> OK, then we'll need to look for less common problems. When the query
> is slow, are you seeing lots of page faults? Process size growth?
> What is the rate of reads/writes/marks/fetches? Do you have any guess
> as to where the time is going?

Hi Ann,

I am afraid most of the values you are asking me about are outside of my
ability to gather, at least until I learn where to find them.

Well, I do see a strange behavior. When the process started, Firebird
fully utilized the CPU core it was running on, with memory requirements
being very moderate (the highest I have seen is 70 MB). A few minutes
into the operation, the Firebird's CPU load dropped to some 3-5%, with
memory load at less than 20 MB. It doesn't seem to change anymore.

Process Explorer reveals:

- The most active thread seems to be a thread in state Wait:WrResource
- I/O bytes fluctuate a lot between 100 and 800 KB
- I do not see any open handles to temporary files, only the databases,
the lock file, the message file and expected system libraries and devices

It seems very much as if Firebird thinks someone is holding a required
resource and is waiting until that resource is freed, but I have no idea
which resource it could be.

Well, well, well... Just as I was finishing the previous sentence,
Firebird suddenly once again utilized the CPU completely and a few
seconds after that finished the job.

Pepak