Need Help FLEXI has slowed to a crawl

[john maughan]

Im using SAI FLexi with my HP latex setup, it been running AOK for a few years but all of a sudden it slowed down, really slowed down.
My PC is a bit of a beast, but all of a sudden the time it takes to generate a job file is massively slow, like 10 minutes from clicking send to the machine starting to print. Does anyone else suffer from this or know what's causing it. Latest version of flexi 19 and the PC spec is: HP Z620 Workstation Win 10 Intel Xeon Quad E5 1620 v2 3.7, 64GB ram and 250GB Samsung SSD.

The screenshot is 50 labels being sent to the printer - it took over ten minutes to have the machine kick into life. Ive got the video on Youtube if anyone interested, but you can hear me calling the PC and software terrible names - it was 7pm on a Friday night

 

[Jason1]

I was printing a small 1440x1440 ink limit file for profiling and it was extremely slow. The printer would make 1 pass and pause. I rebooted the computer and it seems to be running fine now. I just upgraded to the latest version from the first version.

 

[Joseph44708]

I just took in a a cool job of seven labels 500 each, customer supplied art (pdf files).
After setting first label up in flexi and adding two sets of cut lines then sending to print, it took about five minutes before reaching printer.
Hmmmmmmmm never happened before.
I called customer and designer and found the problem.
The person who designed the labels is a great designer but dosent know how the printing process works. (THINKS WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT PRINTS)
The designer had layers of art copied and layered from other art in the file created which made the file HUGE and took lot of time to upload.
I schooled the designer and the problem is corrected now.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Check your SSD and make sure it has plenty of free space. If it's full, it will slow things down a lot.

 

[Tyler322]

Flexi is a useless program, the only reason I'm using it is because it came free with my setup. Coming from Ergosoft 14, it is the most buggy, slow, un-optimised RIP I've come across. Ergosoft takes 5 seconds to rip and send a job to the printer Flexi take 3-5mins... it's ridiculous. Their help staff are just as bad and don't take anything seriously and just pass it off as user error.

 

[Joseph44708]

With Flexi I just sent 30 sets of 5 different colors 150 total in less than 15 seconds.
So Tyler322 Free programs are worth what you paid for them no matter what program it is.
Nothing.

 

[Adam White]

I'm in the same boat! I recently updated Flexi to 21 and now I can't even rip my files. UGH

 

[DPD]

I'll take a try at this but I'll admit if my supposition is wrong then my argument falls apart. Here are your troubleshooting steps and it will get wonky. I used to be a computer programmer in another life so I worked on optimization all the time. Especially with code like C and C++ you have to always be aware of how memory is affected. Here's the basic stuff:

If you are running Windows then prior to sending your job to the production manager open up the Windows Task Manager and then set it so you can look at the RAM memory that is being used. Either you are running short of memory before starting the send to prod manager (in which case open programs are causing memory issues) or you are running close to memory capacity after the send (you are short on memory). The memory I'm talking about here is RAM. If you're RAM is running low you will by default begin using your Windows Swap File which is on your hard disk and this is not a good place to be. I won't go into the details.

I'm targeting memory because I can't imagine that Flexi is doing its color computations anywhere but RAM memory otherwise it would be slow and tedious (which BTW, could now be your issue). I'm confused that you say your computer is a beast. Does that mean you have an optimized maxed out modern computer with plenty of RAM or are you running some old dog of a system that's got so much going on it can't handle things anymore? Either way, if you are doing design work the most critical factor in your work is RAM memory - the more the better. All designers max out their memory on their computers prior to their purchase. Disk memory comes second but it is also important because the larger your disk the more Swap file Windows can allocate.

Lastly, if you are having memory problems then just shutting down the other programs running on your system can [sometimes] help. I say sometimes because old programs are notorious for memory leaks and not releasing memory when you shut them down. It's basic computer programming stuff. You just might have to restart your computer and run flexi production manager separately by sending your flexi file and placing it on 'hold' until you can restart but don't forget to start Windows Task Manager to watch whats going on.

Yea, it's a bummer and I don't want to be a buzzkill but I find that these things happening with the most up to date Adobe, Flexi, Chrome, Firefox etc. applications - everything. If it had a choice I'd be on some form of Linux but I tried Ubuntu with Flexi and even the Cloud version is a 'no-go'. I'm still working on getting Spotify working on Ubuntu but that's for another day.

You can always add RAM to a system that is not maxed out and you might have to do that if the cost of purchasing new is not worth it for you.

- denis

 

[DPD]

I'm in the same boat! I recently updated Flexi to 21 and now I can't even rip my files. UGH

Flexi 21 is awful. I tried to install the and it corrupted my hard disk. I had to recover from a disk image and lost hours of time (but no work). I'd ask how they can put out software like that but then again so does Microsoft.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

So Tyler322 Free programs are worth what you paid for them no matter what program it is.
Nothing.

That doesn't hold water, nor does it in reverse. It depends on it's functionality for the price (or lack thereof) of the software. Not based on price alone.

If it had a choice I'd be on some form of Linux but I tried Ubuntu with Flexi and even the Cloud version is a 'no-go'. I'm still working on getting Spotify working on Ubuntu but that's for another day.

You can always add RAM to a system that is not maxed out and you might have to do that if the cost of purchasing new is not worth it for you.

Fully on Linux here (cue eye rolling from everyone else that has heard my zealotry before). I would imagine that you tried running Flexi via WINE, depending on the version of Flexi that you are running, well depend on if you have bronze quality or garbage (if I recall correctly). If it was via a VM, that should work, may take more effort to get working due to connections with printers etc, but it should work. Any modern version of Flexi is going to be garbage, I think the only version that wasn't garbage is the version that also a Mac version. Garbage in terms of WINE support.

Could always try Caldera as that is available, but only on certain ones.

As to just adding RAM, if the program can only "see"/handle so much RAM, adding more isn't going to do much good, just like getting a CPU with obscene amount of cores. If marginal utility is only so high, adding more isn't going to do much good.

 

[DPD]

That doesn't hold water, nor does it in reverse. It depends on it's functionality for the price (or lack thereof) of the software. Not based on price alone.



Fully on Linux here (cue eye rolling from everyone else that has heard my zealotry before). I would imagine that you tried running Flexi via WINE, depending on the version of Flexi that you are running, well depend on if you have bronze quality or garbage (if I recall correctly). If it was via a VM, that should work, may take more effort to get working due to connections with printers etc, but it should work. Any modern version of Flexi is going to be garbage, I think the only version that wasn't garbage is the version that also a Mac version. Garbage in terms of WINE support.

Could always try Caldera as that is available, but only on certain ones.

As to just adding RAM, if the program can only "see"/handle so much RAM, adding more isn't going to do much good, just like getting a CPU with obscene amount of cores. If marginal utility is only so high, adding more isn't going to do much good.

You're correct about what happens when RAM is maxed out. I forgot to mention that. It's an important part of the puzzle.