6.31 RC4 just hanging?

[Justin42]

I'm having a few issues with 6.31RC4; I had been previously running 6.31RC2 (missed RC3 somewhere). When I go to launch it there is an extremely long delay before the app becomes "usable" (say 45-90 seconds at least). If I click anywhere it just says the application is not responding. If I wait it out, it wakes up and becomes usable (although if I want to see the MOTD it takes a while as well). When I double click on a file to download (like a file set, with PARs/RARs, etc), it puts the files into the download list, pauses all of the files except the first PAR, but then hangs and never starts.

System is a Core i7-2600k (but not OCd), 16GB Ram, Win 7 64bit. Like I said, RC2 was working fine as late as today for a minute or two before I installed RC4 over it.

Any ideas?

[Quade]

I'd exit, wipe the autopar2.db3 file in data folder and see if that makes a difference.

[Justin42]

I'd exit, wipe the autopar2.db3 file in data folder and see if that makes a difference.

Doesn't seem to have made any difference. Still about 60 seconds until MOTD shows up and then another 60 seconds or so until I can click that off (nothing's showing up, strangely) and use Newsbin.

Computer seems to be working fine otherwise... I tried disabling my virus scanner (Sophos) but no change either.

[Quade]

I'd then experiment with deleting all of the db3 files in the data folder. I might also run procmon and check disk IO during startup. It's doing something the question is what.

I might simply move the downloads and signature.db3 out of the data folder. What kind of machine is this? What drive is the data folder one?

[Justin42]

Would it be best to delete (or move to another folder) the db3s all at once, or try one at a time? Would I lose anything in terms of headers? (some of which take a long time to redownload! ) If I just rename them to .db3x and see what happens, can I put them back if nothing changes?

I did a procmon and there are a few long gaps-- one is an almost exactly 60 second hang at a thread create. Second hang looks to be a number of smaller hangs, first hangs after a RegCloseKey of HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\LanguagePack\SurrogateFallback for 7 seconds, then 2 thread exits hang for another 20 seconds, then another Thread Create hangs for 30 seconds. Could it be something with the Language Pack code you put in recently that's wacky on my OS? (I'm using Win 7 Enterprise, English)Would sending you that log (filtered to only have "newsbin" processes) be helpful at all, or would the db3 troubleshooting first be better?

[I should add, these are just the hangs at startup, not the "it won't start downloading" problem] There also looks to be a very long hang at shutdown where the newsbinpro64.exe file stays listed in Task Manager for a while after I close the application.

Machine is a homebuilt system, Core i7-2600k, like I said up through NB 6.31RC2 it's run fine. OS is Drive C: (and is an SSD), Newsbin is in D:\Program Files\Newsbin, data is in D:\Program Files\Newsbin\Data. (D: is a normal HD)

Thanks for your continued help...

[Quade]

Well, you'll lose the download list and duplicate checker if you wipe them all. I'm, not suggesting you kill the spool_v6 folder. There's such little change between RC2 and RC3/4 that I can't think of anything that would make it hang like this though.

[DThor]

Just curious if you install the previous version if suddenly everything is roses. I'm doubting it, but if it's easy to try, it would at least eliminate a recent change.

I must admit, my eye goes to your config and hangs on 'ssd'. I know, they're awesome, but it seems like bizarre things happen with some models combined with some releases of firmware.i I also know there's no simple way to take it out of the equation, but perhaps tagging that in case you recently changed drivers and forgot.

DT

[Justin42]

Hi,

I renamed ALL of the .db3 files to .db3x and nothing changed. (and again, besides the startup/shutdown hang, it wasn't downloading headers, and when I tried to download a RAR/PAR set it hung trying to start the download of the PAR and everything else was paused)

There are NO Newsbin-related files on the SSD, unless something sneaks into C:. Everything Newsbin is installed on D:, which is a normal HDD.

I just re-installed Newsbin 6.31RC2 over the RC4 installation, put back the "original" db3s, and things are working perfectly. One interesting thing I noticed is in RC4 I received a message on the "Log" pane of "High speed file creation mode DISABLED. Run as administrator to enable." (or something to that effect, sorry I didn't write it down before I replaced it). I do not see any message about High speed file creation mode either way in RC2.

Not sure what this means.

[DThor]

Good information. The message is fine, it was discovered that for hispeed writing (one pass write instead of a wipe pass first, what windows does by default), it wasn't actually working and will only work if you're running as administrator, so basically it's just informational.

At least that eliminates a bunch of possibilities. Weird one...

DT