V22 Circ client slow for patrons with lots of transactions

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 22, 23

Problem Symptoms:
V22 Circ client times out or is slow for patrons with lots of transactions (loans, holds and cash). The problem is most extreme for dummy patrons (pseudo-patrons). It is seen especially in:

1. checking in items that are "intransit" on the dummy patron (pc_cir_c0442)
2. building the left-hand tree in the general patron display (pc_cir_c0460)

Cause:
Large numbers of z309 (Circulation logger) and z31 (Cash) records. It seems that in earlier versions these large numbers of records did not cause this slowness, but in v22 they do.

Resolution:
1. Delete old z309 (Circ logger) records, either via cir-78 ("Circulation Logger Clean Up") or SQL:
In the case of pseudo-patrons or scrubbed patron IDs (z309_rec_key beginning with "SCR"), all of the z309 records except the most recent can be deleted. (See discussion at end of Additional Information below in this regard.)
In the case of active, regular patrons, the past 1-4 years should be saved.

Also, there was a bug in the v21 upgrade script which prevents cir-78 from deleting certain z309 records which it should.  See article "v21/v22 cir-78 runs longer than previously, not removing z309 records it should" in this regard.

2. Delete old, closed z31 (Cash transaction) records, that is, those with z31_status "C". These are definitely not needed for pseudo-patrons or for scrubbed patron ID's.

3. Implement the v22 Minor Release, containing rep_change 2078 which improves performance of the reading of z36 (loan) records.  There has been further improvement with v22 rep_change 2256; see Article "Loan and return of in-transit items very slow".

4. If there is still slowness, then consult Article 000017988 ("Slow check-out of items which have been loaned many times") in regard to the z36h (Loan history) records.