Calibre 7.3/7.4 hangs during starting up

[MCBastos]

Huh. I had a similar, though not identical problem. Calibre 7.2.0 worked fine. Upgraded to 7.3.0, it hung on opening (took me a while to figure out that it was related to the upgrade). Reverted to 7.2.0, it worked. Reinstalled 7.3.0, problem came back. By then I had other stuff to do, and figured it would likely be fixed in the next update, and just reverted to 7.2.0.
Then today 7.4.0 came out and... problem persisted. I decided to hit the forums and ask people about it. But luckily I found this thread. Resetting/reimporting the database did the trick; 7.4.0 is working fine.
Lost a few customizations -- for instance, I had half a dozen or so saved searches I will have to rebuild. Not a big deal. I was astonished to realize that the rebuilt database is *half* the size of the old one, however. I guess I should have done database maintenance more regularly, right?
(Before rebuilding the database, I did try vacuuming the old one -- I made a backup -- but after apparently finishing the job, Calibre hung. I suppose there is something seriously wrong in the old database... oh well, lesson learned)

[MCBastos]

My previous post may have been a bit premature... even with a brand-new reimported database, the issue keeps coming back.
To be more precise: on 7.3.0/7.4.0, when I open Calibre, it hangs before loading the book cover images -- I get a frozen main Calibre window, but with placeholder rectangles where the cover thumbnails should be. I tried waiting a few minutes to see if it would unfreeze by itself, and it didn't. So I force-closed Calibre.
*Sometimes*, when I try again, it will open normally. But then the next day it will hang again. Last time I tried force-closing and reopening three times, and got no results.
So I downgraded to 7.2.0, and it opened normally. I did what I wanted to do with Calibre in the first place, and it all worked fine.
Then I tried upgrading Calibre to 7.4.0 again, and the issue returned.

I made two very minor tweaks after the previous posting:
1- I recreated my Saved Searches.
2- I changed the book sort order, by the simple expedient of changing the library to column view and then clicking on the column headings for Title, Collection and Author in that order. I then reverted to thumbnail view.

I have to wonder if there is anything about the sort order or saved searches that might be causing the issues.

Granted, it's a rather large library (6200-plus books) but I'm pretty sure that there are people with larger ones.

[BetterRed]

@MCBastos - I moved your issue into a new thread.

Next time it works, switch into list view, exit, and restart - does it hang?

Which OS do you use - Windows, MacOS, or Linux) and which version.

Where is the library, e.g. internal SSD or HDD, USB drive, if it is on network attached storage then that is almost certainly the cause of your problems.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Intermittent issues are almost certainly caused by something on your ocmputer interfering. Try rebooting in safe mode and see if the issues recur as a first step.

[MCBastos]

Both @BetterRed and @kovidgoyal 's suggestions proved relevant, but neither is so far enough to zero on the issue.
Further data:
- Windows 10 x64 with all updates, CPU Ryzen 5700G, using onboard graphics
- Calibre, the library and the database are all in the system (boot) drive, which is a Western Digital Black SN770 NVMe SSD.
- Rebooting in Safe Mode did allow Calibre to load correctly (except for complaining about being unable to start the network server, which was expected since I used the more basic Safe Mode instead of "Safe Mode with Networking.") Rebooting into Regular Mode brought back the problem, which points to something interfering as @kovidgoyal explained. I shut down a few background processes and it went back from "never works" to "sometime works," but so far I couldn't determine the precise culprit.
- Changing the display to List View seems to have worked around issue; it *seems to* work normally in that mode. After loading I can change it to Thumbnail Mode and it works OK, as long as I remember to switch to List Mode before closing (so it won't hang in the next time I load it).
I'll do further testing in order to attempt to find exactly what is interfering. It isn't an issue with older builds (<= 7.2.0), so something changed that some other piece of software has issues with. It doesn't seem to be the antivirus (first thing I checked); I have various other tools loading in background, such as Microsoft Power Toys, Everything Search, Discord and other stuff. I'll try to isolate the issue further and report back.

[JSWolf]

Try updating the graphics driver if there is such and see how you get on if there is an update.

[BetterRed]

@MCBastos - Hold the press - Breaking News: I can recreate your problem:

I never use Grid view, so I tried it, this is what I got:



Like you I had to kill calibre, after several retries I still couldn't get beyond that. I overcame it by editing gui.json thus:

"grid view visible": false,

Now I can't get that library to exhibit the problem

@developers: observe that the data in Book details is not the currently selected Book# 159 at row 1, it is Book #864 at row 87. That is the most recently added book, the one I created yesterday when I was looking at .URL files. The books are sorted on Author (via View Manager). I know it's is not related to using .URL files as format files (why would it be) - firstly I doubt this thread's OP has any, and I have another library where I experience the same behaviour and it has no .URL files.

I installed portable 7.2, and copied over the settings from my regular install - didn't wedge in grid view in any of my libraries. That led my old pal Intuition to say: "Hide the Book details panel in the installed calibre 7.4.". Et voilà, I didn't get the same problem, grid view works fine on all my libraries… if Book details is hidden.

So, I upgraded the portable 7.2 to 7.3, grid view was fine, so I upgraded it to 7.4. Grid view with Book Details (in both positions) wedges at start up… sometimes. It's not consistent, I'd say it was erratic.

Seems to me that a change in version 7.4 is causing this, my guess the Layout related changes.

BR

PS: https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/2050847

[kovidgoyal]

@BR; To be clear your reproduction scenario is:

Narrow layout, only book list and book details visible and restart multiple times?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@BR; To be clear your reproduction scenario is:

Narrow layout, only book list and book details visible and restart multiple times?

Narrow and Wide, not book list, cover grid view - and its erratic. And it happens on start or a library switch.

The weird thing is that the Book details displayed is not the first book (which appears to be selected, i.e. its white text on blue), it's the book I was looking at the last time I was looking at that library.

It could be custom column triggered or it could be cover related. I might have some inordinately large covers in the libraries concerned. I'll do some more digging.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Doesnt repro for me on linux or windows with a library containing 50K book entries without covers and also with libraries containing a few thousand book entries with covers.

[chaley]

@BetterRed: what plugins do you have installed?

[BetterRed]

Don't think its related to number of books, the two libraries on which I've had the problem each have less than 200 hundred books. And it's not oversize covers, I just installed and used the QC plugin to check that.

I'm going to check in Safe mode just in case.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by chaley

@BetterRed: what plugins do you have installed?

BRMenu Menu - from Comfy.n: sub menu for Favourites
Count Pages
Drop Search Results
Favourites Menu
Job Spy
Modify ePub
Scroll Book Details
View Manager

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

View Manager

Do you have a view applied at startup?

[kovidgoyal]

Does it reproduce with

calibre --ignore-plugins