Lagging on entry problem

[Jon R]

Hi Peeps,

Recently I seem to be suffering a lag when starting to type a new entry. Sometimes the screen does not refresh as I type - so the first few letters/words appear all at once after a second or two. Or the first word appears then there is a delay. Sometimes clicking 'new item' has a noticeable delay until the 'new task' appears.

I use one MLO database, so it is getting 'big' - 2.4MB, 12k items. (Previously I polled the forum and others reported much bigger dbs with no particular issues).

Since I am not in tech I don't know what processes occur, but it seems like MLO either has internal processes that are now taking a longer time due the size of the db?... Or is being hijacked by the vast array of Win10 and other sw processes running?? I worry that Win10 is doing stuff that I really don't need - and is nefariously 'anti' any sw that is not MS...

[All that said, this is a tiny inconvenience and needs to be placed in the context of -

a. MLO is really great!

b. My heart goes out to all affected by the war.]

[Chris Randle]

Hi Jon,

I've chimed in on this before. This is not to cast doubt on your
slowdown - I'd love to see it fixed for you. This is just a datum point
to compare to.

About six weeks ago I started using one of my larger MLO files on quite
an old laptop.

It has 16 GB RAM. The processor is a 2.50 GHz Intel i7 (4710MQ) with 4
cores and 8 logical processors. So it's far from a blistering power
house. I'm running Windows 10 Pro.

Currently, MLO is reporting (in Task Manager, Processes tab) that it's
using 38.6 MB of RAM.

The MLO file open is 2.76 MB in size and has 12,227 tasks - pretty much
identical to yours.

Everything is lightning fast for me. Instant response when I hit Insert,
and text appears as fast as I can type. That's inserting into the Inbox
with about 40 tasks in there. But perhaps things slow down if you're
inserting into a folder/node/view with a substantial number of tasks
visible?

Quite often when I've seen programs slow mysteriously, It's down to
anti-virus software intervening constantly. Certainly worth eliminating
that in your case by disabling it temporarily.

--
Chris Randle

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to mylifeorganiz...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:mylifeorganiz...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/7970399f-6d4c-446d-9032-7e4718d6893dn%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/7970399f-6d4c-446d-9032-7e4718d6893dn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Jon R]

Chris, Thanks for the insight, I don't think my lag is unique to MLO so I am starting to blame Win10 or other conflicting sw - I tried out your point about visible items, it didn't help. But your point about AV will take me a bit longer to figure out.

It's funny, perceptions of strong PCs - if I was gaming or video editing or something I would know I am underpowered, but my beef (with PCs ie Win10) is that (in this case) the lag happens - but processor is doing nothing really, RAM is free, disk IO is barely moving....

Also, there is nothing in Win10 to help performance, like a 'watchdog' program. Last time I tried a 3p performance tool it ran amok and made things worse.

But I will report back if/when I find the culprit...

[imajeff]

Windows 10 does it to me a lot. Hardware can make a huge difference but certainly I need to have more than 16GB physical RAM because of what runs in the background these days, and at least use SSD instead of my old SATA drives. The biggest slowdown has been when it runs out of RAM with everything that has started up so it does more swapping which means when an app needs more ram it has to first save less-used data from other apps to the hard drive. Drives are way way slower than RAM.

To quote somebody from google,

"Under best case lab conditions the fastest SSD is 46 times slower than DDR3 RAM."

[Jon R]

Rambling response - No major breakthroughs, but the RAM point is interesting. Maybe I will invest in some more... Otherwise I see myself having to ration open apps/windows like it's 1995.  The fact 8GB is not 'enough' is blowing my mind slightly.

On the other hand I do have a bunch of apps running that don't necessarily 'play well with others'. How would I know if they are optimised?

Even Win10 is a vast collection of processes/services and how would any user know to tweak it?

My sadly jaundiced view is that everything MS is bloaty inefficient and self-serving (esp. how the processes multiply e.g. Teams - when it is doing literally nothing...! - today 'Edge webview' - again uncommanded and unwanted).

End of Moan.

[imajeff]

Some important things I would do:

1. Always backup any important .ml files and maybe some other file(S) even before trying something I didn't think would touch it
2. Start new empty file to prove it's something in my big tasks file; as long as it runs the speed I expected, keep adding more of the type of tasks and structure to see if I can detect what caused my other .ml to slow down.
3. If I do get a non-personal .ml to slow down, definitely send that to the mlo team and detail problems I see, and detail specs for my computer.

[Chris Randle]

Jon,

On 09/05/2022 13:05, Jon R wrote:
> Rambling response - No major breakthroughs, but the RAM point is
> interesting. Maybe I will invest in some more... Otherwise I see myself
> having to ration open apps/windows like it's 1995. The fact 8GB is not
> 'enough' is blowing my mind slightly.

Wait until your system is bogged down with everything running that you
can think of, and MLO on a go slow, then check the amount for free
memory you have using the Performance tab of the Windows Task Manager
(Ctrl-Shift-Esc). If you still have free RAM to spare, then I suspect
that adding more is unlikely to help.

--
Chris