As you know, there have been quite some reports of Mnemosyne sometimes
hanging on Windows. I had hoped that the new PyQt version would fix
this, but unfortunately, that turned out not be the case. The hangs
never happen on my system, so I need help to debug this.
To summarise what I understand the problem to be (but feel free to
correct me), Mnemosyne sometimes hangs when trying to grade a card,
and this happens regardsless of whether the cards contain images or
not. It happens both on XP 32 bit and on W7 64 bit.
I changed some small packaging/configuration options. I'm not sure if
they will have a big impact, but you never know :-)
If you still have hangs, it would be interesting to see if how the
frequency of hangs changes if you try e.g. 'autosave after 1 reps' vs
'autosave after 20 reps'.
If you have a virus scanner like Microsoft security essentials
running, please try disabling it and see if it makes a difference.
Ditto for Windows desktop search.
If you have a separate version of Python installed on your machine,
please remove it.
Do a search for default.db on your file system, and check if
default.db has write permissions, together with all the folder levels
above it.
Do you have funny characters in your windows account name?
Is your database on the C drive?
Do you also have the problem if you never used the card browser after
starting the program?
If you're technically inclined, run Sysinternal process monitor while
running Mnemosyne, to see if anything suspect happens with database
access (filter to show only events in the 'file system' class) (
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645 )
Make sure you have enough free disk space and try running a defragmenter.
Any other pattern you observe or thought you might have to solve this,
is welcome!
COPYING my comment from other, less applicable thread, regarding frequency of crashes. I had a weak suspicion about the autosave before I read your post, too:
It's a strange frequency. For one day, it would crash, I would restart, it would crash in two cards, and it did that repeatedly, and I gave up frustrated. The next day I was able to get through about 100 cards before it crashed, so I thought I'd be patient and just try and get through as many cards as I could each day. Today it let me get through about 15 before the freeze. One thing which seems consistent, though, is that it seem to crash quicker and quicker if I try and restart it repeatedly? If I give it a day, it seems to be in a brighter mood for a while. This makes no sense to me based on the little I know about computers, so I suppose it could be a coincidence of some sort. The one other thing I was wondering about is if it has something to do with the autosave, because I put the autosave at "every 1 card" in order that I wouldn't lose information each time it crashed, but there have been a few times where I'll still be a few, even maybe 10 cards behind where I was when I open the program again. No idea if this helps?
Thanks for your quick help; I'll be of any help I can - I would be glad to run any experiments you'd like me to try on my machine, if that could in any way help, Chris S.
I am running Windows 7 Starter, which I believe is 32-bit, but I may be mistaken. No anti-virus running. Don't really know what python is, so probably don't have another version of it running, hopefully! Also not sure how to find default.db, doesn't come up on a file search of My Computer. No funny characters in my username ("Chris") Everything is on C drive. Have had the problem without using the card browser, repeatedly. I'll try the defragment this afternoon, and read up on the process monitor to see if I could figure it out without too much risk! :)
On Monday, July 9, 2012 11:48:42 AM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:
> Hi,
> As you know, there have been quite some reports of Mnemosyne sometimes > hanging on Windows. I had hoped that the new PyQt version would fix > this, but unfortunately, that turned out not be the case. The hangs > never happen on my system, so I need help to debug this.
> To summarise what I understand the problem to be (but feel free to > correct me), Mnemosyne sometimes hangs when trying to grade a card, > and this happens regardsless of whether the cards contain images or > not. It happens both on XP 32 bit and on W7 64 bit.
> I changed some small packaging/configuration options. I'm not sure if > they will have a big impact, but you never know :-)
> If you still have hangs, it would be interesting to see if how the > frequency of hangs changes if you try e.g. 'autosave after 1 reps' vs > 'autosave after 20 reps'.
> If you have a virus scanner like Microsoft security essentials > running, please try disabling it and see if it makes a difference. > Ditto for Windows desktop search.
> If you have a separate version of Python installed on your machine, > please remove it.
> Do a search for default.db on your file system, and check if > default.db has write permissions, together with all the folder levels > above it.
> Do you have funny characters in your windows account name?
> Is your database on the C drive?
> Do you also have the problem if you never used the card browser after > starting the program?
> If you're technically inclined, run Sysinternal process monitor while > running Mnemosyne, to see if anything suspect happens with database > access (filter to show only events in the 'file system' class) ( > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645 )
> Make sure you have enough free disk space and try running a defragmenter.
> Any other pattern you observe or thought you might have to solve this, > is welcome!
I am running Windows 7 Starter, which I believe is 32-bit, but I may be mistaken.
No anti-virus running.
Don't really know what python is, so probably don't have another version of it running, hopefully!
Also not sure how to find default.db, doesn't come up on a file search of My Computer.
No funny characters in my username ("Chris")
Everything is on C drive.
Have had the problem without using the card browser, repeatedly.
I'll try the defragment this afternoon, and read up on the process monitor to see if I could figure it out without too much risk! :)
Good luck, Chris S.
On Monday, July 9, 2012 11:48:42 AM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:
Hi,
As you know, there have been quite some reports of Mnemosyne sometimes hanging on Windows. I had hoped that the new PyQt version would fix this, but unfortunately, that turned out not be the case. The hangs never happen on my system, so I need help to debug this.
To summarise what I understand the problem to be (but feel free to correct me), Mnemosyne sometimes hangs when trying to grade a card, and this happens regardsless of whether the cards contain images or not. It happens both on XP 32 bit and on W7 64 bit.
I changed some small packaging/configuration options. I'm not sure if they will have a big impact, but you never know :-)
If you still have hangs, it would be interesting to see if how the frequency of hangs changes if you try e.g. 'autosave after 1 reps' vs 'autosave after 20 reps'.
If you have a virus scanner like Microsoft security essentials running, please try disabling it and see if it makes a difference. Ditto for Windows desktop search.
If you have a separate version of Python installed on your machine, please remove it.
Do a search for default.db on your file system, and check if default.db has write permissions, together with all the folder levels above it.
Do you have funny characters in your windows account name?
Is your database on the C drive?
Do you also have the problem if you never used the card browser after starting the program?
If you're technically inclined, run Sysinternal process monitor while running Mnemosyne, to see if anything suspect happens with database access (filter to show only events in the 'file system' class) ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645 )
Make sure you have enough free disk space and try running a defragmenter.
Any other pattern you observe or thought you might have to solve this, is welcome!
Yes, just did. Let me finish the 16 remaining scheduled cards for the day, then froze after about 5 unlearned cards. The program will hang for me both on the regularly scheduled cards, and in new, unlearned cards, which I neglected to mention before (I mention it because I noticed another poster said they have it on learning new cards). I did the defragging, didn't seem to have an effect (my computer was only at 1% fragmentation to start). The sysinternal trick seems a bit too advanced for me.
I was thinking, I could load the program on another computer that I only rarely use, mount the database in that copy of th program, and see if it occurs there; which may let us know if it's something to do with the database, or the computer? This may or may not be of help, I really don't know. That other computer is a Windows 7 64-bit desktop, this one is a Windows 7 Starter netbook. Let me know if it is worthwhile. I may just do it temporarily so I can keep up on my card repetitions, and then start using my netbook again once the problem is fixed. I prefer not to have to use the desktop comp for review though.
>> I am running Windows 7 Starter, which I believe is 32-bit, but I may be >> mistaken. >> No anti-virus running. >> Don't really know what python is, so probably don't have another version >> of it running, hopefully! >> Also not sure how to find default.db, doesn't come up on a file search of >> My Computer. >> No funny characters in my username ("Chris") >> Everything is on C drive. >> Have had the problem without using the card browser, repeatedly. >> I'll try the defragment this afternoon, and read up on the process >> monitor to see if I could figure it out without too much risk! :)
>> Good luck, Chris S.
>> On Monday, July 9, 2012 11:48:42 AM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> As you know, there have been quite some reports of Mnemosyne sometimes >>> hanging on Windows. I had hoped that the new PyQt version would fix >>> this, but unfortunately, that turned out not be the case. The hangs >>> never happen on my system, so I need help to debug this.
>>> To summarise what I understand the problem to be (but feel free to >>> correct me), Mnemosyne sometimes hangs when trying to grade a card, >>> and this happens regardsless of whether the cards contain images or >>> not. It happens both on XP 32 bit and on W7 64 bit.
>>> I changed some small packaging/configuration options. I'm not sure if >>> they will have a big impact, but you never know :-)
>>> If you still have hangs, it would be interesting to see if how the >>> frequency of hangs changes if you try e.g. 'autosave after 1 reps' vs >>> 'autosave after 20 reps'.
>>> If you have a virus scanner like Microsoft security essentials >>> running, please try disabling it and see if it makes a difference. >>> Ditto for Windows desktop search.
>>> If you have a separate version of Python installed on your machine, >>> please remove it.
>>> Do a search for default.db on your file system, and check if >>> default.db has write permissions, together with all the folder levels >>> above it.
>>> Do you have funny characters in your windows account name?
>>> Is your database on the C drive?
>>> Do you also have the problem if you never used the card browser after >>> starting the program?
>>> If you're technically inclined, run Sysinternal process monitor while >>> running Mnemosyne, to see if anything suspect happens with database >>> access (filter to show only events in the 'file system' class) ( >>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645 )
>>> Make sure you have enough free disk space and try running a >>> defragmenter.
>>> Any other pattern you observe or thought you might have to solve this, >>> is welcome!
>>> Peter
>>> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "mnemosyne-proj-users" group. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mnemosyne-proj-users/-/nMK7uOamiloJ. >> To post to this group, send email to >> mnemosyne-proj-users@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> mnemosyne-proj-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/mnemosyne-proj-users?hl=en.
> I was thinking, I could load the program on another computer that I only
> rarely use, mount the database in that copy of th program, and see if it
> occurs there; which may let us know if it's something to do with the
> database, or the computer?
My observations: 1. Hangs with either known or new cards. - Sometimes I can go through all known cards without a hang (usually ~30-40 cards), then it will hang repeatedly in the new cards. - Sometimes it will hang on the second card of the known cards. 2. Almost always the hang occurs when grading a card, but occasionally it can hang after grading when attempting to advance to the next card. 3. Hangs even without images on the cards. 4. Hangs even if the card browser has not been used in the session.
Variables changed without fixing the problem: 1. Autosave after 1 rep or 20 reps. 2. Real-time monitoring by Microsoft Security Essentials on or off. 3. Excluded mnemosyne.exe as a process in Microsoft Security Essentials.
Other factors: 1. No other version of Python. 2. No Win desktop search. 3. No special characters in username. 4. Default.db is on my personal data partition, and has write permissions. 5. Ran Process Monitor, but I'm not sure what to look for, and may not have set it correctly. 6. Plenty of disk space is available. 7. Low fragmentation level.
Further observations: 1. In Process Monitor, everything with Mnemosyne is marked Successful. 2. default.db-journal gets written about the time Mnemosyne hangs.
On Wednesday 11 Jul 2012 10:21:19 Scott Youngman wrote:
> 2. Almost always the hang occurs when grading a card, but occasionally it > can hang after grading when attempting to advance to the next card.
What difference do you mean between these two? Normally, after grading, you should advance automatically to the next card.
> Variables changed without fixing the problem: > 1. Autosave after 1 rep or 20 reps.
Does it hang more/sooner with autosave at 1? That should confirm the hypothesis that it's an issue in the database layer.
> Further observations: > 1. In Process Monitor, everything with Mnemosyne is marked Successful.
What you should be looking for is other processes trying to access default.db or default.db-journal. There is a filter option in the process monitor to only show the file access operations, so that you don't get overwhelmed by the registry access operations.
> 2. default.db-journal gets written about the time Mnemosyne hangs.
Interesting!
BTW, in 2.0.1-test1, default.db-journal should never get deleted, even after exiting the program. Can you confirm that this is indeed the case, after you start 2.0.1-test1 for a second time?
There's no notable change from autosave on 1 to autosave on 25. It crashed within 5 cards each time.
I do run MSE. Turning it on/off made no difference. I don't run Windows Desktop Search.
I don't have an extra version of python.
My account name is "Chris"
My database is in the default location on the C drive.
I reproduce the problem every time without starting the card browser.
I have enough disk space. I don't have time to run a defragmenter for this, sorry.
Windows 7, x64.
In process explorer, when I go to the next card, the series of writes does end with default.db-journal, but this is true whether or not it just crashed. The activity for a crash case and an okay case looks the same.
Although after trying it a few times, sometimes it ends in a call to the webkit dll:
11:18:29.5116801 AM mnemosyne.exe 14052 Thread Create SUCCESS Thread ID: 4268
11:19:06.5175272 AM mnemosyne.exe 14052 Thread Exit SUCCESS Thread ID: 11428, User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
11:19:22.9357077 AM mnemosyne.exe 14052 ReadFile C:\Program Files (x86)\Mnemosyne\QtWebKit4.dll SUCCESS Offset: 2,565,120, Length: 32,768, I/O Flags: Non-cached, Paging I/O, Synchronous Paging I/O, Priority: Normal
11:19:29.5332648 AM mnemosyne.exe 14052 Thread Exit SUCCESS Thread ID: 9788, User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
But most of the time it ends in the db-journal, just like it does in the working case.
Sorry none of this seems terribly helpful but I hope it is anyway!
Sorry, my description was wrong on point 2. (see your question quoted below). What I should have said is:
2. Almost always the hang occurs when attempting to show the answer; the Q is displayed, but the A never appears. Occasionally it can hang after grading a card; the A is displayed, but it does not advance to the next card.
With 2.0.1-test1, I can't even show the answer to the first card, whether autosave = 1 or 20.
So I have to go back to build 20120709. With that build and in my testing today, yes, I was able to get further (more cards before a hang) when Autosave = 20 than = 1. For Autosave = 1, I could go between 2 and ~10 cards before hanging. With Autosave = 20, I went 45 cards before hanging, then after restarting I went ~60 cards without a hang until I ran out of cards for the day.
In 20120709, default.db-journal remains after a proper shutdown. (As stated above, I can't use 2.0.1-test1 because it won't even progress to the A of the first card.)
On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:16:06 PM UTC-6, Peter Bienstman wrote:
> BTW, in 2.0.1-test1, default.db-journal should never get deleted, even > after > exiting the program. Can you confirm that this is indeed the case, after > you > start 2.0.1-test1 for a second time?
On Monday, July 9, 2012 11:48:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:
> On Monday, July 09, 2012 10:48:35 PM Chris wrote: > > Yes, just did. Let me finish the 16 remaining scheduled cards for the > day, > > then froze after about 5 unlearned cards.
> > I was thinking, I could load the program on another computer that I only > > rarely use, mount the database in that copy of th program, and see if it > > occurs there; which may let us know if it's something to do with the > > database, or the computer?
That could indeed be interesting...
I will try to get through my scheduled cards for tonight, and then perhaps try this tomorrow. I have been having very little time with my practicum, work, and school, so hopefully I can fit some time in there.
Should I update to the new 2.0.1 you posted, or wait, as the same problems are reported for it?
On Thursday, July 12, 2012 12:58:33 AM UTC-4, Chris wrote:
> On Monday, July 9, 2012 11:48:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Monday, July 09, 2012 10:48:35 PM Chris wrote:
> > Yes, just did. Let me finish the 16 remaining scheduled cards for the day,
> Yes.
> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">> I was thinking, I could load the program on another computer that I only
> > rarely use, mount the database in that copy of th program, and see if it
> > occurs there; which may let us know if it's something to do with the
> > database, or the computer?
> </blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">That could indeed be interesting...
> </blockquote>
> I will try to get through my scheduled cards for tonight, and then perhaps try this tomorrow. I have been having very little time with my practicum, work, and school, so hopefully I can fit some time in there.
> Should I update to the new 2.0.1 you posted, or wait, as the same problems are reported for it?
> - Chris Shanks
> </div>
Having the same problem. It freezes after 2 cards.
Windows 7. I even tried running the software in safe mode. same result.
On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 09:58:33 PM Chris wrote:
> I will try to get through my scheduled cards for tonight, and then perhaps
> try this tomorrow. I have been having very little time with my practicum,
> work, and school, so hopefully I can fit some time in there.
No problem, take your time.
> Should I update to the new 2.0.1 you posted, or wait, as the same problems
> are reported for it?
At the moment, I'd suggest to wait, as I'll try to make another new installer tonight.
Actually, another thing people can definitely try even with the current installer is making sure that is much as possible, Mnemosyne is the only program running.
So, don't have Window Explorer open when you launch Mnemosyne, or another windows explorer alternative like Free Commander, Total commander, Directory Opus ...
Other culprits can include windows indexing service / Windows search service, Eldos callback filesystem .
Also, disable things like third party internet explorer / shell extensions, such as Win7Shell, Tortoise SVN, ...
> On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 09:58:33 PM Chris wrote:
> > I will try to get through my scheduled cards for tonight, and then perhaps
> > try this tomorrow. I have been having very little time with my practicum,
> > work, and school, so hopefully I can fit some time in there.
> No problem, take your time.
> > Should I update to the new 2.0.1 you posted, or wait, as the same problems
> > are reported for it?
> At the moment, I'd suggest to wait, as I'll try to make another new
> installer tonight.
On 13 July 2012 02:55, <ezehfrank...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Having the same problem. It freezes after 2 cards.
> Windows 7. I even tried running the software in safe mode. same result.
Sorry if this is something people have checked already, but have you tried
with a fresh deck?
A few days ago I installed the latest test snapshot on my Windows 7
(64-bit) laptop and downloaded an XML deck from the HSK Flashcards site,
and tested 100 or so cards and reviews, but could not replicate the
crash/hang.
My current hypothesis for the hangs is that there is some sort of bad interaction between libraries mnemosyne uses (database library, installer library, ...) and/or a third party program running on people's computer (Freecommander, ...)
To figure out if removing the installer library from the mix helps, I here provide instructions for an alternate way of installing Mnemosyne. Rather than having a separate one-click install, the idea is to install Mnemosyne as a package in the system's Python installation.
Then, run C:\Python2.7\Scripts\mnemosyne and choose 'pythonw' to execute that script.
As extra benefit, Mnemosyne might start a little bit faster, and Windows power users can now also call libmnemosyne's functions from their python scripts, just as they can do under Linux.
On Friday, July 13, 2012 11:36:44 AM UTC-7, Peter Bienstman wrote:
> My current hypothesis for the hangs is that there is some sort of bad > interaction between libraries mnemosyne uses (database library, installer > library, ...) and/or a third party program running on people's computer > (Freecommander, ...)
> To figure out if removing the installer library from the mix helps, I here > provide instructions for an alternate way of installing Mnemosyne. Rather > than having a separate one-click install, the idea is to install Mnemosyne > as a package in the system's Python installation.
> Then, run C:\Python2.7\Scripts\mnemosyne and choose 'pythonw' to execute > that script.
> As extra benefit, Mnemosyne might start a little bit faster, and Windows > power users can now also call libmnemosyne's functions from their python > scripts, just as they can do under Linux.
Might not have installed correctly.png
19K
Download
Okay, after all that the program opened. I will try and go through cards to see if it freezes. A couple questions, as this is getting pretty confusing/complicated from my biology and medicine (i.e., not computer science) perspective! :) Am I going to have to open it that same way with pythonw each time I use it now? And secondly, the mnemosyne that is on my desktop, is that now an old version of the program that I should not use / remove, or has it been updated by this process? And finally, when I run this pythonw script, is the database for the program and the image folder still in the old location that it was before, or has it made a copy somewhere else?
Awesome, made it through 237 scheduled cards and about 40 new, not memorized cards. We'll see if this works again tomorrow. Only strange thing I've noticed about this version so far is when looking at the SHOW STATISTICS > SCHEDULE graph, the values seem right (between 97 and 237 cards scheduled) for the last week, except for Day -1, which is showing 730 (which is/was totally wrong). I will continue using this version of the program and report back any freezing issues, which I luckily have not yet discovered.
