How to troubleshoot slow Publisher distributions

Poor distribution performance could be caused by:

Memory shortage on Publisher or QlikView Server machine
or
Backup, Antivirus, Volume Shadow Copy Service, either locking files or slowing down file access.

1) Check the QVS event logs, to see if the QVS has any problems or errors during this time. For example any problems related to Virtual Memory.

If there are Virtual Memory warnings then there is clearly a problem with memory shortage and that has to be actioned.

If there are no Virtual Memory errors in the QVS event log, it is still possible that the problem is memory related because QVS does not log memory usage very well.

2) Enable performance monitoring on the QlikView Server machine and on the Publisher machine.

The steps are described in articles: 

• Windows 2008 Server [QlikView Publisher] How to log CPU and memory with Microsoft Performance Monitor on a windows 2008 Server (PerfMon)
•  Windows 2003 Server How to log CPU and memory with Microsoft Performance Monitor on a Windows 2003 Server (PerfMon)

The performance logs will tell you if memory dips low during the distributions. Low memory on either of the machines could cause windows to page memory to disk which will slow down the entire machine and the distribution will be slowed down.

3) Look through the Windows event logs from both machines, especially the "Application" and "System" logs. Things to look out for are errors and warnings and any signs of backup software locking files.

Backup locking a file could result in an error that directly shows you that it is locking a file used by QlikView:

But it may not be as obvious. Also look in the Windows event logs if Antivirus software is being run and the "Volume Shadow Copy Service”.