Why I am starting to hate this software

Have you considered turning off "Automatically Download Updates" in Program Settings? Then you have the choice to accept software updates only once every couple of months or however infrequently you want.

I've reached the point where I look at Logos 4 like I look at my wife's MG Midget: It looks good sitting in the garage and it's fun to play with sometimes but when you have to rely on it you realize how unreliable it is.  Unfortunately, Logos 4 has been an experience in slow and glitchy performance from day one.  I've upgraded both my computer and memory (now an i7 with independent video card) with only modest improvement.  I like having access to all Logos' resources but I still can't get my head around why it's such a performance dog compared to every other program I use.

I love Logos and have been using it since 1997, but my fear is that when other software (i.e., BibleWorks) that already focus on original text, begin to add other resources, which is just a matter of time, Logos is going to start hurting for business. I am suprised that Logos as not already lost some Mac users to other software like accordance. They need to do something to make this software faster and more reliable. I simply refuse to download an update until I read the forums and 10 times out of 10, people are having difficulties and many times, it is the same problems all over again. So I usually run a couple of upgrades behind.

I hate to use the same comparision, but I have a friend that works for Ford Motor Company. He said that they were constantly having problems with their diesel engines built by International. It was not until Ford broke ties with International and began to build their own diesel engines that Ford stopped having so many problems.

Maybe if Logos depends too much on Microsoft and the Microsoft programs are slowing it down and causing other incompatible problems, maybe they should create their own platform. I dont know, I am not a computer programmer, I am a pastor.

Gregg ... at least your wife has good taste. I thought your comment was so funny, since two years ago, we compared L4 to a jag sitting in the garage.

I do think, though, that like the absence of good help files and manuals, a good set of company advice on what drags L4 vs makes it go would have been nice. Every time I see one of these threads, I wonder if Logos even has performance goals (computer-wise). It 'sounds' like the Beverly Hillbilly's (that's a compliment) where they just keep adding furniture on the little truck.

Pastor Michael Huffman said:

Maybe if Logos depends too much on Microsoft and the Microsoft programs are slowing it down and causing other incompatible problems, maybe they should create their own platform. I dont know, I am not a computer programmer, I am a pastor.

Bob has defended their position, by saying basically "do you want us to write display code all day OR do you want us to write Bible Study software?" to which my reply would be BOTH. They chose the path that is better for their business, the only recourse we have is to vote with our wallets. As a full-time pastor myself I am constantly frustrated with having to wait and maintain L4 (choosing to delay indexing due to updating, clicking out of unnecessary browser reminders that pop-up, waiting on slow startup, unsubscribing from over-zealous promotional emails, ...)

Shawn Drewett said:

15-20 minute check out times

obviously you never lived in Russia [:)] We long for Walmart to come in and introduce real customer service.

Hey toughski I feel for you. I've never lived in Russia and am thankful for Wal-Mart just making a comparison. People raise their expectations when the overall standard is raised. I visit India frequently and they wish they COULD wait in line for items. 

Hmmm, this is interesting:

I run on a laptop using a wireless and a server. To be honest the only time I really experience a slow L4 is when it is updating or doing a sync. Although , I must admit that I usually have the use the internet and the auto-update unchecked and not running, and usually check once or twice a week for them.

Not having these checked reduces the start-up time as well as having it load the home page every time I run the program. I also have those ‘other guys’ and to be honest I really do not see much difference. If you start L4 with a particular set-up every time, then there will be a slower runtime at the beginning,  as opposed to starting with a blank screen. You can also keep the ‘history’ clean so that it will run smoother.

Yet, all in all, I can remember when it was L2, and in comparison to L4 – well there is no comparison really. But I guess it all comes down to a matter of preference. But then I do not have Scholars or Portfolio, just the OL, so my resources are not as exhaustive or as cumbersome in the start-up process.

Well that’s my star-bucks $1.50$

 

Alan Charles Gielczyk said:

I understand all the frustration BUT, we have all been pestering Logos for notes and highlighting on our mobile devices for almost two years now and we finally have it. That said it comes at a price, the syncing to keep every platform in line with each other takes time. There are trade offs for every feature we all want so I just want to speak up and say thank you Logos for putting up with all of us and still trying to make all our desired features a reality!

[Y]

Alan Charles Gielczyk said:

I understand all the frustration BUT, we have all been pestering Logos for notes and highlighting on our mobile devices for almost two years now and we finally have it. That said it comes at a price, the syncing to keep every platform in line with each other takes time. There are trade offs for every feature we all want so I just want to speak up and say thank you Logos for putting up with all of us and still trying to make all our desired features a reality!

This is good perspective to keep, but at the same time these features do not necessarily mean performance should take this much of a hit.I guarantee you that there's still of a lot of architectural changes and code optimization that can be done to L4, it's just a matter of prioritizing that over new features.

My take on it is that Logos 4 is still relatively new in terms of powerful commercial software (think Photoshop, Office, AutoCAD, etc.). I realize Logos as a company has been around for a while but L4 is a ground-up rewrite, and in my experience complex, powerful applications tend to take about 5 years to reach full stability and optimization (Aperture is a great example of this). So while I'm often frustrated with the state of Logos now, I still have hope that things will get significantly better as the application matures.

With that said, we should also note that this won't happen if feature bloat becomes more of a development priority than optimization. It's good to keep bringing up these stability and performance issues (in a respectful and patient manner) because it keeps the pressure on Bob and the team to focus on optimization and stability before adding cool new features.

It looks like we're getting towards the end of a major development cycle that's revolved around synchronization and feature parity for the Mac version, so hopefully the next round of updates will focus on performance and stability.

Pastor Michael Huffman said:

I love Logos and have been using it since 1997, but my fear is that when other software (i.e., BibleWorks) that already focus on original text, begin to add other resources, which is just a matter of time, Logos is going to start hurting for business. I am suprised that Logos as not already lost some Mac users to other software like accordance. They need to do something to make this software faster and more reliable. I simply refuse to download an update until I read the forums and 10 times out of 10, people are having difficulties and many times, it is the same problems all over again. So I usually run a couple of upgrades behind.

If anything, I think Accordance has probably lost business to Logos.  Originally Logos was PC only while Accordance handled the MAC.  All of the MAC users of Logos either were or could have been Accordance users (and some may use both programs.).

I run the program on a Acer Netbook, I just it download and index in the evening when i know that I am not going to be using the program. Normally I do the updates at least one or twice a week.  I understand and know the performance issues of my computer and work with it, not against it.

I really do think sometimes we become our own worst enemy when we expect too much or expect it too soon, because we are not willing to work within the limits of ones computer system.I know the limitations of my Acer netbook. I know what having almost 8,000 resources does to it performance wise. So I have learned to adapt to what it can and cannot do.

Sometimes as I read the forums, I have this thought, If Jesus, himself developed a computer software system, to help one study the Word, there would be someone on this forum to complain about something, that Paul could have done it better.

And let's not forget in an earlier thread that version 4.3 was given by God for our study of the Word (not sure about 4.5 or 4.5a).

DMB said:

Gregg ... at least your wife has good taste. I thought your comment was so funny, since two years ago, we compared L4 to a jag sitting in the garage.

I do think, though, that like the absence of good help files and manuals, a good set of company advice on what drags L4 vs makes it go would have been nice. Every time I see one of these threads, I wonder if Logos even has performance goals (computer-wise). It 'sounds' like the Beverly Hillbilly's (that's a compliment) where they just keep adding furniture on the little truck.

Amazingly, she's had the car since high school when she brought it new.  Besides the quirky electrics the other problem is getting OUT of the darn thing ... makes me realize I'm not as flexible (or as small) as I once was.  I'll stick to the motorcycle!

 

Gregg Shelton said:

Amazingly, she's had the car since high school when she brought it new.  Besides the quirky electrics the other problem is getting OUT of the darn thing ... makes me realize I'm not as flexible (or as small) as I once was.  I'll stick to the motorcycle!

Just beware of the rapid exits from the bike going forward.  I was involved in one of those years ago; it was no fun.  [:S]

Super Tramp said:

It is not necessary to shut Logos down every time you walk away from the computer. I leave mine open for days or weeks at a time.

[Y][Y]

I rarely shut down my laptop, but just hibernate it every time I want to power it off, leaving Outlook and Logos open when I do so.  That way, I only have to start them up again if I reboot, inadvertently shut it down or am prompted to restart Logos (which, I concede, has been happening rather more regularly lately, and normally when I'm in a hurry).  I don't think Logos 4 takes any longer to start up on my laptop than Outlook does, and I don't hear many people compalining about Outlook startup times (although within an hour someone will probably post a dozen examples here!) 

I also have *****works, and that isn't exactly fast starting up, and even the new desktop PC version of *****tree just took 25 seconds to start up on my HP Pavilion dm1 - not much quicker than Logos, where I have approximately 3,000 resources, as opposed to hardly any on the other two applications.

The Sync2 update does seem to have slowed down startup, but it's doubtless because it is now syncing a great deal more than it used to (because we asked for a whole raft of stuff to be available cross-platform).  This thread also acted as a good reminder to schedule updating for a time when it's not inconvenient. 

When I boot my TabletPC, I immediately run Logos and OneNote.  They stay open until the next time I reboot, or Logos crashes, whichever comes first.  Usually this means about once a month.  I use sleep mode normally, so I rarely ever reboot.

Updates I do if:
a) I see a feature I want in one of the updates
b) I see a bugfix for a bug I am encountering regularly in the updates
c) I have a lot of prepubs that I've bought, but haven't bothered to install yet, accumulating. 

Generally, I typically go a month or two, maybe more sometimes, between updates.  Why would you update if there's nothing in the update for you?

I'm actually enjoying this software more and more.

After skimming through some posts here, I closed L4, waited a bit, and then timed the load-up time. 29 seconds from start to finish with this result -- 

 

On my ACER Aspire, Timeline X, Nividia GEFORCE, GT 540M CUDA 1GB,  Windows 7 64bit, home premium SP-1

Logos Bible Software 4.5a (4.51.0.2048)  (Beta)

 

Ed

The problem is not the software - it's us. We think that anything that takes longer than 2 minutes (more like 5 seconds actually) to load is too slow. Our standards have been increased to a ridiculous level. I remember when a 56k modem was considered fast. Even if Logos took 5 minutes to run a passage guide that would be fast compared to me running to my bookcase and opening up all my commentaries to the correct page and organized for study.

Randall Lind said:

WOW sounds like my problem but it more like 5 mins total. Which is insane since all books are on my hard drive.

Jeepers. BUT - come to think of it, I do remember that I did a defrag when I went from L3 to L4, it was a IBM recommendation, so I accepted what it told me. But that was so long ago, I never remembered till just now.

Oh, I forgot: Xp/SP3, IBM R60, T2400, dual 2ghz, 2gb ram, [3/4rd] 120gb, external servered - 1/2'vd - 300gb Sata(s). Startup time averages 20-30sec empty layout from a cold boot. [IBM:TOOLBOX keeps everything topnotch for me and gives warnings and the like - ne'er a problem yet...VPN to server]

[[edit: I believe someone said something about the Perseus collection that was handed out as free.Well I got it when it came out but did not notice any slow-downs during the startup process...]]

mitchellisdumb said:

]

Randall, those symptoms sound like the signs of a hard drive that's on its last legs. Make sure you have a current backup of your system.

How does one make a back-up?

 

Dan DeVilder said:

J. Kane said:

I think a lot of this is simply a matter of perspective.

no kidding. I often think about what it was like lugging my books around and how LONG it took to open the pages, to set them up in a half circle on a large enough desktop around me, etc. etc.  In view of that 20-190 seconds seems like nothin'.

 

on the other hand, when I have my laptop at a basketball game and want to show a seminary student something in Logos and it takes 40 seconds to load, that is really annoying.  i'm soooo deprived.

 

Having the books on your books with you on the laptop or the iPad you don't have to worry about them being checked out of the library or only at the reserve desk with a two or three hour limit.