Hi Rick,

>>
I don't think this is somehting inherent in the Web Serivce, but possibly some sort of contention issue.
>>
I agree - I realised after I'd posted that I'd probably not put his in the right category.

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What else is running on the Web Server? Anything keeping the thing really busy? Accessing SQL Server maybe while it's running maint tasks or something like this?
>>

The server is pretty much a dedicated box and not used as a 'public' server at present so it shouldn't be getting any hits other than mine and those from the intranet on that site. I've tested at times when I know there is no other (authorised) access and still get the slow responses.

>>
Another thing is that it could be that the app might be rstarting. Check your event logs and see if when the slowness occurs it might be because the app is restarting. If you're running IIS 6 on the server the app can shut down automatically when it's idle (in 20 seconds by default) - this is configurable via the Application Pool you configure.
>>

I thought about these possibilities and will get someone on site to check the logs today. But even when the method call is responding slowly the initial SoapInit call to asmx?wsdl is still fast. I'll also get someone on site to test the web service locally - if they can reproduce the slowness there than it should be easier to isolate the cause.

I should also have mentioned that the application used Windows authentication at both the IIS and .NET levels. The SoapInit call has a username and password embedded in the URL. The method call is preceded with

  loWS.ConnectorProperty("AuthUser") = AUTHUSER
  loWS.ConnectorProperty("AuthPassword") = PASSWORD

The user has to be a member of a specific group on the site domain server - maybe there's a bottleneck here ? At least I can get someone on site to check a few things for me now that their office is open.

Thanks for the input (and any further suggestions). I'll let you know how we get on....
Regards,
Viv