Sigil slow

pgst · 04-19-2022, 05:25 PM

Since a month or so my version of Sigil has become very slow when opening/closing an epub or moving from page to page.
I have been using version 1.4.3 for a very long time without any problems, so I figured upgrading to 1.9.2 might help, but that did not improve performance.
I am running W10, with Bitdefender as anti-virus, and as far as I know nothing has been changed in this configuration, apart from the regular updates.
Sigil is still working as usual, only the performance is annoying.
Has anyone had the same experience and found a solution? The only possible solution I found in the forum was to exclude Sigil from the anti-vuris scan, but that did not work.

KevinH · 04-19-2022, 05:44 PM

There have been no changes to make Sigil slower just speedups. I would bet some program is constantly scanning files in your temp directory or you have set the Sigil debug log environment variable somehow and the logging has continued on and has filled up the log file.

Check what environment variables you have set, and try restarting in safe mode with all extensions off to prevent anything from scanning your temp folder constantly.

DiapDealer · 04-19-2022, 05:59 PM

In addition to Sigil's program directory (not just Sigil.exe), you may want to try exempting Sigil's preferences directory as well.

In the past, I've seen Windows compatibility settings attach to Sigil.exe and slow things down terribly. I've also seen INI corruption slow Sigil down considerably (just recently, in fact). Sigil took forever to open/close/run until I backed up my preferences directory, deleted it and let Sigil create a new one.

But I do weird things testing Sigil, so INI corruption is par for the course.

pgst · 04-20-2022, 12:32 PM

Safe mode made no difference, I still have not figured oud where to enable or disable debug logging so I couldn't switch it off (or on...)
There are no environment variables AFAIK, Sigil itself has <SIGIL_DEFAULT_TEMP_HOME> for the temp folder, but I can't find any reference to it.
Finally I checked the local INI files and Sigil.ini was as large as 73 Mb! Observing the folder showed 5 temporary logfiles to appear (size 0) before anything happened after starting Sigil (empty). Then after closing appeared another 5 temp ini files and when the GUI had disappeared still another 5 showed up (and disappeared)! Amazing behavior.
After renaming the INI file everything worked as usual. The new INI file was 18 k in size even after I had SIGIL tuned to my preferences.
The culpit was the toolbars section from the [mainwindow]. I have no idea why it has grown to this huge size (308 K characters) while in the new created INI file it is only 3 K.
Thanks to KevinH en Diapdialer for their suggestions. I didn't do any weird things testing SIGIL, but keep wondering what actually happened ....

DiapDealer · 04-20-2022, 04:44 PM

That's good to hear!

I honestly don't know why INI file corruption is so prevalent, but I'm fairly confident it's a Qt thing.

The toolbars bytearray data in [mainwindow] can be quite large, but 308K characters does sound excessive. Often times the clipboard ring history can grow quite large--especially if you copy huge swathes of text. I typically set my clipboard history items (Prefs->General Settings->Basics) very low (or disable it completely). I don't have a big need to save clipboard history items between Sigil sessions.

pgst · 04-21-2022, 05:57 PM

No, the clipboard history items was a mere 5 k and in my experience doesn't grow excessively, and since older items disappear, I suppose there is a maximum number of items. So that can be ruled out in my case.
It will be a riddle forever...

BetterRed · 04-21-2022, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's good to hear!

I honestly don't know why INI file corruption is so prevalent, but I'm fairly confident it's a Qt thing.
. . .

I run five programs that I know use QT (there may be others) - Sigil, Calibre, Falkon, qBitborrent, and Malwarebytes.

The first three seem to suffer inexplicable window geometry problems on Windows and Linux. And I'm pretty sure they each use QT's browser widget, I suspect the other two don't.

If the geometry bytearrays were kept in a separate config file (e.g. geometry.ini/json), that would allow it to be nuked with impunity without loss of other settings. I have no idea if or how easy that would be to implement.

FTR - I have not experienced any of these problems, but I've exorcised geometry bytearrays from several calibre and one sigil configuration for other people.

BR

04-19-2022, 05:25 PM	#1
pgst Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2022 Device: sony prs t2	Sigil slow Since a month or so my version of Sigil has become very slow when opening/closing an epub or moving from page to page. I have been using version 1.4.3 for a very long time without any problems, so I figured upgrading to 1.9.2 might help, but that did not improve performance. I am running W10, with Bitdefender as anti-virus, and as far as I know nothing has been changed in this configuration, apart from the regular updates. Sigil is still working as usual, only the performance is annoying. Has anyone had the same experience and found a solution? The only possible solution I found in the forum was to exclude Sigil from the anti-vuris scan, but that did not work.

04-19-2022, 05:44 PM	#2
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,633 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	There have been no changes to make Sigil slower just speedups. I would bet some program is constantly scanning files in your temp directory or you have set the Sigil debug log environment variable somehow and the logging has continued on and has filled up the log file. Check what environment variables you have set, and try restarting in safe mode with all extensions off to prevent anything from scanning your temp folder constantly. Last edited by KevinH; 04-19-2022 at 05:48 PM.

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04-19-2022, 05:59 PM	#3
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,546 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	In addition to Sigil's program directory (not just Sigil.exe), you may want to try exempting Sigil's preferences directory as well. In the past, I've seen Windows compatibility settings attach to Sigil.exe and slow things down terribly. I've also seen INI corruption slow Sigil down considerably (just recently, in fact). Sigil took forever to open/close/run until I backed up my preferences directory, deleted it and let Sigil create a new one. But I do weird things testing Sigil, so INI corruption is par for the course.

04-20-2022, 12:32 PM	#4
pgst Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2022 Device: sony prs t2	Safe mode made no difference, I still have not figured oud where to enable or disable debug logging so I couldn't switch it off (or on...) There are no environment variables AFAIK, Sigil itself has <SIGIL_DEFAULT_TEMP_HOME> for the temp folder, but I can't find any reference to it. Finally I checked the local INI files and Sigil.ini was as large as 73 Mb! Observing the folder showed 5 temporary logfiles to appear (size 0) before anything happened after starting Sigil (empty). Then after closing appeared another 5 temp ini files and when the GUI had disappeared still another 5 showed up (and disappeared)! Amazing behavior. After renaming the INI file everything worked as usual. The new INI file was 18 k in size even after I had SIGIL tuned to my preferences. The culpit was the toolbars section from the [mainwindow]. I have no idea why it has grown to this huge size (308 K characters) while in the new created INI file it is only 3 K. Thanks to KevinH en Diapdialer for their suggestions. I didn't do any weird things testing SIGIL, but keep wondering what actually happened ....

04-20-2022, 04:44 PM	#5
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,546 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	That's good to hear! I honestly don't know why INI file corruption is so prevalent, but I'm fairly confident it's a Qt thing. The toolbars bytearray data in [mainwindow] can be quite large, but 308K characters does sound excessive. Often times the clipboard ring history can grow quite large--especially if you copy huge swathes of text. I typically set my clipboard history items (Prefs->General Settings->Basics) very low (or disable it completely). I don't have a big need to save clipboard history items between Sigil sessions.

04-21-2022, 05:57 PM	#6
pgst Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2022 Device: sony prs t2	No, the clipboard history items was a mere 5 k and in my experience doesn't grow excessively, and since older items disappear, I suppose there is a maximum number of items. So that can be ruled out in my case. It will be a riddle forever...