I have a process that does several database updates in quick succession. It is slower than I believe it should be and I am working over the process, attempting to speed it up.
Tonight it is consistently slow.
The debugger is warning me that thing could be sped up with more capacity. But even after giving it a boost of 2 units, performance is abysmal.
Simply eyeballing the process, it look to me like it is taking six to eight seconds more than it should. And that is what Bubble is reporting in its debugger warnings. This is after boosting, and it’s consistent with slow response I saw without the boost.
Here’s the capacity charts for the last six hours, the timeframe in which I’ve done most of my testing today:
I’ve been told that “Make changes to” is much faster than “Create a new”, so I set up the database and workflows to prime the database by creating a new, empty (model) thing in an API workflow. Then, rather than creating the thing when the user needs it, the process is to grab the model thing and change it to reflect what the user thinks is a new thing. Then, the workflow triggers the API to create another model thing. (In reality, I’m keeping three model things available per user so even with sluggish performance, there should always be at least one available for the user.)
What am I not understanding about performance and how to speed up database updates?
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Just FYI - API workflows are deprioritized relative to workflows on the page. So, if your server ever gets to 100% capacity it’ll prioritize non-API workflows first before it gets to any of the API workflows.
Also, where did you hear that “make changes to” is faster than “create a new” thing? …I haven’t seen that before.
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Thanks for the tip about API de-prioritization.
The word that “make changes to” is faster than “create a new” thing is something that came up on the forum a year or more ago. I’d have to dig through old topics to find it.
This does point to a long-standing frustration with Bubble. Documentation is terrible or non-existent. The reference and manual are rudimentary at best, and I could go on. There is much that should be understood by a developer about performance that is not gathered in any useful way that I know of. I don’t know how to find facts like API workflows are deprioritized.
I don’t wish to turn this into a rant, but I could really use much more concrete understanding of performance factors, and I don’t know where to turn.
Yeah, it looks like better documentation is on Bubble’s roadmap so I suspect they’ll find a smart way to make it easier for us to find the information we need.
Seems like the way to learn all of this for now is to read through the forum. Most everything seems to have been covered at some point by someone, but it definitely takes a material amount of time to stay on top of the forum. Without the community, building on Bubble would be so much harder. Very thankful there’s so many helpful entrepreneurs out there!
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You are so right. I couldn’t be doing what I am in Bubble without the forum, or as you said, the community.
