Category Display Running Very Slowly

[erichaas]

This seems to have started very recently (say within the past week).  Whenever I try to display thumbnails by category, IMatch runs very, very slowly.

For example, I selected my "Need Date" category which had 371 images. I added some of those images to the appropriate date category. The count in the category display immediately changed to 45, which is correct, but the thumbnail window continued to show 371 images, even after several minutes. I switched to another category, but the thumbnail window continued to display the original 371 images from the "Need Date" category, even after 10 minutes. IMatch eventually became unresponsive, and I had to use the Task Manager to end it.

The Media & Folders, Timeline, and Collection displays all work almost instantly.

I did a Compact & Optimize, and followed with a Database Diagnosis, which reported no problems.

I am using the 2018.8.2 version.

[Mario]

What has changed before you noticed this?

Run a database diagnosis to ensure that the database is OK.
Then, switch IMatch to debug logging via Help > Support and repeat the slow procedure.
Then ZIP and attach the log file to your replay.
See log file for more info.

This will show us what's slow.

[erichaas]

I've added a few hundred photos, but I haven't made any changes to the category tree. Database Diagnosis reports no problems.

I started in Media & Folders, switched to Categories, selected a category, waited about 10 minutes, but no thumbnails were displayed, switched back to Media & Folders.

[Mario]

Are you sure this is the right log file.
No operation takes more than 2 seconds, the database diagnosis excluded.

A data-driven category is refreshed very fast (so fast no duration is logged).
The file window loads a category in 0.2 seconds with 63 files.

There is a long period of inactivity between 13:42:36 and 13:50:37, after the category tree has refreshed itself in 1 second.
There is another period of inactivity between 13:50:37 and 13:52:06.

No database operations are logged as being slow, the only unusual thing I see are the two long periods of inactivity...?

[erichaas]

Yes, IMatch did not become non-responsive this time like it did the last time, but even though I selected categories that had images assigned to them, no thumbnails ever displayed.

[erichaas]

And now, all of the sudden, the problem seems to have fixed itself. 

[Mario]

Maybe some external software/tool/background service was using a lot of CPU or disk?

If this happens again, open the Windows Task Manager via Shift+Ctrl+ESC.
Sort the Performance tab by CPU to see which applications are using a lot of processor time, and switch it to disk to see which applications are hogging the disk.

Another typical cause for such strange behavior is a virus checker triggered by something IMatch did and it started to scan the database or analyze the IMatch process. This would also explain the long pauses in the log file, without any action. IMatch has background processes which wake up every n seconds to check things, update something in the background etc. Not even these were running which would indicate that IMatch was indeed 'frozen' for some reason.

Make sure you make "IMatch2018x64.exe" and "IMatchChromiumHelper.exe" and the "exiftool.exe" from the IMatch program files folder an exception in your virus checker (for "on-access" scans, not for regular daily/weekly/monthly scans). And also add the folder (!) containing your database (and all files within) an exception.

[Mees Dekker]

Hi Mario

I'm using the popular McAfee LiveSafe suite.

That suite doesn't allow to exclude an entire folder from scanning, but only individual files. Any thoughts how to act here?

Mees

[Mario]

I don't know this product.

If you cannot exclude folders, things are difficult. At least exclude the database file (BOO.imd5) and the journaling files which only exist while IMatch has the database open (BOO.imd5.imsema, BOO.imd5-shm, BOO.imd5-wal), where BOO is the name of your database file.

[Mees Dekker]

Euhh? You don't know McAfee?

BOO.imd5.imsema, BOO.imd5-shm, BOO.imd5-wal cannot be excluded while IMatch is open, because the files "are in use". When Imatch is not open, they cannot be excluded because they don't exist at that time.

[Mario]

I of course do know the McAfee company, but I have never installed one of their products on one of my computers.

If this software is so inflexible, there is little you can do.
Most AV software allows you to add folder/file exceptions. Even Windows 10 Defender, which is pretty good these days.
At least exclude the .imd5 file then.