File Copy w/ Progress bar - Why so Slow??? - ALMOST RESOLVED

[Ogmius]

ok, im trying to do a filecopy progress bar, it copies the file fine, but it is SOOOOOOOOO slow while copying the file, and once the file is done copying it takes about 30 seconds to release the files

Any suggestions?

The form has 2 text boxes, one frame, one progressbar, and the command button

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim MyBytesa As Byte
Dim MyBytesb As Byte
Dim counter As Integer
 
Source = "C:\test.zip"
Dest = "c:\testfolder\test.zip"
 
Open Source For Binary As #1
Open Dest For Binary As #2
    
ProgressBar1.Max = FileLen(Source) / 1024
 
Text1.Text = FileLen(Source)
 
Do Until EOF(1)
    counter = 0
    MyBytesa = Empty
    MyBytesb = Empty
    Do Until (EOF(1)) Or (counter = 100)
        Get #1, , MyBytesa
        Put #2, , MyBytesa
        counter = counter + 1
    Loop
    Text2.Text = FileLen(Dest)
    ProgressBar1.Value = Text2.Text / 1024
    DoEvents
Loop
 
Close #1
Close #2
Frame1.Caption = "Update Progress - Done!"
ProgressBar1.Value = ProgressBar1.Max
 
End Sub

[RudyL]

Can you attach your form with the code in it? (It wil make it easier to look at)

[techgnome]

The first thing that catches my eye is that you are doing a byte by byte copy. Which is slow. You would be better off with copying chunks at a time.....
Also, you are aware that the code will only copy the first 100 bytes, right?

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim MyBytesa() As Byte
Dim FileSize As Long
 
Source = "C:\test.zip"
Dest = "c:\testfolder\test.zip"
 
Open Source For Binary As #1
Open Dest For Binary As #2
    
ProgressBar1.Min = 0
ProgressBar1.Max = (FileLen(Source) \ 1024) + 1
ProgressBar1.Value = 0
 
FileSize = FileLen(Source)
Text1.Text = FileSize
 
Do Until EOF(1)
    If FileSize >= 1024 Then
        ReDim MyBytesa(1024)
    Else
        ReDim MyBytesa(filezise)
    End If
    
    Get #1, , MyBytesa
    Put #2, , MyBytesa
    DoEvents
    Text2.Text = Val(Text1.Text - FileSize)
    ProgressBar1.Value = ProgressBar1.Value + 1
    DoEvents
 
Loop
 
Close #1
Close #2
Frame1.Caption = "Update Progress - Done!"
ProgressBar1.Value = ProgressBar1.Max
 
End Sub

TG

[RudyL]

OK,

I put your code into a little project of my own.. It runs pretty good. I copied files back and forth. It seems to be very quick. The only slowness I saw was with copying over our network.. Wich is what I would expect. Is that what you were seing (Slowness over a network connection)?

Here is my project for you to check out.

Rudy

[kleinma]

maybe im missing something?

FileCopy([i]source as string[/i], [i]destination as string[/i])

[RudyL]

Originally posted by techgnome
The first thing that catches my eye is that you are doing a byte by byte copy. Which is slow. You would be better off with copying chunks at a time.....
Also, you are aware that the code will only copy the first 100 bytes, right?

Why do you say it will only copy the 1st 100 bytes? I copied a 2.5 Meg file with his code and it worked fine..

Rudy

[RudyL]

Originally posted by kleinma
maybe im missing something?

FileCopy([i]source as string[/i], [i]destination as string[/i])

kleinma,

I don;t think you can do a progress bar with filecopy.. can you?

[techgnome]

Originally posted by RudyL
Why do you say it will only copy the 1st 100 bytes? I copied a 2.5 Meg file with his code and it worked fine..

Rudy

Wasn't unitl I was combing through it the second time that I say what was going on... .a loop inside a loop.


TG

[kleinma]

Originally posted by RudyL
kleinma,

I don;t think you can do a progress bar with filecopy.. can you?

maybe not with the VB file copy function.. but I know there is a way to envoke the windows file copy dialog and copy the files that way...

[RudyL]

I believe you are correct, but I don;t think that would serve his purpose.. I know I have had to do something similar in the past so that I could have a progress bar located on my form instead of another dialog box...

[Ogmius]

techgnome - Thanks for that code, it worked really awsome, and was perfect, my application is going to be copying larger files, so I noticed with my 25mb test file it was taking up to 60 - 90 seconds... the other problem that I have is how come it takes so long to release the files and the application when its done copying the files? I've seen this take up to 45 seconds

Thanks again, all of you for your suggestions

[Ogmius]

the filecopy part works awsome, I just cant figure out why it takes the app so long to close the files (aprox 30 - 45 Seconds) during which the application is locked too

Any more suggestions?

[StevenHickerson]

I just set this up in my own application and I'm not seeing this delay after copying is done that you speak of.

As soon as the progress bar is at the end and it says update complete.. tahts it.. I dont have any hang.

You dont have any other code executing other than this do you?

[Ogmius]

Nope, no extra code at all, just what is within that command function, but maybe its the fact that its a 25 meg file thats the killer? Because I did notice that the "lag" is significantly lower with smaller files such as text files...

as a matter of fact, I even tried compiling the application just to see if that would make any difference, I counted 37 seconds between the time the progress bar filled up, and the time that the message saying that the copy was competed came up and the application was available to the system again

[StevenHickerson]

I considered that too.. thats why I tried a 43 mb zip file and it took a total of maybe 20 seconds start to finish. No 30 second hang on the end. This must have something to do with your system or possibly the file you are copying is corrupted or something I dunno, without seeing it happen hard to say for sure

[Ogmius]

Argh! I dont get it, if I copy it in windows it works fine, but if I do it with the application i still get that lag!

It just doesnt make sense

are you closing the files when your done w/ the copy? because that is the part that seems to make everything "lag"



FYI im doing all this on a P3 933 w/ 128mb RAM running windows 2000, that should definately be enough system to handle a file copy

[Ogmius]

Update, I even tried copying the application and zip file to another computer and even that didnt work

I dont know what else to do at this point this makes no sense at all

[RudyL]

Originally posted by Ogmius
Update, I even tried copying the application and zip file to another computer and even that didnt work

I dont know what else to do at this point this makes no sense at all

Ogmius,

I ran your code (See my attachment above for the project I put together with your code) and don't see the problem either.. But do this, add a text box to your form. In your code after everyline add this text1.text = now & vbnewline Run it. Look at the printout, then slowly remove the text1.text = now & vbnewline from various locations that you can see is not hanging. Eventually you will come to a point that you see exactly where you are hanging. That will help..

I know it seems like a lot, but I do this a lot when I get stuck oin something.. It really helps..

Also,
You might want to add some DoEvents around your code..


Let us know what happens..
Rudy

[kleinma]

try using this?

It may prove to work better for you....

In form1 just go into the code and change the source and destination files for the copy routine... everything else should just work fine.

[RudyL]

Originally posted by kleinma
try using this?

It may prove to work better for you....

In form1 just go into the code and change the source and destination files for the copy routine... everything else should just work fine.

Kleinma,
Nice job.. That runs nice..

Ogmius, I see your point now. It seems that the bigger the file the more the delay.. I think it is how you are copyiung the bytes.. If you were to read it all into memory first then copy it you might get rid of your delay. I think the problem is that everytime you copy a chunk windows is "re-alocating" memory for is and that is delaying the process, plus when it is done it now has all this memory to release.. A lot more than if you were to just copy the whole thing into memory first..

I will try to work up an example soon..

Rudy

[Ogmius]

RudyL

Any progress on that sample? I am not quite sure how to read the entire file into memory