We started developing an application in C# recently and decided to try Entity Framework 6.1.3 with a code-first approach to handle persistence. The data is being stored in a SQL Server Express 2012 instance which is running on a local server. The application is still very small. Currently we are only persisting two POCOs and have two tables in the database: one with 5 fields (about 10 rows of data), and one with 4 fields (2 rows).
We are experiencing a 3 second delay when Entity Framework processes the first query with subsequent queries being extremely quick. After some searching we found that this is normal for Entity Framework so, although it seemed excessive for such a small database, we've been coping with it.
After doing some work today, none of which was specifically related to persistence, suddenly I found that the first query was only taking a quarter of a second to run. I couldn't see anything obvious in the changes I'd made so I uploaded them to source control and asked my colleague to download everything. When he builds and runs it on his computer, it still takes 3 seconds for the first query. I've compiled the application, tried it on two test computers and they experience the initial 3 second delay.
There seems to be no correlation between the problem and the computers/operating systems. My computer is running Windows 7 SP1 x64. My colleague's development computer is running Windows 10 x64. The other two test computers are running Windows 7 SP1 x86. They are all a similar specification (Core i5, 4GB/8GB RAM).
In my research of the delay I found that there are several things you can do to improve performance (pre-generating views etc) and I have done none of this. I haven't installed anything or made any changes to my system, although I suppose it's possible an update was installed in the background. Nothing has changed on the database server or in the database itself or in the POCOs. We are all connecting to the same database on the same server.
This raises a few obviously related questions. If it's possible for it to start up in a quarter of a second, why has it been taking 3 seconds up until now? What happened on my computer to suddenly improve performance and how can I replicate this on the other computers that are still slow?
Can anyone offer any advice please?
EDIT
I turned on logging in Entity Framework to see what queries were being run and how long they were taking. Before the first and, for testing purposes, only query is run, EF runs 3 queries to do with migration. The query generated to retrieve my data follows that and is as follows:
SELECT
[Extent1].[AccountStatusId] AS [AccountStatusId],
[Extent1].[Name] AS [Name],
[Extent1].[Description] AS [Description],
[Extent1].[SortOrder] AS [SortOrder]
FROM [dbo].[AccountStatus] AS [Extent1]
-- Executing at 28/01/2016 20:55:16 +00:00
-- Completed in 0 ms with result: SqlDataReader
As you can see it runs really quickly which is hardly surprising considering there are only 2 records in that table. The 3 migration queries and my query take no longer than 5ms to run in total on both my computer and my colleague's computer.
Copying that query in to SSMS and running it from various other machines produces the same result. It's that fast it doesn't register a time taken. It certainly doesn't look like the query causes the delay.
EDIT 2: Screenshots of diagnostic tools
In order to give a good comparison I've altered the code so that the query runs at application start. I've added a red arrow to indicate the point at which the form appears. I hadn't noticed before but when my colleague runs the application the first time after starting Visual Studio, it's about a second quicker. All subsequent times are slower.
1) Colleague's computer - first run after loading Visual Studio
2) Colleague's computer - all subsequent runs
3) My computer - all runs
So every time my colleague runs the application (apart from the first time) there is a second's pause in addition to the usual delay. The first run immediately after starting Visual Studio seems to eliminate this second's pause but it's still no where near the speed on my computer.
Incidentally, there is a normal delay of around a quarter of a second caused by the application starting. If I change the application to require a button click for the first query, the second's pause and usual 2 second delay happen only after the button is clicked.
Another thing of note is the amount of memory the application uses. Most of the time on my computer it will use around 40MB but on the other computer it never seems to use more than 35MB. Could there be some kind of memory optimisation going on that is slowing things down for the other computer? Maybe my computer is loading some additional/cached information in to memory that the others are having to generate. If this is possible, any thoughts on where I might look for this?
EDIT 3
I've been holding off making changes to the model and database because I was worried the delay would come back and I'd not have anything to test against. Just wanted to add that after exhausting all other possibilities, I've tried modifying a POCO and the database and it's still quick on my computer but slow on others.
I've altered the title of this question to more accurately reflect the problem I'm trying to solve.
