calibre freeze whole computer on start

[jation]

Calibre freeze whole computer on start for 10-15 seconds and after that everything works fine.
This happens only when first time open Calibre, after that works fine.
When I restart computer or start after shutdown that happening again.

Debug options gives nothing.

I completely reinstall windows today because that problem, but problem still exists.
Windows 7 x64 and applied all windows updates, also every new driver for my system.
Nothing installed, only Windows, updates for win, 7zip, aimp, potplayer, firefox and Calibre.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jation

Calibre freeze whole computer on start for 10-15 seconds and after that everything works fine.
This happens only when first time open Calibre, after that works fine.
When I restart computer or start after shutdown that happening again.

Debug options gives nothing.

I completely reinstall windows today because that problem, but problem still exists.
Windows 7 x64 and applied all windows updates, also every new driver for my system.
Nothing installed, only Windows, updates for win, 7zip, aimp, potplayer, firefox and Calibre.

Calibre can grab a LOT of resources when it starts up.
Especially if you have some types of custom columns defined.

Couple an aggressive Anti-virus that scans every file Calibre opens.

IMHO (pre)Scan Books before you add and EXCLUDE the Library folder from the active Scan.
Also, excluding the Calibre program folder might help (slightly)

[BetterRed]

If you display Formats as a column that will slow things down
If you have custom columns derived from other columns that can slow things down

I think Calibre calls Mobileread when it starts - to look for PI updates
I also think Calibre calls home when it starts - to look for updates and to update its usage stats
I don't know if those features can be turned off

Is it possible that that the device where your library resides, has not spun up to speed? I have a library on a removable usb drive that's set to spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity. If I open that library (I rarely do because its its an end-of-day backup), then I have to wait 10-15 secs for the drive to spin up.

I use MSE on the same rig as you, and I exclude nothing. I have Calibre using colleagues who run AVG, Avast and ESET they also exclude nothing. Each of us experiences sub 5 sec start up times on similar rigs as your own.

Setting AV exclusions is not best practice, and these days it rarely fixes anything - a decade or more ago it might have done, especially with some better known security suites - but even they are better behaved now.

However, if you're not using a 'mainstream' AV and/or firewall solution or you have any reason to think it could be security related then - pull the plug on the internet, disable the AV and the Firewall, do a cold boot and see if that makes any difference - it probably won't but you will at least know that they are not the culprits, then turn them back on and leave them as was.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

If you display Formats as a column that will slow things down

To be a bit more precise: one of the following two things must be true for a formats column to have a visible performance impact.

1. The library is sorted by a "built from other columns" column (a "composite column")
2. A composite column has the "show in tag browser" box checked

If neither is true, then the formats column is evaluated when it is displayed, meaning that the time required is the number of lines being displayed multiplied by the time to do a "stat" operation on the format.

Rationale: calibre evaluates composite columns for a book on demand. If any composite column is evaluated then they all are. This is done to avoid building whatever is required to determine if the value of composite A is required for composite B, and to avoid keeping track of partially-evaluated books.

If you check the "show in tag browser" box for a composite column then calibre must evaluate that column for all books. Because of the above "rule", than means that all composite columns will be evaluated. The same is true if you sort on a composite column; the column must be evaluated for all books.

I have had it in my mind for some time to change the "rule", evaluating only the column being requested and letting the evaluation tree determine what other composite columns are required, if any. Some other things I am doing for virtual libraries make this a good time to look at the problem again.

[jation]

Thanks for answers.
But...
After installation of Calibre I choose totally new empty folder for library. 0 books totally and still freeze on begining. Freeze no only calibre also whole computer. Mouse, Keyboard not responding for 10-15 sec and after that everythings work fine.
Also freezeing when disable network adapter.

Also I don't use any antivirus, at the moment.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by jation

Thanks for answers.
But...
After installation of Calibre I choose totally new empty folder for library. 0 books totally and still freeze on begining. Freeze no only calibre also whole computer. Mouse, Keyboard not responding for 10-15 sec and after that everythings work fine.
Also freezeing when disable network adapter.

Also I don't use any antivirus, at the moment.

Why not? What about a firewall? IMO the AV and FW that ship with Win7 are adequate for most people

Your computer is not freezing, its just working hard for 10-15 secs, on what we don't know.

How long does it take to start firefox - after a reboot ?
How much memory do you have ?
Are you starting with anything that Calibre might see as a device plugged into a USB port?
As this is only a problem after a boot then it makes me think something is still sleeping - is your system BIOS based or EUFI based?
What sort of disk is your system drive - spinning or solid state - if latter what brand/model?


Other things you could try

Check - Preferences>Look and Feel->Show Splash Screen When calibre starts after a reboot watch the messages above the logo (light colour background needed) - it will report two or three stages - loading ???, initialise ??? etc - tell us what you see i.e. where is it spending its time?

Install the 32bit calibre (you can have both the 32bit & 64 installed) - is it also slow to start

Install the portable version of calibre (it can coexist with the installed versions) - is it also slow to start

BR

[BetterRed]

Are you experiencing this delay if you start calibre say 5 minutes after a reboot.

When Windows shows the desktop after a reboot, that does not mean its finished all the things it needs/wants to do at start up.

If Windows is still loading services, doing health checks, looking for updates etc, then trying to give it more work by starting an application actually makes it go slower because of resource contention.

BR

[jation]

Why not? What about a firewall? IMO the AV and FW that ship with Win7 are adequate for most people

I use MSE but right now I checking that freezing thing without antivirus (fresh install and only few programs). Windows 7 firewall is on.

How long does it take to start firefox - after a reboot ?

If you mean calibre: about 8-9 seconds when properly load.
When freezing: 10-15 seconds freezing time + 8-9 seconds to calibre start.

How much memory do you have ?
Are you starting with anything that Calibre might see as a device plugged into a USB port?
As this is only a problem after a boot then it makes me think something is still sleeping - is your system BIOS based or EUFI based?
What sort of disk is your system drive - spinning or solid state - if latter what brand/model?

System is Bios, older motherboard. HDD is SATA 2, spinning 7200rpm, 4GB of Memory 2x2GB.
I have only one device which is constantly plugged on computer, Logitech gamepad some older model

Check - Preferences>Look and Feel->Show Splash Screen When calibre starts after a reboot watch the messages above the logo (light colour background needed) - it will report two or three stages - loading ???, initialise ??? etc - tell us what you see i.e. where is it spending its time?

Freezing occur before splash screen.

Install the 32bit calibre (you can have both the 32bit & 64 installed) - is it also slow to start
Install the portable version of calibre (it can coexist with the installed versions) - is it also slow to start

I will try with 32bit and portable version of calibre.


Also one question, is possible to fonts cause freezing? Right now I notice in Look and Feel that Interface font is MS Shell Dlg 2 [8pt].
After installing windows I always use Tahoma font for system, I disable Segoe UI ( that font is very blurry on my monitor). Maybe Calibre confuse because that?
I replace MS Shell Dlg 2 [8pt] with Tahoma for test, but freezing again. I change again on Vedrana now.

Are you experiencing this delay if you start calibre say 5 minutes after a reboot.

When Windows shows the desktop after a reboot, that does not mean its finished all the things it needs/wants to do at start up.

If Windows is still loading services, doing health checks, looking for updates etc, then trying to give it more work by starting an application actually makes it go slower because of resource contention.

Yes, this is happening also if I start Calibre 15-20 minture or some time after windows starts.

[BetterRed]

@jation - I've seen posts here referring to corrupt/missing fonts causing problems, I don't understand details - you could try going back to the default system fonts

Maybe someone can jump and give advise on that issue.

I really did mean firefox - on my rig firefox is a much slower to start than calibre is (because I have too many extensions that 'I can't live with out' ) - I was wondering if firefox was OK on your rig

Let us know how the 32bit version goes ?

BR

[DrChiper]

To add to the confusion:
When after a reboot you start after at least 20 minutes just via file association the calibre viewer then the system freezes up for at least the same time as it would when you start calibre for the first time. It just happened to me and it can be reproduced.
Weird not?

[kovidgoyal]

If you experience heavy system load on cold start that will be because the calibre dlls are being loaded into the cache. Once they are cached, it will be fast. Similarly if you wait a long time then the cache is flushed so when you start calibre again, the dlls have to be loaded again.

This problem is particularly severe for calibre because calibre uses non native toolkits for everything, so it does not share dlls with other programs on your computer.

[cybmole]

you well also see a "freeze" if other programs are checking for usb connected devices. I get it if i allow Pinnacle game Profiler ( games controller software) to run at start up or to kick in after wait from sleep. It decides to poll all the usb ports and nothing works until that is over!

[DrChiper]

I was still intrigued so I decided to see what actually makes calibre tick.

To avoid extra delays on starting up, I let calibre point by default to an almost empty library (2 books, of which 1 is just a dummy). By the way, this is also my normal manner to start calibre so the freeze is kept to a minimum. Thereafter I rebooted, started tracing using Process Monitor (www.sysinternals.com) and then I did run calibre (without options).

The results where as follows:
1 - Most accessed (obvious) pylib.zip
2 - catroot (windows updates directory)
3 - Quality Check.zip
4 - all (windows) font files
5 - metadata.db

(4) is annoying. When you have a lot of font files (and you will when you use all kinds of editing tools as they all tend to place new fonts there) they all will be traversed which just consumes precious time. Perhaps a Qt setting?

(2) is weird. What has calibre to do with windows updates? They are all traversed which is using up a lot of system time and will happen *only* when starting calibre for the first time. Further, the only difference I see between 2 succeeding runs of calibre is the access to catroot.

See the attachment for further details.

Just my 2cts.

[kovidgoyal]

font files are only opened if their modification time is different from the last time they were scanned.

calibre doesn't have anything to do with windows updates, that will be some windows system dll or the other.

[BetterRed]

I don't have a problem with calibre start times, sub 10 seconds on my 20,000+ book library, sub 3 secs on an empty database - the difference is the time to display the data, I also don't perceive any difference between 1st starts and subsequent starts. I use an i5 processor, 6GB, system and data are on separate 7200rpm disks

The attached zip contains 2 Process Monitor logs of what calibre 'looks at' in the Window directory hierarchy on my Windows 7 SP1 system when I start on an empty library

Logfilestart1.CSV 1st start after a reboot
Logfilestart2.CSV 2nd start after a reboot

Apart from the font files, the files that Calibre accesses in the Windows directory are much the same as other applications do. I looked at xplorer2, and one of my own programs written in C.

The differences between the two starts don't look significant to me, and if anything the 2nd start was a tad slower than the 1st.

One thing that stood out was a number of these

"C:\Windows\system32\site-packages\calibre\utils\formatter_functions.py","PATH NOT FOUND",

The windows/system32/catroot and catroot2 directories mentioned by Dr Chipper don't appear in my Process Monitor logs for calibre, or any other programs.

@DrChipper - have you removed the SP1 install, you can do it with Disk CleanUp, might have to run it with UAC off or as Admin to get the option. What would you lose? The ability to Uninstall SP1

BR