Startup of calibre veeeeeery slow (>3 min)

[drmaxx]

Since a few versions Calibre is really starting up very very slowly. I am talking something around 3 - 4 minutes till the main windows opens.
The debug mode reports "startup in 0.71899".
Process explorer reports 1.5s CPU time and then simply stalls. Nothing happens - no ressources needed. It seems to wait for something to respond.

Once it started, everything is fine.

My system: Win XP, SP3, dual core something with >2 G Ram.

Anybody else? Any suggestions (I already checked the database integrity; I am only talking about 180 books).

[user_none]

It could be your anti virus program. Try turning it off temporary and launching calibre to test if it's the issue.

[CazMar]

Mine is a little slow opening on my netbook - about 10 seconds, but that is about standard for any large program on a lower powered computer. I have AVG anti virus running.

[drmaxx]

It's not the anti virus. For the entire time the computer is running on idle.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by drmaxx

My system: Win XP, SP3, dual core something with >2 G Ram.

I run essentially the same setup on a couple of computers and my startup time is a few seconds for either my working library of 12000 books or my finalized library of around 5000 books.

If you exit with the tag browser closed it usually starts up quicker.

Originally Posted by drmaxx

It's not the anti virus. For the entire time the computer is running on idle.

I do have my anti-virus setup to ignore both of these libraries.

You might want to start your machine in safe mode and see if the problem persists. It seems to me another program, driver, malware is getting in the way.

Good Luck.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by drmaxx

It's not the anti virus. For the entire time the computer is running on idle.

It's not an issue of your anti-virus running and slowing down the computer. It's a possible issue of the real time scanning slowing down calibre's startup because as calibre starts it scans every file calibre touches and runs heuristics against what calibre is doing during it's startup process.

[itimpi]

It is always worth excluding the calibre binaries folder and any calibre library folders from virus scanning if you want to optimise performance.

[drmaxx]

Originally Posted by user_none

It's not an issue of your anti-virus running and slowing down the computer. It's a possible issue of the real time scanning slowing down calibre's startup because as calibre starts it scans every file calibre touches and runs heuristics against what calibre is doing during it's startup process.

I don't quite understand the argument. If this would happen, then I would see either cpu time used by the anti virus module or minimally some sort of file access activity. In my case this is not happening.

[drmaxx]

I think, I nailed my problem: It is a Microsoft network thingy.

I am working with a Laptop that usually connects to a network. If I am not connected to the network, but have internet access Calibre seems to try to access external file systems and network printers. It then just waits for a few minutes until it gets frustrated or accept the fact that these resources are simply not available.

It seems to be an annoying Microsoft XP thing - so a simple vpn to my home network shortens the wait to a few seconds.

Thanks for all your input.

[Manichean]

That would be... weird. From what I know and what my firewall previously has told me, Calibre only tries to connect to the Calibre web page on startup to see if there's an update available. I see absolutely no reason for it to try to connect to remote storage servers or even printers, unless my library would happen to reside on a remote server. Actually, I'd be rather shocked if it tried to connect to these things- I like my software to behave.
Edit: Why a connection to your home VPN would accelerate things, however, I don't understand.

[kovidgoyal]

On startup calibre only connects to http://status.calibre-ebook.com/latest

[drmaxx]

Originally Posted by Manichean

That would be... weird. From what I know and what my firewall previously has told me, Calibre only tries to connect to the Calibre web page on startup to see if there's an update available. I see absolutely no reason for it to try to connect to remote storage servers or even printers, unless my library would happen to reside on a remote server.

Yep, Microsoft XP is weird in this respect. Depending on how you access the file system, it tries to reconnect to network drives. This has nothing to do that you actually want to access the drive. E.g. just by opening "My Computer" in Explorer it tries to reconnect to the defined network drives.
Nothing to worry about - just weird and sometimes annoying.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by drmaxx

Yep, Microsoft XP is weird in this respect. Depending on how you access the file system, it tries to reconnect to network drives. This has nothing to do that you actually want to access the drive. E.g. just by opening "My Computer" in Explorer it tries to reconnect to the defined network drives.
Nothing to worry about - just weird and sometimes annoying.

I know that, but by starting a software? That would be new to me.

[drmaxx]

It is reproducible on my system. There is no startup problem with Calibre when I have access to the network (either physically or by VPN) or if I don't have any network available. Having internet only it stalls and I see this several min. delay.

[burlap]

Please look at the new thread I started for a similar problem. In my case, it was a DVD-R that caused Calibre to run very slowly. After ejecting the DVD-R, and inserting another one, Calibre works fine.