"Computing Space Requirement" takes a loooong time

[TonyToews]

So I just tried installinng calibre-0.7.24.msi and it got stuck at the "Computing Space Requirement" screen. I tried searching through the bugs but the advice there was rather unhelpful.

Turns out you need to uninstall the old version of Calibre first.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by TonyToews

So I just tried installinng calibre-0.7.24.msi and it got stuck at the "Computing Space Requirement" screen. I tried searching through the bugs but the advice there was rather unhelpful.

Turns out you need to uninstall the old version of Calibre first.

You do not have to uninstall the old version, you just have to be patient. The total time to go through the process of uninstalling prior to installing the new version will take longer.

[TonyToews]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

You do not have to uninstall the old version, you just have to be patient. The total time to go through the process of uninstalling prior to installing the new version will take longer.

I waited at least ten minutes. According to the bug database one person waited an hour. Clearly the install routine has a bug of some sort in it.

So I uninstalled and installed the new version. There was no wait of any sort on the install then.

[FizzyWater]

Wow, mine takes what feels like forever, but I don't think I've ever noticed it taking actually 10 minutes, let alone an hour! I hope my doesn't get longer, now that I've said it.

[bigpallooka]

Mine took about 10 minutes also. I'm fairly sure it has more to do with my computer than calibre. I also installed calibre on my laptop and it was very quick. This is expected as the desktop is an old p4 with XP and the laptop is a high end C2 with Win 7. I'll wait to hear more but I suspect the individual computer plays a part in the issue.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by TonyToews

I waited at least ten minutes. According to the bug database one person waited an hour. Clearly the install routine has a bug of some sort in it.

This delay has been talked about before. Without a ticket number I can't view exactly what bug report you're referring to. Since this version has been out for 5 or 6 days and you're the first to experience a longer than usual delay, I doubt there is any current bug, but anything is possible. My own experience was the normal minute or so.

Originally Posted by TonyToews

So I uninstalled and installed the new version. There was no wait of any sort on the install then.

There is never a wait for "Computing Space Requirement" delay for a new install, which is what you were essentially doing following the uninstall.

[TonyToews]

I did a search in the bug database. The two or three bugs mentioning this problem were closed. One blaming Microsoft which I find hard to believe. (Don't get me wrong, Microsoft have lots of things to be blamed for. <smile>) Even one or two seconds is excessive. As far as I'm concerned this is a bug but clearly no one wants to take a look at the problem.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by TonyToews

I did a search in the bug database. The two or three bugs mentioning this problem were closed. One blaming Microsoft which I find hard to believe. (Don't get me wrong, Microsoft have lots of things to be blamed for. <smile>) Even one or two seconds is excessive. As far as I'm concerned this is a bug but clearly no one wants to take a look at the problem.

Believe it or not they took an extensive look with programmer very familiar with this MS install package. Some things were tweaked and it went from a 10+ minute wait to a 1-2 minute wait. I can't locate the thread but it was a very interesting read.

I'm not sure why your upgrade took so long. For that matter I'm going on feel, my upgrade time to get through the "Computing Space Requirement" area might have been longer. Just for fun I'll time it next time.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by TonyToews

I did a search in the bug database. The two or three bugs mentioning this problem were closed. One blaming Microsoft which I find hard to believe. (Don't get me wrong, Microsoft have lots of things to be blamed for. <smile>) Even one or two seconds is excessive. As far as I'm concerned this is a bug but clearly no one wants to take a look at the problem.

Well, Microsoft is to blame, believe it or not. And, as mentioned before, a couple of people including a programmer with extensive knowledge of the installer system have tried to get rid of that. The reason the space requirements are taking so long is that the installer is optimized for executable files and DLLs, not Python files. The files normally packaged in an installer package contain a checksum of their contents for the purpose of quickly detecting changes, the many Python and other files Calibre brings don't. Thus, the installer has to generate checksums of not only the files it contains, but also the entire Calibre directory to see which files have changed. This is, as you surely would point out, unnecessary, since you could just go ahead and overwrite everything, but, as it turns out, it's impossible to turn off that behaviour. So, your options are either to do something about it (although I couldn't say what one could do) or just deal with it.

Generally, if a ticket indicates that the bug won't be fixed, it's either for some technical reason like above or because it comes from a design decision that won't change (or won't change anytime soon). If you wish to know the reason behind it, a search in this forum should unearth the relevant thread(s). Were I a developer, I'd be pretty annoyed if people showed up out of thin air and concluded, that, since their pet bug won't be fixed, clearly nobody is interested in doing so.

[bigpallooka]

Well there you go!

[chaley]

The previous thread is https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88646.

[TonyToews]

Manichean, thank you for the explanation. The responses I read in the two or three bugs was quite short and dismissive with no explanation of what was going on and the reasons why.

I have a total of four books in the Calibre directory. I suspect the installer is trying to do checksums on the entire drive then.

Why not use a different installer? Such as the freeware Inno.

[TonyToews]

Originally Posted by chaley

The previous thread is https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88646.

When I searched on the display message I couldn't find that thread because that thread didn't use the exact same text as the message displayed.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by TonyToews

Manichean, thank you for the explanation. The responses I read in the two or three bugs was quite short and dismissive with no explanation of what was going on and the reasons why.

I have a total of four books in the Calibre directory. I suspect the installer is trying to do checksums on the entire drive then.

Why not use a different installer? Such as the freeware Inno.

You would have to ask Kovid that.
As for keeping books in the Calibre directory, either you misunderstood me or you selected a strange place for your library location. I meant the Calibre install directory, not your libarary directory.
And you'd tend to get dismissive answers if you ask such questions when you obviously already found out that this won't get fixed. There's usually a reason the developers choose not to do things, they don't just dismiss things for grins and giggles. Also, the bug tracker is not a place for discussion, that's what the forums are for.

[TonyToews]

Originally Posted by Manichean

As for keeping books in the Calibre directory, either you misunderstood me or you selected a strange place for your library location. I meant the Calibre install directory, not your libarary directory.

Ah, I didn't realize you meant just the install directory. This still makes no sense to me that it would take so long for 98 Mb of 4091 files. But I'm not going to worry about it. If this happens on future installs I will keep better track of what is happening.

Originally Posted by Manichean

And you'd tend to get dismissive answers if you ask such questions when you obviously already found out that this won't get fixed. There's usually a reason the developers choose not to do things, they don't just dismiss things for grins and giggles. Also, the bug tracker is not a place for discussion, that's what the forums are for.

You misunderstood me. The short and dismissive answers were in the bug database in response to others who posted this as a bug in the past. I did not find an answer to my problem when I searched. So I posted my solution at the beginning of this thread. The answer is contained in that thead quoted by Chaiey above but I couldn't find it because it didn't have the exact text of the message which is what I used to search.