Parts of Graph disappear, then re-appear on re-open, seems to be connected with ESS

Issue report by Christopher Bailey

Product

FileMaker Pro

Version

13

Operating system version

Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.8.5

Description of the issue

Have a large complex FM system hosted on a Windows Server 2008.
Server V13.
Connected to a MySQL database, through ESS, which is hosted on another machine.


The following occurs:
1) Open FMP and the database on a client machine (windows or mac).
2) Open the Relationships Graph via Manage Database.
3) Chunks of the graph are missing. The chunks that are missing including the ESS Table Occurrences, but also, unrelated FMP table occurrences as well.
4) Close Manage Database.
5) Re-open Manage Database, Relationships.
6) The chunks are now "back".


Note that, when I open the same file locally, offline, un-hosted, then I get, first, a pop-up asking me to log into the My-SQL connector ODBC data source. If I refuse or cancel, the graph opens, and everything displays just fine, including the ESS T.O.s (though obviously they are not functional since the actual database can't be connected to.)

The behavior suggest some kind of "sluggishness" between FMP/FMS and the ESS source.

I've also wondered if it has anything to do with some general system-wide crashes we experienced a few times.

Steps to reproduce the problem

I'm not sure how to easily reproduce this in a test file. I would be happy to screen-share or otherwise allow FMI personnel to take a look at the situation.

Expected result

I would assume that the graph would show everything, no problem, especially if the ESS mechanism is all up and running fine.

Actual result

See above.

Configuration information

Both servers involved are quad-core Xeons, running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, 64-bit, our FM database is located on a 700GB drive. So I do not think this is a not-enough-juice-in-the-server issue.

Workaround

Again, if you re-open the graph, the missing stuff re-appears.

For a while the system was experiencing seemingly random crashes or "freezes" of the server, and I wondered whether this ESS "sluggishness" might have been responsible. Not sure the 2 issues are/were related, but in general it seems like whatever underlies this issue might point to other things.

Screenshot