The client can employ two methods to communicate with the server. It first tries to set up a socket connection and if this fails it will establish a file-based method of communication. The most common cause of a client failing to open a socket connection, and thus using the much slower file communication, is a problem in DNS. MetaEdit+ tests whether socket communication is possible by trying to obtain an IP number for the name 'localhost', which should always give the IP of the client computer. If the DNS server cannot provide an answer, the test fails. It is, however, also possible that the current operating system uses another mechanism to implement the name lookup, e.g. WINS – although this may be slower, as lookup probably first tries true DNS and then falls back to WINS. Also, when a server is running on a repository, the last line of manager.ab includes the server name in the format the server application receives from the operating system. All clients must be able to resolve this name to the IP of the server.

As a last resort, one workaround for DNS problems is to add an entry for 'localhost' to your client's local 'hosts' file (or similar), assuming of course that your network software uses such a file. The IP number should in general be 127.0.0.1 and not the actual IP of your client computer. The line to add will often look like this (the separator character is a tab):

127.0.0.1 localhost

The IP for the client or server must currently remain the same for as long as that program is running.

There are also certain other conditions that may hinder the connection performance. If there is communication over a non-LAN network, the ping time may become a bottleneck: see Section 3.4.1 below.

Another issue to check if poor performance is encountered is the behavior of your anti-virus software. Adding the repository files, extensions or location to the list of exclusions from virus checking may help. A bug in certain versions of Norton AntiVirus in the SmartScan feature is known to cause a delay of 1 second for each access to any file over a network connection, regardless of the exclusions settings. Some anti-virus software, even without an official firewall component, also blocks certain ports.