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

[JSWolf]

Try a safe mode reboot with networking ad see what happens. If Calibre works, then you know it's something you run on startup.

[kacir]

I was fighting similar issue years ago with a Microsoft Visual Foxpro application that I wrote for a company.
On some computers it took a long time to start the application and/or do certain operations.
That was a big deal, because the issue was wasting valuable employee time.

I ended up installing something like this:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html
that enabled me to dump and analyze every single access to a file or a directory - to see what the program was trying to access.

I was shocked to see thousands of file [directory] access handles as the application was searching the $PATH and system directories for for an executable file, dll libraries and hundreds of things a modern application needs to run.


I would suspect that something is trying to access some network share or something that doesn't exist. There is similar problem when running older versions of MSOffice when some network shares aren't accessible and you try to do some unusual stuff, such as opening "SaveAs" or "Open file" dialog panel ;-).

I suggest installing a piece of software that can logg *all* file acess, rebooting a machine, waiting a bit until things settle down (and all programs that need to do stuff upon startup finish the work), then activating the logging and starting Calibre.


As a next step you can try to run some process explorer software (even the windows built-in one) and watch what software / library / service is most active during the 30 seconds when Calibre freezes the computer.


I also like to install "startup guard" plugin to Total Commander an weed out all software that is scheduled to start automatically after boot. *Everybody* (*) and his brother think that their little piece of software is the most important one and they try to start it behind your back, so it is ready as soon as you want to use it, even if you need to run it four times a year - for things like backing-up your contacts from your Nokia dumbphone. If they do not start the software itself, they will at least try to check for updates or preload something. Sigh ... .
Startup Guard lists all programs that are set up to start automatically (not services) and you can disable them by a simple doubleclick. I like to disable everything - the three system programs that do need to be started automatically will add themselves to the startup somewhere again. When in doubt, disable the software and then when you miss something you can re-enable it again. You might want to let the Antivirus run ;-).

And while I talk about my beloved TotalCommander, there are quite a few plugins, one of them process explorer that will let you see what is running on your computer. There are quite a few processes started by default that you can safely disable [at home].


One of reasons I prefer to use something other than Windows at home is that I do not need to run antivirus that needs to check every single file before it is accessed by any application.


(*) Calibre is one of notable exceptions. Thank you Kovid ;-)

[Strether]

I've hesitated to join this discussion because I know zip about computers. But I had exactly the same symptoms on my computer quite a while ago and it lasted about a year and then abruptly cleared up.

However, I remember trying to think about what had changed in my computer since the last time I'd opened Calibre and the only thing I could think of was that I'd had a Windows Update. I looked at the log of updates and there were a couple of updates to the Microsoft.NET Framework and wondered if there was some conflict.

As I said, it cleared up on its own though it took a long time. But I wonder if Harry T can remember if his problem occurred after the recent Update which happened on 5/12/15, and which also involved the NET Framework, at least on my machine.

Jim

[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?

maybe not wake up as such, but look up some such, on LAN or WAN; or some other network jiggery pokery.

@HarryT - try disconnecting the PC from your network before starting calibre.

And some long shots :

• Rename the calibre configuration folder to calibre-save. When you start calibre, you may have to 'reconnect' your libraries via Switch/create library. If no effect, delete the newly created configuration folder and rename the old one, calibre-save, back to calibre.
• Do with calibre-cache the same as above, its in -- C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local or C:\Users\{username}\AppData\LocalLow -- I forget which, because I've moved mine.
• Remove calibre-{anything} from C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Temp
  
  You could also try making use of calibre's Environment variables to relocate the configuration, temporary and cache folders.

BR

[FizzyWater]

For what it's worth, Calibre has been doing this on my computer for some time now as well. I don't use MSE; I use Eset. I used Eset before I started happening....I no longer remember which one, but this started after one of the Calibre updates and hasn't gone away since.

Since I occasionally have issues with Calibre that clear up in later updates, I've just waited and hoped it would go away.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by kacir

I ended up installing something like this:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html
that enabled me to dump and analyze every single access to a file or a directory - to see what the program was trying to access.

I'm using the free Microsoft app "procmon" (process monitor), which can be obtained from sysinternals
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals

It provides all kinds of overviews on registry, files, networks, processes and profiling. Highly recommended. They have other nifty tools too.

Of course, today I couldn't find any freeze at all

Most time seems to be spend in pylib.zip, and there are quite a number of buffer overflows in the plugins and calibre resources. As there is no freeze, however, that does not seems to be too harmful

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please read the rest of the thread for more up-to-date information . I've already tried what you suggest (but thanks for the suggestion!).

It seems I've missed that. I've seen that you excluded the entire calibre folder, but saw no mention of the library.

Would it be an option to temporarily disable any plugins and libraries, to see if you have some corrupt or outdated stuff in there or something...

[eschwartz]

On the CLI:

calibre --ignore-plugins

[kacir]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

I'm using the free Microsoft app "procmon" (process monitor), which can be obtained from sysinternals

I think that that I used Filemon from sysinternals. I just couldn't remember the name of the software in a hurry.
Process Monitor you mention is new and improved version.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by kacir

I think that that I used Filemon from sysinternals. I just couldn't remember the name of the software in a hurry.
Process Monitor you mention is new and improved version.

Not quite: ProcMon exists already for years and years. They released recently a new version though. Together with "ProcExp" (Process Explorer) these are the tools to inspect app behavior in your wintel system.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Most time seems to be spend in pylib.zip, and there are quite a number of buffer overflows in the plugins and calibre resources. As there is no freeze, however, that does not seems to be too harmful

Hmmm - that's in accordance with chaley's observation in here ==>> post 8

pylib.zip contains a swag of python intermediate code (.pyo - python object code ?), it presumably needs to be loaded when calibre starts. But why would chaley's instance of MSE get involved with that. Maybe because chaley runs calibre differently from most of us ?

There are sub-directories and files with the same name in pylib.zip, hence it cannot be unzipped on a regular Windows/NTFS system using a regular unzipper, viz:



But that's probably a red herring. I suspect the intermediate code is loaded direct from the zip file, also the 'duplicate' file names have no extension so presumably they'd be ignored, anyway I think they're all zero length.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It seems I've missed that. I've seen that you excluded the entire calibre folder, but saw no mention of the library.

Would it be an option to temporarily disable any plugins and libraries, to see if you have some corrupt or outdated stuff in there or something...

@Katsunami - see what Kovid wrote at ==>> post 15

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe because chaley runs calibre differently from most of us ?

I always run calibre from the command line using calibre-debug -g. I also have disabled the splash screen.

For me the freeze came after calibre announced that plugins were "successfully initialized" and IIRC before calibre announced "Starting up". The first I am sure of. The second I am not.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by chaley

For me the freeze came after calibre announced that plugins were "successfully initialized" and IIRC before calibre announced "Starting up". The first I am sure of. The second I am not.

Interesting. I start calibre via the icon and have the splash enabled. The freeze (when it does happen ) occurs always BEFORE the splash is shown. I use the splash actually as an kind of indicator that the freeze is finished and calibre is almost done with its initializing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Interesting. I start calibre via the icon and have the splash enabled. The freeze (when it does happen ) occurs always BEFORE the splash is shown. I use the splash actually as an kind of indicator that the freeze is finished and calibre is almost done with its initializing.

Yep, same here. Freeze, THEN splash-screen. Splash-screen to main window appearing is typically only a couple of seconds.