tuned.

Thanks,
XinXin Liu

Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

> >They know they have an issue and they're on it...
>

> May I ask how you know this, John? Because I have seen little evidence that this issue is actually being addressed either by HP, Microsoft or Apple.
>
> Since this thread and others in the Apple Discussion forums were started, we have had a several updates including: two updates to Os X (10.6.1 & 10.6.2), an update to Office 2008 (v12.2.3) and two updates to the HP printer drivers (v2.2 & v2.3). Yet still the problem persists. What the hell is going on?
>
> J
>
> J

[J_Se...@officeformac.com]

[John McGhie]

Because XinXin said so :-) He's the one who is working on the bug as we
speak...

On 22/11/09 6:25 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
"J_Se...@officeformac.com" <J_Se...@officeformac.com> wrote:

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

[techno...@officeformac.com]

For what it's worth, I use Normal View and don't have any HP printer drivers installed and have US Letter set in System Preferences -- and have this issue -- a beach ball that often interferes with work. HP drivers may be one cause but not the only cause.

Strangely enough, I have the exact same computer at work (Mac Pro) with an HP print driver installed yet it does not have this problem.

[techno...@officeformac.com]

One more thing -- I'm running Leopard 10.5.8, not Snow Leopard.

[John McGhie]

Well, YOU do not have THIS issue :-)

You have "a different" issue that is producing the same symptoms. Because
you are not actually using Snow Leopard, so you are immune to the SnL bugs:
you have the "old" bugs :-)

In your case, the issue is probably "Not enough RAM in the slow computer".

You may be interested to hear that "nothing" runs slow on my Mac Pro either,
but the MacBook is a different story :-)

Hope this helps

On 10/12/09 4:30 PM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
"techno...@officeformac.com" <techno...@officeformac.com> wrote:

--

[techno...@officeformac.com]

John, thank you, but as I mentioned I have two identical Mac Pros with 6 GB of memory. One has this problem and one does not. The only difference between the two is that the one with the problem has 4 internal hard drives. I do not have a problem with any other software, including Word 2008.

[John McGhie]

The only other thing I can think of is that the disk drives are going to
sleep. Make sure you are not specifying "Put the hard disk to sleep when
possible" on a Mac Pro. The cost of the extra electricity you burn will be
far exceeded by the cost of replacing drives that are starting and stopping
constantly. Maybe 80% of the wear and tear on a hard drive occurs when the
platter is speeding up or slowing down...

On 15/12/09 8:51 AM, in article 59b7d...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
"techno...@officeformac.com" <techno...@officeformac.com> wrote:

--

[techno...@officeformac.com]

Interesting. I didn't even realize I had that setting turned on. I've turned it off so we'll see what happens. Thank you.