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

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by cybmole

All is in Default locations. Early in the thread are reports that task manager also freezes if used to investigate this. I rarely reboot but will try to remember to try it though. It is a rare event, will need multiple users comparing notes to solve, I suspect

Even when started prior to Calibre? Task manager itself runs with very high priority, but it may not be able to start if the system is frozen.
Event Viewer may also provide a clue...

[theducks]

DMA gone bad? If the DMA transfer block fails, it must timeout. This can happen with a failing Disk. Does modern Graphics use DMA?

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by cybmole

i dont think this problem is fully solved yet.
yes we have collectively whittled down the freeze from minutes to seconds, but I still see an oaccasional total freeze i.e. cannot move mouse, when calibre in launching for the first time after a reboot.

No other program freezes my controls like that and in my case it is for 5 -10 secs when it happens.
Possibly it is because my wireless mouse uses the logitech unifying receiver which is a USB device, so if calibre is scanning that for some weird reason, in case it might have morphed into an e-reader... ?

is anyone else experiencing occasional short freezes, despite all the "fixes" in this thread ?

Calibre locks up my entire system for about 45 seconds, and I don't have a wireless mouse. I don't remember (I'm at work) how many of the fixes above I've tried, other than I know I haven't cleared out the Windows Update/hotfix folder(s).

Calibre didn't always do this. It started up when I upgraded....but I couldn't tell you if it was 6 months ago or when it started. I found it annoying, but I figured Kovid would just tut-tut about what a PITA Microsoft was, so I never asked about it here.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

All [data] is in Default locations.

@cybmole - try moving them all elsewhere via the environment variables, as in



I don't have the problem, but I don't pretend that's because I relocated config, temp and cache, but... you'll never ever know if you never have a go

I've never excluded anything from MSE+Malwarebytes, Indexing etc. Libraries are on a compressed, indexed, drive. I see the indexer kick in but it runs at lowest possible priority so there's no impact.

@theducks - re DMA, but why only calibre - QT, then why not Sigil?

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

- other than I know I haven't cleared out the Windows Update/hotfix folder(s).

@FizzyWater & cybmole - have you declined and hidden any MS updates in WU?

BR

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@FizzyWater & cybmole - have you declined and hidden any MS updates in WU?

BR

Not before this started. I think I recently declined/hid the update that wants to advertise Windows 10 to me.

[cybmole]

no declined updates.

i think , attempting a summary of the thread, that all of these are eliminated:
usb devices, usb port scans, networked drives, DLLs, AV interference... and I'm pretty sure we can add folder locations to that list.

some initial interaction between python and windows seems prime suspect still, partially fixed via the windows update cleanups...
re-reading the entire thread, it seems that several respected contributors have said, " I also see that , occasionally", which suggests program code , not PEBCAK

also that it has been around for a long time, at an almost annoying enough to need it fixed, but not quite, level.

e.g. I think I only get it after a cold start, which is rare, and knowing that its can happen there I tent to launch calibre before it's needed ,& just walk away until any freeze is over.
so yesterday it was because I'd shut down to swap out a case fan, not something I need to do daily!

because it's rare, I'd like to see to see a togglable progress log/debug option added to calibre, so that it reports OK so far to screen or to a timestamped log file at each step of launch, in order to help determine exactly where it stalls.

[cybmole]

revisiting the attempt at a summary

i think all reports in this thread are windows installs, maybe even all cases are Windows 7.
if no-one posts rebuttal to that, we could assume it is a specific-to-Windows 7 issue which may help us focus.
I don't know if we can narrow it down further to 64 bit windows ?

anyone who has posted on this in the past please chip in with confirmations or rebuttals.

[eschwartz]

In order to use such an option, one would have to select to do so, yes? Unless you suggest this be the default for everyone???

The solution is simple. calibre comes with a debug option. Use it ahead of time.


I use linux, and have never seen this problem, but as a general rule I always start in debug mode. I've proxied it, using the following bash script:

[eschwartz@arch ~]$ cat ~/bin/calibre
#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -eq 0 ] || [[ "$1" = "--detach" ]]; then
    echo -e "\n\n\nStarting calibre at $(date).\n\n\n" >> /tmp/calibre-debug-$USER.log 2>&1
    calibre-debug -g 2>&1 | tee -a /tmp/calibre-debug-$USER.log 
else
    /usr/bin/calibre $@
fi

Note: Only certain types of errors will appear, and the ones we might be looking for are vanishingly unlikely to be ammong them. Far more useful would be attaching a *proper* debugger to calibre, which might give better insight into how it interacts with other software/the Windows environment.



...
Hmm, seems you already suggested this. see post #124.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Really strange is the Inital launch aspect. Something has to wake up, then persists wethere C is running or not.

Cloud?

Do people with the problem use a cloud service - I can't see anything in the thread that eliminates this suggestion from theducks

I run Onedrive, but it rarely has anything in it.

BR

[cybmole]

i am not using cloud services for any live library

here is my (today) closely observed cold start ( after reboot)

I set up task manager as suggested

I manually launch calibre by a single click on task bar icon...

for a few seconds it appears all ok, I still have mouse control, I can hear some disc activity....
then mouse freezes, task manager display also freezes ( confirming a previous report from the OP).. I try the windows key on my basic wired keyboard, that is also frozen.
everything stays like this for maybe 15 seconds then normal service is resumed and the calibre window makes it's first appearance. at that time the windows start menu also finally appears in response to me pressing the windows key on my keyboard during the freeze. calibre.exe does not show up in task manager until the freeze is over.

all of that is in line with numerous other reports.

If I look at the usage history graph in task manager there are no 100% cpu spikes, nothing above 50% on either core, unless I waited too long before checking this & the freeze time has scrolled off stage left. I will repeat that latter check sometime soon, I will also try to remember to have open hardware monitor running with min / max reset as that will tell me max CPU use, OHM currently shows max of 100% but that could be from ages before the reboot

calibre will now open & close with no issues until another reboot


so where do we go from here ?

PS I recently cured a slow start 1st time after reboot issue with VLC player, so calibre is next on my to-do list.
The VLC issue, after months of intermittent failed attempts turned out to be old carp in the qt-interface-ini folder which I'd been preserving across many program updates, to save having to redo controls layout. i.e. after every install on a new PC I'd added that file to app data from a backup. so all my PCs showed the same slow start symptom. once I wiped and rebuilt that file all was good, and I saw that the new build .ini file was much simpler. a lot of goobledygook that I did not understand had gone away, and so had the slow start issue.
I strongly doubt this will work for calibre though as I am sure, early in the thread, all of the clean install, no plugins etc ideas were tested, along with all the disabling AV.

[chaley]

I am not sure why all of this is being raised again. Perhaps a summary of what I think we learned back in posts 130-170, ignoring the bonjour bits, is in order.

At some point after a boot Windows will verify that its program files are consistent with what should be there, where "should" is determined by the windows update files. As far as I can tell, almost any program can trigger this check. Once it is triggered it runs to completion. Windows is doing this check for security reasons. It is trying to detect if some malware has made it onto the system since the last boot. If it detects inconsistencies it (I think) replaces the broken program file with a correct copy. The time it takes is proportional to the number of updates stored on the computer. Reducing that number to the minimum using the disk cleaner and a reboot is the best one can do.

Calibre has the bad luck of being a trigger. As far as I can tell, there is zero that calibre can do about it.

On my system some other program triggers the scan during the boot cycle. I am not sure which one, but by the time my system has stabilized after a boot (multiple minutes) the scan has been done.

[HarryT]

On my system, though, chaley, it is only Calibre which does this, and it doesn't matter if it's 5 minutes or 5 hours after booting Windows; there will always be a freeze when Calibre first runs. Personally I suspect it's related to Qt library initialisation.

[cybmole]

Chaney, also I can at anytime manually start a windows system file check.doing so does not freeze my controls.
So it is being raised again because the root cause of only calibre doing this is still not found or fixed I don't accept that nothing can be done about it, if we collectively pool findings

[BetterRed]

@cybmole - have we checked the list of services running before and after the initial slow start.

As theducks said

Something has to wake up, then persists whether Calibre is running or not

BR