Slow database search

nacho.keso

HI, I've been using Zotero for years and it has always been very slow. I still find there is no substitute out there for Zotero, so I've kept using it nonetheless. Recently it's become more of a burden, so here I am (finally) asking for help.

My database is slow on startup, while searching, while moving items into collections, while using alt key to locate an item's collection, while citing, and it is specially slow when attempting to move items within a search selection or while using or searching for tags or with the tags selector open. It is slow on both Mac (relatively old Macbook pro's which are otherwise perfectly maintained and running fast on Catalina (2012 macbook pro) and Big Sur (2014 Macbook air)) and on a generic Windows laptop from my university.
I have tried everything to make database search and function faster:
I have reinstalled the OS's, I have stopped using webpage storage folder and I have a new installation of Zotero where I have synchronized the local library using the web library. None of this has helped.
I think it might have to do sth with text indexing as I have thousands of notes and full text of posts and newspaper articles in notes.

What should I do?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help

nacho.keso

I'm not sure this helps but I've submitted a Debug Output under: D318498796

dstillman

There are no obvious red flags in there. It's not exactly speedy, and there are maybe a few more delays than expected, but I'm not seeing too much that looks to be clearly outside the range of expected performance with a fairly large library (64K items incl. child items) on a 9-to-11-year-old computer.

Re-sorting the items list is taking ~2 seconds, so anything that triggers that (e.g., switching back to the library root from another collection, or making certain edits while a search is active) will have that kind of delay.

You should also check your search mode — if you're using Everything mode, that's going to be much slower.

Does the performance improve if you close the tag selector?

It might also help if you make a screen recording of what you're seeing. You can upload that somewhere and email it to us at support@zotero.org with a link to this thread.

nacho.keso

Thank you so much for your speedy reply.

- I was using "All fields & Tags" search mode - I've changed it to just "title, creator, year" as you suggest.

- Closing tag selector definitely improves performance indeed

- I'm sending you a screen recording asap.

Laptops are old, surely, but they have maxed-out ram, new SSDs, and new thermal paste. They've actually never been this fast (for instance browsing, editing and playing videos, or using word processors). I'm extremely grateful to people like Zotero who are willing to support legacy systems and help resist the trend in planned obsolescence. Keep it up!

Thanks again.
Best wishes