GNU cash slow to load

[Liz]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:33:35 -0500
David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/30/2013 8:38 AM, Johannes Kapune wrote:
> >
> > Am 30.03.2013 14:29, schrieb Colin Law:
> >> On 30 March 2013 12:30, Jamestk <davidjamestk at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> >>> Hello all,
> >>>
> >>> I have been using GNU cash for around three months now without
> >>> issue. The only slightly worrying aspect is the load times appear
> >>> to be getting longer as time moves on.
> >> Approximately how long does it take?  Are you talking 20 seconds
> >> or 5 minutes for example?  You have not given us any clues.
> >> What does it say it is doing while it is hanging about?
> >> Is the data on the local hard disk?
> >>
> > you still have opened some reports?
> >
> >> Colin
> >>
> 
> GnuCash is just a slow program.  If you watch the splash screen while
> it is loading (if you have not disabled it), at the bottom of the
> screen is a line telling you what it is doing now.  If it stops
> changing, that is a clue.  My file takes the better part of a minute
> to open on a computer that is less than a year old.  Do you have a
> Solitaire program to play while you are waiting?
> 
> David C
>

As some have hinted, the size of the data file is part of the problem
of "slow loading" as the entire data file has to be loaded at startup.
My biggest datafile is 547Kb compressed, and probably uncompresses to
the 8Mb mark. It has data from 1995.
It loads in 12 seconds on a computer I've had for some years, but I
have put an SSD in it for my OS (Debian unstable).
This speeds up all program loading and is a relatively simple option,
cheaper than the new computer.