Calibre locks entire machine for 1-2 mins on first startup

[Katsunami]

Calibre does load a lot of stuff from the hard drive. Could it be that something is wrong with the drivers, or maybe the hardware itself; the drive, cables, controllers, mainboard? While calibre itself doesn't contain any kernel-code able to block the system, the drivers certainly do.

[chaley]

Some random ideas:

According to this article, Microsoft update KB2952664 has been connected with random freezes.

According to this article, Microsoft update KB3001652 also has been connected with random freezes.

And finally, these articles [1] [2] point out that some SSD drives will causes freezes if run in AHCI mode. Changing it to IDE mode fixes it.

Originally Posted by chaley

Some random ideas:

According to this article, Microsoft update KB2952664 has been connected with random freezes.

According to this article, Microsoft update KB3001652 also has been connected with random freezes.

And finally, these articles [1] [2] point out that some SSD drives will causes freezes if run in AHCI mode. Changing it to IDE mode fixes it.

First, no SSD drive on this.

I tried to see if I do have those 2 updates. I got the second one, and will try it. The other, I can't find it in the hundred or so updates that are installed.

To be continued...

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Calibre does load a lot of stuff from the hard drive. Could it be that something is wrong with the drivers, or maybe the hardware itself; the drive, cables, controllers, mainboard? While calibre itself doesn't contain any kernel-code able to block the system, the drivers certainly do.

What is Calibre using that no one else uses ? I do not have ANY freezes
otherwise, except a scanner which stops keyboard input for seconds, but
nothing else.

[cybmole]

it is very unlikey to be those windows update reports, as oncly one program - calibre- is frezeing.

we are still waiting for some brave soul to do the safe mode test.
start windows in safe mode then start calibre

Start Windows 7/Vista/XP in Safe Mode with Networking
Immediately after the computer is powered on or restarted (usually after you hear your computer beep), tap the F8 key in 1 second intervals.
After your computer displays hardware information and runs a memory test, the Advanced Boot Options menu will appear.

Originally Posted by chaley

Some random ideas:

According to this article, Microsoft update KB2952664 has been connected with random freezes.

According to this article, Microsoft update KB3001652 also has been connected with random freezes.

And finally, these articles [1] [2] point out that some SSD drives will causes freezes if run in AHCI mode. Changing it to IDE mode fixes it.

Tested all but the kb2952664. Even installed latest Net 4.5.

Damnation. Still nothing....

[cybmole]

please test safe mode . post #30
that result will be a big clue .

[chaley]

Originally Posted by cybmole

please test safe mode . post #30
that result will be a big clue .

@cybmole: In post #75 he said he did that.

@JeanPaulo: When you booted to safe mode, did you check the "Base video" box?


According to msconfig help:

Base video. On startup, opens the Windows graphical user interface in minimal VGA mode. This loads standard VGA drivers instead of display drivers specific to the video hardware on the computer.

I ask because video cards are an obvious difference between machines as are video driver levels. Calibre before release 2.0 used QT4. It could be that Qt5, the graphics library that calibre uses now, has some graphics call pattern that borks certain cards/drivers. For example, some articles imply that QT5 uses OpenGL more heavily than QT4.

[chaley]

@Kovid: does this article say anything of interest to you? https://wiki.qt.io/Qt-5-on-Windows-ANGLE-and-OpenGL

[kovidgoyal]

I doubt it is video card drivers, that would not explain the difference between cold and warm starts.

To me at least the issue seems obvious:

1) It is disk access related -> implied by difference between cold and warm starts
2) Something on the problem computers is greatly slowing down disk access to the files specifically in the calibre program folder (there may be files in other locations involved as well, for instance the calibre config directory or various places in the OS that Qt might scan)
3) Whatever that something is, it has system wide effects. Therefore, it must either be a disk driver or something that interferes directly with the kernel -- the most common such program is security/antivirus.

However, trying to find out what the problem component on the system requires a level of familiarity with window's internals greater than I posses.

EDIT: Of course, computers a very complex machines, and it could be that it is a combination of several factors. For instance, the difference in speed of loading DLLs between cold and warm starts could be triggerring a timing related bug in some unrelated driver, like the video driver. But, that kind of thing would require pretty heavy instrumentation to debug.

[kovidgoyal]

@chaley: The version of Qt shipped with calibre is built with desktop opengl, not ANGLE, and see my previous post on why I doubt it is video related.

[kovidgoyal]

One thing to check. Do either of you have any mapped network drives?

[chaley]

@Kovid, if JeanPaolo booted in safe mode (he said he did) then A/V is out of the picture.

I am not willing to take video drivers out of the equation, or any other driver for that matter. It is easy to imagine that the first time some driver is used in a "different" way it could lock up, taking the machine with it. Later some system auditing thread (I think windows has one of these) could come along and reset the driver, after which it doesn't do the problematic "thing" again.

Another problem area could be IO bus scans triggered by some user-space event. Some device (or driver) could lock up, taking the system with it until the aforementioned auditor breaks it loose.

A third could be fonts. I think that fonts are rendered in kernel space. If this is true, and if something triggers a full font reload, and if some font is malformed in some way, then the reload could hang until it was broken loose.

All wild speculation, I admit.

Question: is there a way to start calibre without starting the device scanner? I looked at the code and didn't see anything already made. I tried commenting out lines 888 and 889 in gui2.device, which seemed to work in that the scanner didn't run and calibre didn't complain.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by chaley

@cybmole: In post #75 he said he did that.

.

apologies, there have been a flurry of new posts & I missed that one.

i am mot sure if safe mode disables all non essential USB devices. it may be time to start unplugging things in the hopes of finding a culprit device, or at least getting affected users to list all their USB peripherals.

[kovidgoyal]

fonts is a good guess, they are indeed parsed in kernel space by windows, dont ask me why

I agree that it could potentially be any driver (see the edit to my post), but trying to pin that down is well nigh impossible.

Line 325 of devices/scanner.py will do the trick.