Sluggish performance in ASP 2

[bcoley]

Hi,

When I first purchased ASP2 a few months ago, images appeared quickly in the thumbnail and preview windows. I could basically scroll down from top to bottom of a collection of NEF files and the thumbnails would keep up. For some reason for the last three weeks or so, every move takes MUCH longer. It's a good 8-10 seconds after I click on a thumbnail that a preview image appears. And it's 5-8 seconds after I click a thumbnail before its border is highlighted, as if it's the selected preview. I haven't measured how long it takes for all the thumbnails in a folder to process.

These symptoms arise whether the image folder is on the main drive or an external hard drive (I make it a practice of transferring images from the SD card to a hard drive). I use Windows 7 Home Premium, all up to date.

This all started a few days before I discovered a corrupted Windows user account, which caused me to create an all new user account and uninstall and reinstall ASP2. None of those actions has improved performance, which, by the way, sometimes seems to me to slow as an ASP2 session continues.

I do not have issues with any other programs since the new Windows user account.

Thanks for making your way to the end of this post. I will appreciate any thoughts you have.

Bill

[afx]

Anything interesting in the log file?
What are your default settings?
Does it happen only with raw files (and which type) or also JPGs?

cheers
afx

[bcoley]

Anything interesting in the log file?
What are your default settings?
Does it happen only with raw files (and which type) or also JPGs?

Thanks for responding.

I don't know about the log file to which you refer. How do I get to it? What should I look for when I get to it?

My default settings are the default settings that the program installed with; I haven't changed any of them.

And the sluggishness occurs with both JPGs and NEFs. The NEFs are the same type I used before the sluggishness arose, 14-bit (I hope that's what you're asking for!)

Bill

[afx]

I don't know about the log file to which you refer. How do I get to it?

In your AS user folder, there is a text file names AfterShotPro.log or so.

What should I look for when I get to it?

No specific idea...
Post the last 10 lines or so, maybe something looks fishy.
If I have AS issues I typically run "tail -f" on the file in a window on the second screen and see if something looks different than usual. (Any command that will continuously show the lines appended to a file is helpful here, I am just used to the Unix world, that's why I use tail...)

And the sluggishness occurs with both JPGs and NEFs. The NEFs are the same type I used before the sluggishness arose, 14-bit (I hope that's what you're asking for!)

Hmm, so it seems this has no easy solution....

As you already tried with a different account, I assume nuking the cache is not helpful either... (the cache folder in your AS user folder).

cheers
afx

[bcoley]

Thanks for the additional information.

Here are the first many lines of the ASP2 log file to which you directed me. I offer a bunch of them because early on there is a notice of initialization errors and the creation of a new key, developments that sound important, but you will know better than I whether any of them might contribute to the sluggishness I am experiencing.

1606.536: Heaps: 7
1606.536: Failed to enable LFH for heap 1 Handle 10000 . Error 87
1606.542: Bibble program arguments ("C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel AfterShot 2\build\AfterShotPro.exe")
1606.543: Loading plugins
1606.558: "Error initializing plugin: C:/Program Files/Corel/Corel AfterShot 2/supportfiles/plugins/Nostalgia.afplugin"
1606.558: "Plugin did not validate:
Library file missing: lib/Nostalgia.dll
"
1606.558:
1606.559: AfterShot2 Pro New key used. 20
1606.564: System locale: en_US
1606.615: AfterShot2 Pro New key used. 20
1606.628: AfterShot2 Pro New key used. 20
1606.635: AfterShot vers.: 2.1.2.10
1606.639: Built on: "Tue Jan 13 2015"
1606.643: Language: en
1606.647: App Path: C:/Program Files/Corel/Corel AfterShot 2/build/AfterShotPro.exe
1606.650: System Home: C:/Program Files/Corel/Corel AfterShot 2/supportfiles
1606.654: User Home: C:/Users/Bill Coley 2/AppData/Local/Corel/AfterShot 2
1606.658: Prefs Home: \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\AfterShot Pro v2
1606.662: Platform: Windows
1606.665: Build Mode: Release
1606.669: Product Name: "AfterShot"
1606.673: AfterShot2 Pro New key used. 20
1606.677: Registered Version
1606.682: AfterShot2 Pro New key used. 20
1606.689: Initializing
1606.696: Cpu Manager init: 8


And here are the final many lines of the file, lines that come right after a successful export operation...
3143.29: QPainter::begin: Paint device returned engine == 0, type: 2
3144.316: QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
3144.950: QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
3145.585: QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
3146.221: QPainter::save: Painter not active
3146.858: QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
3147.495: QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
3148.132: QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
3148.770: QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
3149.409: QPainter::brush: Painter not active
3150.48: QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
3150.688: QPainter: Painter not active
3151.329: QPainter: Painter not active
3151.970: QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
3152.611: QPainter::brush: Painter not active
3153.252: QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
3153.894: QPainter::opacity: Painter not active
3154.537: QPainter::brush: Painter not active
3155.180: QPainter: Painter not active
3155.823: QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
3156.467: QPainter::setOpacity: Painter not active
3157.112: QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
3157.758: QPainter::setOpacity: Painter not active
3158.403: QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
3159.49: QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
3159.695: QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
3160.341: QPainter::restore: Unbalanced save/restore
3179.954: Show message: "1 versions sent to Export Files batch"
3181.404: Show message: "Batch Export Files complete: 1 items in 1.451 seconds. 1.45 seconds per image."
3205.20: Unlocking catalog: "C:/Users/Bill Coley 2/AppData/Local/Corel/AfterShot 2/cache"
3205.678: Unlocking catalog: "C:/Users/Bill Coley 2/Pictures/AfterShot Catalogs/AfterShot Catalog 2015"
3206.329: Early Cleanup
3206.980: delete globals
3207.631: delete globals
3208.283: delete mid globals
3208.941: delete done globals


For what it's worth, the "Nostalgia" plugin referenced in line 1606.558 is one I downloaded in 32-bit version but do not have installed on my 64-bit system.

I nuked the cache folder, but that had little if any effect.

Hope the posted lines from the log file will offer a clue.

[afx]

Hmm, nothing really sticks out here...

That heap error is strange, I thought AS no longer supports XP (then this LFH stuff could be dropped).

Is OpenCL enabled or off?

cheers
afx

[bcoley]

Hmm, nothing really sticks out here...
Is OpenCL enabled or off?

In the ASP2 preferences, the OpenCL options are greyed out, and the "Use OpenCL" check box is unchecked.

[bcoley]

Okay, things have taken a strange turn.

After a few days of ever-more-sluggish performance, this afternoon ASP2 stopped working completely; it now crashes on opening on application, just like it did a month or so ago in advance of the corrupted user account that I eventually replaced.

So this is the second time ASP2 has done this; I don't understand either instance.

Last time, within a few days of ASP2's beginning to crash every time even though multiple times I uninstalled and reinstalled it, PhotoPaint X7 also failed, at least on my user account (both PPX7 and ASP2 would open on another user account). At the moment, PhotoPaint is working correctly in my user account, but I don't know for how long. I just restarted Windows and logged into another user account, but ASP2 crashed on opening there, too.

Neither time have I done anything unusual to my PC that would explain ASP2's total collapse, or the corruption of my user account. When it has worked, ASP2 has worked great - I love it - but I can't take the program slowing down over time, then refusing to open every time I install it.

I know I haven't given you much to go on, but do you have any ideas?

[peteln]

Is the scratch disk full or near full (i.e. only 1 or 2 GB left)? This can cause corrupted Windows account too.

[bcoley]

I uninstalled ASP2 using RevoUninstaller, whose process notified me that my ASP2 installation shared folders with a previous AfterShot 2 installation. I used Revo to clean all remnants of AS2, both pro and not, then reinstalled ASP2. Whether related to that process or not, ASP2 then ran again, it no longer crashing upon opening. BUT, all processes within ASP2 were still very sluggish.

Then for some reason I thought about the .xmp files that contain changes made to the images, .xmp files that were created by previous installations of ASP2, perhaps even previous versions of ASP2. I then removed the .xmp files from certain folders, and in those folders ASP2 operations sped up, basically back to the speed I experienced before all of the sluggishness happened. I then changed the white balance on all of the images in a folder from which I had removed the old .xmp files, thereby creating new a .xmp file for each image the folder. So far, at least, with the images in that folder and their new .xmp files, there is no sluggishness. It seems like I'm on to something. Might I be right?

EDIT: I have since discovered that the longer ASP2 is open, the more the sluggishness returns. If I close and reopen the program, the sluggishness is gone again, but returns over time. The issue with old .xmp files, however, still seems to be true.

[afx]

Getting slower over time seems to point to a memory leak, have a look at the memory consumption.

If older XMPs trigger this, then the question is, what is the difference between the old and the new ones.

cheers
afx

[bcoley]

Getting slower over time seems to point to a memory leak, have a look at the memory consumption.

If older XMPs trigger this, then the question is, what is the difference between the old and the new ones.

Good point about memory consumption. Will check. Thanks.

I do not know whether there are any differences between the old and new XMP files, but from hands on experience I know that image folders respond MUCH faster as soon as I remove old XMPs, and then do not slow down nearly as much when I create new XMPs - but only when ALL the XMPs in a given folder are created since the latest re-installation, and are not carryovers from previous ones (I've observed that leaving even one old XMP in the folder slows down the process for the entire folder).

The thought of the XMPs being the culprit came to me when the processing of the scans of a 35 image folder basically froze about halfway through, forcing me to force ASP2 to close. When next I opened the program, an advisory window reported an apparent corruption in the last folder I was working in, and asked whether I wanted to restore to that folder or cancel it out. When I canceled out, the program ran again. When I emptied out that folder's XMPs - all from prior installations - ASP2 functioned normally. I'll be able to test my hypothesis more as the days pass.

Thank you VERY much for your time and responses.

[afx]

Can you post an old and a new XMP?

cheers
afx

[bcoley]

Can you post an old and a new XMP?

It's taken me a while to get back to this thread, but in the interim I have discovered that the XMP files are not a factor in my sluggish ASP2 performance. I have now had similar results with folders in which the XMPs were all created from the same new installation of the software.

Having ditched that hypothesis, I am back to the suggestion of a memory leak. I tracked memory consumption as the program remained open. The GB of RAM in use increased from about 2.2 to 2.6 n the first 5-7 minutes, but seemed to stabilize around that higher number. I then realized that I built this machine five years ago with only 6GB of RAM, so I have ordered new sticks. I'm hoping I will go from 6GB to 18GB, since the timings on the new sticks are identical. If Windows objects to the combination of the two brands, I still will have twice as much RAM as I have now.

I will report back, but if there is a memory leak, 1) What causes them and what can be done about them? 2) Will the same sluggishness arise, only taking longer to be noticed?

Thanks for your time and assistance,
Bill

[afx]

[quote="bcoley"]I will report back, but if there is a memory leak, 1) What causes them and what can be done about them?[quote]
Programming errors ;-(

[quote] 2) Will the same sluggishness arise, only taking longer to be noticed? /quote]
Exactly.

Unfortunately those issues are often very hard to really pin down.

cheers
afx