Slow and resource hungry on Windows 8.1

[sba rtl]

Like the subject says.
Can anyone confirm this or even have an idea for improvement?

[CalenGoo Support]

Hi,

thank you for your message! Unfortunately "slow and resource hungry" is not very specific. It depends on what you mean with "slow" and with "resource hungry". Can you perhaps say in seconds how slow it is and in MB/GB how "resource hungry" it is?

On my computer I can usually start it within a few seconds and it usually uses less than 1 GB. For some people 1 GB sounds much but on the other hand a simple GMail web page in Google Chrome has also used up to 1 GB on my computer when I tested it.

The problem is that most of the RAM is not used for CalenGoo's data (like keeping some emails or contacts in memory to access them faster) but for graphical purposes (to save the contents of the windows), which I cannot directly influence.

Regarding the speed it depends on how fast your computer is and how much RAM it has. It should certainly have enough RAM so that it does not need to swap data to the disk. But if the CPU is also slow, CalenGoo will probably be slow, too. Yes, it requires a certain amount of resources to run. You can download it for free from https://www.calengoo.com/desktop to see if you like it and if it is fast enough on your computer before buying it. And I will also try to make it faster but I already did this a lot of times. However there seem to be situations (like having thousands of contacts) that I haven't optimized yet but will try to optimize in the future. It might also help to not sync everything (calendars, contacts, tasks and emails) but only the things you need.

Please don't hesitate to contact me again if you have further questions!

Kind regards

Dominique Gunia

[sba rtl]

Thanks. Ok, maybe I exaggerated the resources part a bit. It currently uses around 250 MB RAM here. Which, compared to your numbers, seems little. However, the only app that I am mostly using that has needs more RAM is Firefox. And I am thinking this is "just a calander...". But ok, this is not the real problem. Also start-up time is ok.

The real problem is when I want to open appointments or events to edit them for the first time after a (re)start of the app. I generally am using the "month" view with the details pane on the side. Even just displaying the details of an event in the side pane can already take up to a second or so. (Normally I expect it to be shown instantly without ANY noticeable time difference or maybe MAX 200 ms). However, the REAL problem is when I want to edit an event for the first time after a (re)start of the app. When clicking the edit button, it takes literally seconds for the edit dialog to show itself in that side pane. In bad cases up to 15 seconds. Any edit dialogs after the initial loading process do load fast then. So it seems to be just the first time after the app starts.

Now that I am writing this (and checking it in the app again) I remember and realize that it sometimes does not save changes or new events.
It also keeps "reloading" certain calenders again and again, so that these entries disappear and then reappear again. This is quite annoying.

The app on android works so well. But the desktop app on Windows (8.1) ... I don't know...

[CalenGoo Support]

Hi!

Thank you for explaining the problems! I hope we can figure out what is causing them and fix them!

The real problem is when I want to open appointments or events to edit them for the first time after a (re)start of the app. I generally am using the "month" view with the details pane on the side. Even just displaying the details of an event in the side pane can already take up to a second or so. (Normally I expect it to be shown instantly without ANY noticeable time difference or maybe MAX 200 ms). However, the REAL problem is when I want to edit an event for the first time after a (re)start of the app. When clicking the edit button, it takes literally seconds for the edit dialog to show itself in that side pane. In bad cases up to 15 seconds. Any edit dialogs after the initial loading process do load fast then. So it seems to be just the first time after the app starts.

Do you use CalenGoo's icon function? Can you see a list of icons in CalenGoo's edit view? It has to load all these icons and maybe that's what takes so much time. However with the default set of icons it takes less then a second to open the edit view on my computer (tested on Linux). So did you maybe load a lot of additional icons that might cause this problem? 🤔

 

Now that I am writing this (and checking it in the app again) I remember and realize that it sometimes does not save changes or new events.

What happens when it does not save changes? Does it immediately display the event without the changes again after saving? Or does it show the event with a cloud icon that does not vanish (i.e. the changes are not uploaded)?

 

It also keeps "reloading" certain calenders again and again, so that these entries disappear and then reappear again. This is quite annoying.

What kind of calendars are that (holidays? sports? or normal calendars)?

Did you import a settings file from the Android version into the desktop version?

Thank you very much!

Kind regards

Dominique Gunia

[sba rtl]

I never really noticed the icons, respectively, never payed attention to them. But now that I checked, in the edit view there is a button next to the title field. If clicked it pops a list of icons, yes. Those seem to be pretty standard icons, though, and I did not load any additional ones.

Regarding saving changes:

"Does it immediately display the event without the changes again after saving? Or does it show the event with a cloud icon that does not vanish (i.e. the changes are not uploaded)?" Neither, nor. It seems as if it accepted the change. E.g. if I delete a location, I click "Save" in the edit view. It looks totally normal in month view. I open the event again in edit view and the location seems to be successfully deleted -> is not shown anymore. But when I close and reopen the whole app, the location is back again. No cloud icon or anything like that. It still seems to not upload to cloud because the change never makes it to my Android app.

"What kind of calendars are that (holidays? sports? or normal calendars)?" Normal calendars. I have 4 normal calendars from one cloud location/account. 2 of those 4 I mostly have in use. One of the two often gets "reloaded".

"Did you import a settings file from the Android version into the desktop version?"

No.

Even if this cannot be solved, thanks for the support. It shows that you care. That is the most important part. :-)

[CalenGoo Support]

Hi,

I never really noticed the icons, respectively, never payed attention to them. But now that I checked, in the edit view there is a button next to the title field. If clicked it pops a list of icons, yes. Those seem to be pretty standard icons, though, and I did not load any additional ones.

under "Settings > Display and Use > Edit view > Visible sections" you can hide sections of the edit view that you don't use. Please try to uncheck the "icons" section there and check if it makes a difference. However loading such a small number of icons should usually not cause such a delay.

If it really takes 15 seconds, then this might be enough time to open http://localhost:53921/stacktrace in a browser on the same computer and send me that output. It shows what CalenGoo is doing at that time. But, because it shows only what CalenGoo was doing when the page was loaded, you have to open (or refresh) that page in the 15 seconds during which CalenGoo is loading the edit view. Then we can probably see what CalenGoo is doing during that time.

Regarding saving changes:

"Does it immediately display the event without the changes again after saving? Or does it show the event with a cloud icon that does not vanish (i.e. the changes are not uploaded)?" Neither, nor. It seems as if it accepted the change. E.g. if I delete a location, I click "Save" in the edit view. It looks totally normal in month view. I open the event again in edit view and the location seems to be successfully deleted -> is not shown anymore. But when I close and reopen the whole app, the location is back again. No cloud icon or anything like that. It still seems to not upload to cloud because the change never makes it to my Android app.

I have tried it myself but the location was correctly removed (I checked it on http://calendar.google.com ). I suppose this is not reproducible but happens only sometimes?

"What kind of calendars are that (holidays? sports? or normal calendars)?" Normal calendars. I have 4 normal calendars from one cloud location/account. 2 of those 4 I mostly have in use. One of the two often gets "reloaded".

There are certain situations where Google does not offer an incremental sync, e.g. if the last sync was too long ago. Maybe we can see in the log what has happened. You can find CalenGoo's log files in the directory C:\Users\yourUser\AppData\Roaming\CalenGoo\logs". These logs are simple text files. The newest log is calengoo0.log. Please check if you can see entries starting with "RefreshEvents: Error:" in the log. These lines should also contain the word "UpdatedMin" and the name of the affected calendar. Can you find such entries? Do they show the calendar that is completely synced?

Even if this cannot be solved, thanks for the support. It shows that you care. That is the most important part. :-)

Thank you very much! 😊 But nevertheless I hope that we can fix these problems! Please send me the "stacktrace" and take a look at the logs. Thank you very much! 🙂

Kind regards

Dominique

[sba rtl]

"under "Settings > Display and Use > Edit view > Visible sections" you can hide ..."

I deactivated the icons as you described but the icons button is still there in the edit view (in the side pane of the month view) and it still pops the icons "list".

"If it really takes 15 seconds, ..."

It only occasionally takes up to 15 seconds. Usually it is 2 to 4 seconds. Not sure if I understood you correctly, but I pulled a stacktrace before hitting the edit button and another one a few seconds after the edit form successfully finished loading. Not sure where to send it, though. Would that be calengoo-des...@googlegroups.com ?

"I suppose this is not reproducible but happens only sometimes?"

It is reproducible with one particular item. However, as I now noticed, that seems to be the only item / event with that problem. So, never mind. Sorry for the unnecessary bother about that issue.

"There are certain situations where Google ..."

Not sure, but are you thinking that I am using/syncing Google calendars? Then I must clearify: No, I am not using Google calendars. Google has a lot of light but also a lot of dark shadows. Their hunger for collecting as much personal data of all people as possible (as is unfortunately the case with most big companies) is one of their dark places. Therefore, I am certainly not using Google services when there seem to be reasonable alternatives. I am using EteSync calendars.

Anyway, I looked at those logs. There was one named "calengoo0.log.1" but it did not contain those strings you provided.

[CalenGoo Support]

It only occasionally takes up to 15 seconds. Usually it is 2 to 4 seconds. Not sure if I understood you correctly, but I pulled a stacktrace before hitting the edit button and another one a few seconds after the edit form successfully finished loading. Not sure where to send it, though. Would that be calengoo-des...@googlegroups.com ?

No, it will only be useful if you can load the web page http://localhost:53921/stacktrace while CalenGoo is opening the edit view. You said it sometimes takes 15 seconds to open the edit view from the detail view (i.e. after clicking the "Edit" button in the detail view). To figure out why this takes 15 seconds we have to see what CalenGoo is doing during that time. On http://localhost:53921/stacktrace we can see what it is doing in the moment when you open that website. So this page will only be useful if you can open it while CalenGoo is working these 15 seconds on opening the edit view. Not before or after, but during these 15 seconds. If that works you can send the output to des...@calengoo.com .

"There are certain situations where Google ..."

Not sure, but are you thinking that I am using/syncing Google calendars? Then I must clearify: No, I am not using Google calendars. Google has a lot of light but also a lot of dark shadows. Their hunger for collecting as much personal data of all people as possible (as is unfortunately the case with most big companies) is one of their dark places. Therefore, I am certainly not using Google services when there seem to be reasonable alternatives. I am using EteSync calendars.

Then it might be a limitation of EteSync. I suppose you are syncing using CalDAV, right? To sync incrementally via CalDAV the CalDAV server has to support a sync token. If CalenGoo syncs the whole calendar it means that it did not get a sync token for that calendar. Maybe a newer version of EteSync or a different CalDAV server can fix that.

 

Anyway, I looked at those logs. There was one named "calengoo0.log.1" but it did not contain those strings you provided.

It will contain these strings only for Google calendars. Google calendars can usually be synced incrementally. However CalDAV calendars often have such problems. Such things like sync tokens are optional and are not supported by all servers.

Does the incremental sync work fine for some calendars or does it completely download all calendars all the time?

Kind regards

Dominique

[sba rtl]

Ok, the most critical issue (updating items) turned out to be an isolated problem (as it seems to be the case atm). So, it "solved itself".
The other issues I wanted to at least mention but it seems to be too much hassle atm to go after them. Not worth the effort right now. If it would have been a quick fix ... but if it does not get worse then I can live with them.

Thanks for the support. If I change my mind and want to go after the remaining issues more thoroughly I will write again.
Live long and prosper.