IMatch Freezing

[whitefern]

IMatch has decided not to play with me. This was all in the same session. I did a maintenance and compact and all was fine. However, it is very, very slow to respond. I closed down and restarted but it has made no difference. It is quite unusable at the moment. Help, please. I'm lost without IMatch. My database is some 8GB. Is it too big? I haven't even finished!

Thanks
~ Robin

[Aubrey]

Hello Robin,
From your message, it appears that IMatch is working but slow to respond.
Is there a possible issue with your antivirus software - can you switch this off to test if this is slowing your system down.
Are you backing up data to cloud? (I use Backblaze) and find that this gives some overhead when I'm working with IMatch.

Have you looked at your performance monitor to see what might e hogging your CPU?
(An easy way to bring this up is to hold down CRTL and SHIFT keys and press ESC ), look at processes and performance tabs. These can be sorted by clicking on the relevant column title.

In order for Mario to be able to better respond, would you prepare a log file for him, as a starting point. Probably a log file with debug included will help.
Under "Help" look for "Support" and select "debug logging"
Run a session and then attach the log file (zipped!) to a further email. You can view the log file from the IMatch Help|Support "View Application Log file". SAve this text file somewhere easy and zip.

Hope this is a starting point for you.

By the way, I hope that you have been doing relatively frequent backups, if so then one can always go to an earlier verion of database.

Best wishes,
Aubrey.

[Mario]

Excellent advice. I would have asked the same questions.
An 8GB database can mean 50,000 files with large thumbnails or 300,000 files...
The log file will tells us what we need, what's taking so long, what IMatch is doing etc.
Also check the Task Manager to see which other tasks are using CPU - IMatch may be slow because some other application is hogging the CPU.

Maybe a simple reboot solves the problem.

[whitefern]

I am so glad to have access to such a great support forum - thanks Aubrey. And thanks for the Ctrl, Shift, Esc for the Task Manager. That's much quicker!

I usually run quite a few programmes and don't have a problem with IMatch. At the moment, the CPU is under 10% and processes are FireFox, IMatch, Evernote and Windows Explorer.

I had done some cataloging and had run the diagnostics which came up correct, and then the compact and optimise. It has now totally seized up. When I click on anything, I get the hourglass for ages or a white 'not responding' window and then after a while it shows as normal but nothing works.

I had done two restarts before asking here, one a complete close down and restart after several minutes. The database loads okay. I had copied the database through to an EHD after the diagnostics and compacting. I have a previous version as well but I don't do the pack and go much as I don't need IMatch on any other computer. And I turned the antivirus off to no avail.

I just ran a repair of the latest IMatch, which I already had, and tried loading the previous database which was saved on 1 May. The same thing happens.

I think I followed the instructions and will send the debug file.

I don't understand 'overhead', Aubrey. Do you mean the database saved in the cloud for security?

Mario, please let me know if this isn't the file you're after. Thank you so much!

~ Robin

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mario]

This log file is rather short, it just shows IMatch starting and loading a database. This takes 16 seconds. Rather normal for a 150,000 files database. This is the only operation IMatch reported as 'slow'. Not much else in this log file.

We need more data. Keep IMatch switched to debug logging and perform some of the operations which are slow. Just what you do normally.
This logs timing information to the log file and we can see how long each operation takes.
Then attach the log file again.

I understand from your initial post that this happened after running an OK diagnosis and a compact. Do you have a virus checker? Did you try to disable it temporarily and is the folder containing the IMatch database excluded from on access scans?