MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Calibre taking 30+ minutes to start with 20K book library

Luna · 11-26-2025, 11:18 AM

Original poster here!

Update: I've done extensive troubleshooting and found the root cause:

/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS/calibre (Terminal) : 2-3 seconds
/Applications/calibre.app (or Finder) : 30+ minutes

The bottleneck:
spctl -a -vv /Applications/calibre.app hangs for 10+ seconds (should be <1 sec). System logs show syspolicyd stuck in a progress callback loop during trust evaluation. Console trace shows 15-second gap when loading QtCore framework.

What I've tried (all failed):

Removed quarantine, cleared all trust/policy caches
Safe Mode + SIP disable: deleted SystemPolicy*, gkopaque, TCC, certificate stores
Fresh Calibre install
syspolicyd restart/reset
NVRAM reset

Verification:

Other Qt apps (like Telegram Desktop) start instantly via Finder
codesign --verify --deep: valid
Calibre has 85 frameworks vs Telegram's 33

Something in Calibre's bundle structure triggers a macOS LaunchServices/syspolicyd evaluation loop that doesn't occur with Terminal launch. I have detailed logs if helpful.

Is there a known issue with large Qt bundles or embedded Python frameworks?

11-26-2025, 11:18 AM	#35
Luna Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2025 Device: Kindle Voyage	Found the root cause I think! Original poster here! Update: I've done extensive troubleshooting and found the root cause: /Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS/calibre (Terminal) : 2-3 seconds /Applications/calibre.app (or Finder) : 30+ minutes The bottleneck: spctl -a -vv /Applications/calibre.app hangs for 10+ seconds (should be <1 sec). System logs show syspolicyd stuck in a progress callback loop during trust evaluation. Console trace shows 15-second gap when loading QtCore framework. What I've tried (all failed): Removed quarantine, cleared all trust/policy caches Safe Mode + SIP disable: deleted SystemPolicy*, gkopaque, TCC, certificate stores Fresh Calibre install syspolicyd restart/reset NVRAM reset Verification: Other Qt apps (like Telegram Desktop) start instantly via Finder codesign --verify --deep: valid Calibre has 85 frameworks vs Telegram's 33 Something in Calibre's bundle structure triggers a macOS LaunchServices/syspolicyd evaluation loop that doesn't occur with Terminal launch. I have detailed logs if helpful. Is there a known issue with large Qt bundles or embedded Python frameworks?