Find and Run Robot - Freeze after Launch

[corneliusworm]

Using FARR 2.206.01, on Windows 7, launches immediately, but after typing one letter, freezes intermittently for a good 10 to 15 seconds, before coming back then working normally.  After it freezes trying to close the window, etc. results in (Not Responding) message in the title bar.  This behaviour occurs about 70% of the time upon launch.

I have tried adding program to the exceptions list in Microsoft Forefront, even turning that program completely off, still displays this behaviour.  I've been using FARR successfully on this laptop for 2 years, only recently it has started acting this way, but I can't tie any change that I'm aware of to the timing of this.

I've also tried the other settings from the forums to reduce chance of freezing, but to no avail.

Any further troubleshooting anyone could recommend?  Absolutely can't live without this program, now i'm hesitating to invoke it at times knowing it may freeze.

[mouser]

Hi corneliusworm,

Sorry for the delay in replying!

That delay sounds like something is hanging it up.. usually this can happen when it's trying to scan a network item in the history, or a networked drive.

Does that match your situation?

The first thing to try might be to go to options and Launch History, and right click in there to clear the list.  See if that helps and let me know.

There is also an option on the "Display Options" tab labeled "Show search subdir details in status bar" -- you could try TEMPORARILY enabling that to see where it might be getting hung up.
Lastly, you might check out the botton "Shortcut Lnk Resolution" options at the bottom of the "Search Behavior" tab.

[corneliusworm]

Thank you for the response.

I'm not on a network, although on occasion I connect via VPN to some resources on company servers.
I've cleared my history and it did not change it. In fact on next launch it froze after one letter typed for about 20 seconds (indicated by program title showing (Not Responding))

[skajfes]

Do you have a folder with lots of files in your FARR search path?

[kfitting]

Just wanted to say I've been seeing this recently as well... I checked my history and none of my network drives were in it as far as I could see.  The hang does not always happen however... so I could have missed something.

I'm not sure having a lot of files in a folder should hang the GUI??  Usually FARR just chugs along and updates the results window, not hang the entire program.

[skajfes]

I've sometimes got hangs in FARR when secondary disk drive got turned off by windows. Maybe that's the problem with you?

[JoTo]

Hi mouser,

that is exactly the same behaviour and problem i talked about with you in the IRC channel. I am facing exactly this same problem on 2 Win7 machines with latest FARR. Also tried to clear history with no success, and i looked at my history and there were only lines starting with c:\blah blah, so no external drive, no network drive only system harddisk. But i cleaned the list, as the big FARR-Master told me. And i dont think i have a really big folder in my search path (but define BIG please ).

I'll try your second option to maybe see in which directory it starts to freeze. But, kfitting says, the problem is, it is not happening all the time. Kind of random freeze that is. I dont have recognized a rule to determine when it will freeze and when not.

That doesn't happen on my 2 XP machines, where i use the same FARR version though.

Greetings
JoTo

[mouser]

Ok I will try to make a debug version and we can try to get to the bottom of this.

[mouser]

This is for those experiencing farr HANGING while in the middle of search:

I need patient testers to run the debug version which I have uploaded here:
https://www.donation...indAndRunRobotD1.zip


Step 1:

Download the zip, rename the original FindAndRunRobot, then overwrite with the new one, and run it.

This debug version is going to create a *huge* debugout.txt file (under userdocs/DonationCoder/JrDebug or something like that) while running and searching (it's also going to run slower than normal version).

The size of this file could run several megabytes per search -- it contains lots of info about what farr is doing and the timestamps that the events are occurring.

Once you run the debug version go find that debugout.txt file to make sure you know where it is.


Step 2:

The hardest trick then is to try to get the freeze to occur.. once you get a freeze to occur, cancel or compete the search and then EXIT FARR (and don't restart it or the debug file will be overwritten!).


Step 3:

Then we'll want you to either zip and email me ([email protected]) the entrie debugout.txt file or if its really large, open it and grab everything from the last "search about to start with" down to the end.

Hopefully the timestamps there will give the clue about exactly where it's encountering the slowdown/hang.

[mouser]

Based on my first report back, preliminary findings suggest that the hang may be occurring because the operating system is taking multiple seconds to resolve an OS api call to SHGetFileInfo to get system icon index for a display result.

Now there are a few options here for me to fix the problem.

The first may be to discover if the slowdown ONLY occurs when trying to resolve icons to LNK files -- if so, an easy solution might be for ME to resolve the lnk shortcut links and then request system icon indices for the real files.

To help determine if that  is a viable solution will require some more debug testers, or perhaps if there is something about the icons in the files that this triggers on -- it's still completely unclear what specifically triggers this slow icon request -- it may be just that windows is deciding to occasionally clear it's icon cache after N requests, etc., and that it's completely unpredictable.

The second option would be a more clever deferred-icon resolution approach, where i update icons in a separate thread, showing them with generic icons until while they are pending resolution.  This is feasible though not exactly fun.

[corneliusworm]

Just sent you the debug file.  Thank you for your help.

[mouser]

Ok so on at least one case, we have more clues.

As previously stated, the hang seems to be coming when querying the OS for the icon index of a shortcut file (.lnk file).

The further clue is that at least in once case, the shortcut is pointing to a network file, which is why it's timing out, and that in fact if you bring up properties dialog in windows explorer for the shortcut file it also hangs.

So if *ALL* the hangs are caused by same phenomena, then one solution might be to have FARR resolve shortcuts and skip trying to get icons for those that refer to network share files.

[Programus]

Hi. Is this problem get solved now? I got the same problem and I am using FARR v2.223.01

I had a network driver and I deleted it and re-map it because the network topology is changed.

I cleared the history, it seemed solved for a while, but some days later, the problem is back and clearing history is not useful any more.

When it hung, the display in the status bar is "Searching directories..".

[Nova71]

I had the exact same problem: FARR freezes after first key is pressed, for 10-15 seconds. Then, subsequent searches with the window open are fast.

I found out that removing %SPECIALSYS_APPS% (from Options -> List -> Search folders) fixes the problem (!!!)
On my system, this is completely replicable

For the time being, I'm happy to use FARR without %SPECIALSYS_APPS%, which I don't know what exactly is 

[mouser]

I had the exact same problem: FARR freezes after first key is pressed, for 10-15 seconds. Then, subsequent searches with the window open are fast.

I found out that removing %SPECIALSYS_APPS% (from Options -> List -> Search folders) fixes the problem (!!!)
On my system, this is completely replicable

ugh.. you know i'm 99% sure i fixed this problem and released a beta with the fix -- but maybe didn't update the official version??!!@!

let me update the official version today, and you can try it and see if it's fixed.

for more on what these directories are: https://www.donation....msg379798#msg379798

[mouser]

Nova71, I'd really appreciate if you could redownload the latest official release 2.226 and re-enable %specialsys and try to reproduce the problem.
If it's still there then i will absolutely make sure that directory is not enabled by default and comes with a warning.

[Nova71]

Nova71, I'd really appreciate if you could redownload the latest official release 2.226 and re-enable %specialsys and try to reproduce the problem.

-mouser (October 04, 2015, 03:35 PM)

From a (quick) test I'm doing, the problem is gone with the version 2.226 !! 
I'll do some test more, anyhow, since the problem is somewhat intermittent...

P.S. anyhow, I wonder why my "old" version 2.223.01 was not notifying me of the new version available.. 

[mouser]

I wonder why my "old" version 2.223.01 was not notifying me of the new version available..

i didn't put it as an official update notification yet.. i will soon -- maybe do another minor update first in the next few days.

[jinxx]

dunno if it's just me but mine hangs for maybe 10 seconds on SPECIALSYS_DOCS v2.226.01

disabling it seems to fix