Office 2019 slow to open Google Drive files

HCHTech

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We recently installed a rip-snorting workstation for one of our engineer clients. Threadripper processor, Quadro 4000 8GB Graphics card, 128GB RAM, Dual Samsung Pro NVMe SSDs, Win10 Pro. Also installed is Adobe Acrobat 2017 & Office 2019 H&B Perpetual. Client is on the Google train, so no M365. This computer replaced a 3-yr old Ryzen 7 with 64GB RAM & SATA SSD, a Quadro K1200 Graphics card, running Win10 Pro & Office 2016 Perpetual.

I got a complaint last week that Office files were taking an inordinately long to open, much longer than on the old computer. I remoted in and it seemed to be hit or miss, but seemed mostly ok to me. The complaints continued though, so I went onsite today to get my eyeballs on his exact procedure to see if anything stuck out.

Google Desktop sync is installed and he is opening the files from the local G:\ folder. Most of these are Excel spreadsheets, but the same symptoms occur with Word documents, just to a lesser degree. Problem affects both .xls and .xlsx files, and both .doc and .docx files. Both newly created files and old files. Note that he has a lot of files & folders in Google Drive, maybe 50 Gigs total. Note also that the original computer is still in use at another one of his locations and things open fine still on that computer.

Basically, if Excel is NOT running, double-clicking on the file in the G: drive results in a pause of varying length before you even see the Excel splash screen. I tried disabling the antivirus, but that didn't seem to affect things at all. If fact, I can't find any particular change in resource usage during this pause.

Acrobat 2017 is getting a little long in the tooth, but still supported for now, at least. I'd like to get some proof before telling him he has to upgrade to 2020, especially since that's the latest version and it's 2022. If we're going to upgrade, I'd like to wait until Adobe releases 2023 or whatever their next version is going to be.

Most of the files are small, 60 - 100KB in size. If I open them from the G: drive, it takes 12-20 seconds to open. If I copy that file locally to the desktop, it opens in 2-3 seconds. If I open them from within Excel, it's a bit faster, but the same difference is there. 10-18 seconds to open the G: drive version, 2-3 seconds to open a copy from the desktop.

I read about a setting in Google Drive Sync to indicate to other users that you have the file open. This apparently sometimes causes loading delays. Turning it off seemed to make things worse, though, so I ended up re-enabling it.

I've done an Office repair, checked to make sure all updates are loaded to Windows, Office & the graphics driver. Watching task manager details, Excel or Word does NOT increase in resource usage during the file open delay.

This is a brand new setup, so there isn't much in cache folders. I'm half tempted to try installing Office 2016 to see if the problem is related to Office 2019. It's the default install for Office, so I'm sure it's the 64-bit version. I haven't yet tried installing the 32-bit version - I was hoping to find more evidence before entering the trial & error phase.

What would you try next?
 
It is set to mirror. There is a full synced copy of all files on the local computer. That's why this doesn't make sense and I think there is something "not simple" going on.
 
I think I found it. There is a registry key you can add to "enable shell data caching" which helps if you are having slow opening from network locations....described here. Added the key and rebooted and the problem seems to have gone away. Files open almost instantly now. Go figure.
 
Good ,per that document it is a work around for a slow or intermittent Internet connection. Real issue is a bad Internet connection.
 
Real issue is a bad Internet connection.
Maybe - It's Comcast business, 300/35, Latency & speed seem pretty close to as-advertised. The gateway is in bridge mode and we've got a Sonicwall at the edge, but it's powerful enough to be capable at that speed. Latency looks good and no dropped packets over a 30-minutes test recently. Also, problem didn't exist on the former computer with the same network setup, so we'll see how it goes. It's probably worth it to gather some logs over time to see if I can find a problem.
 
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Maybe - It's Comcast business, 300/35, Latency & speed seem pretty close to as-advertised. The gateway is in bridge mode and we've got a Sonicwall at the edge, but it's powerful enough to be capable at that speed. Latency looks good and no dropped packets over a 30-minutes test recently. Also, problem didn't exist on the former computer with the same network setup, so we'll see how it goes. It's probably worth it to gather some logs over time to see if I can find a problem.
Which to me says faulty NIC. Or a driver issue.
 
Thanks, @nlinecomputers - did some testing with Pingplotter to www.google.com. 10-minute Sample below / attached. Note Hop #4 has a couple of outliers on latency, but note especially hope #14, has 29% packet loss - that can't be good. That's so far down the chain, though, that I doubt there is anything we can do about it. Anyway, I'm thinking his internet connection isn't as good as I thought it was, which makes the edition of that registry key a solid answer.
 

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Dredging this topic back up for an update. Client had Comcast out for a diagnostic & modem replacement - as well as an upgrade to their gigabit service. Intermittent complaints continued on this problem, and opening those same files from a laptop connected to the same switch was instant. I tried a different NIC but that didn't help. So back on the original NIC, I checked that setting in Google Drive for notifying the user if someone else was editing, here:

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Back in May, changing this setting made no difference. Yesterday, unchecking the box made an instant improvement. For some reason this seems to have fixed the problem. I got a report this evening that everything is still working as it should.

I wish I understood what was happening, but I guess I'll take the win.
 
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