Update to my last post:

Discovered incorrect pathnames to non-existant css and js files in the templates.  Am fixing now. Will reply with results. Stay tuned...

Fixing the incorrect pathnames increased the synch speed to near normal expected timeframes. Note that this sync takes place AFTER a connection is already made and a user is simply logging in to Contribute for the day.  Seemingly, case solved, right?.... Wrong!

For NEW, first-time connections, the sync process is still taking 45 min - 8 hours.  As I understand the process, all that is happening is the physical copying of templates, css, js, icons, ... and like files from the staging server to Contribute's sandbox on the user's C drive.  Manually copying the files using Windows Explorer operates at normal speeds. Ironically, if I do perform this manual copy, and then start Contribute, the sync process is very quick and near normal expectations.  It's that initial sync on first-time connections that has me baffled. Grrrr!!

Now, even the work around of copying all the templates and support files to the sandbox on the C drive does not always work.  Contribute always hangs on a .gif or a .js file when you first start it up and it does its synch'ing thing. And, what's even more bizarre is that those .gif and .js files do not exist anywhere in the pathnames of the templates.

I've also noticed Contribute getting hung up when trying to Edit certain files. It will try to download the graphics to the sandbox, but gets hung up on .gif files.  Oddly, with one html file, that graphic is not coded anywhere in the html code of the file I'm trying to open. What the heck???

I've had Contribute reinstalled and same old story.