FFS UI starts very slow

[toniclife]

Hello!

I have a weird problem. For some weeks the FFS UI is starting very slow. It takes about 10 seconds till I see the user interface. Earlier it took only 1 or 2 seconds.

The strange thing is that the CPU load is low (about 13%), RAM is not full and there are no other signs my system is working slowly in general. Browsers, office-apps and even heavy creative software for video, audio and image editing are working and starting as fast as always. Even stranger: FFS needs a few seconds to close. The window first becomes a little bit smaller before it disappears. Most other apps don't show similar behaviour.

There are only two apps which start similar slow: XMedia Recode an Bulk Rename Utility. It seems the UI needs too long to build up, but, once again: Other apps don't show this behaviour. Once started, the main functionality of FFS, XMR and BRU is working well, but sometimes the UI seems to be laggy, text lines need seconds to appear. I'm very perplexed.

If someone has a hint where I can research or try and locate the issue, I would be very thankful.

Here is some further information: Windows 10 Home 64 Bit, i7 2600 CPU, Nvidia 1060 6GB GPU, 16 GB RAM, Samsung EVO 860 SSD for system and software, always updated system and apps. Of course I tried reinstalling the software after a clean uninstall, system reboots and so on.

[therube]

Thoughts would be antivirus or video driver.

Start you computer in Safe Mode & see if FFS opens as expected.

Anything "unusual" with your FFS setup, like having a huge number of sessions/profiles...?

I'd expect FFS to open in well under 2 seconds & to use little to no CPU just after startup (doing nothing, i.e., not scanning).

[toniclife]

Thank you!

I tried and started FFS immediatly after system startup - and it started normally. Same with XMR and BRU. So it has to be something in the autostart, but unfortunatly not the antivirus. I have to do more research but it is a little bit like searching a needle in a corn field.

In FFS I have only 1 profile and 9 sessions. I don't think this is heavy overload.

While starting the process appears in Task Manager, but UI is not visible. CPU consumption ist only at about 10%, nothing to worry. I think the app is busy loading something in the background what I have to identify.

Any hints on where to search are highly welcome.

[toniclife]

Okay, I think I had a little success.

I used Autorunsc from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns
and disabled carefully certain autoruns. There were many entries about shell extensions from OneDrive and Dropbox. Maybe they were responsible, but I disabled more entries such as certain Updaters etc. FFS, XMR and BRU are starting much quicker now.

If I am able to identify the responsible process more exactly, I'll keep this thread updated so that other people may find a solution if needed.

[Zenju]

Process Monitor and Process Explorer are arguably the best tools to analyse these kinds of performance issues.

And for maximum detail information get: Windows Performance Analyzer

[xCSxXenon]

Nice work tonic! Interested in the culprit

[toniclife]

Unfortunatly the success is gone. After some more system restarts (without changing the autorun entries) it is as slow as before.

@Zenju: Just watching the processes nothing bad happens. That is what is making me crazy. I start FFS and it appears immediatly in the task manager with about 10% CPU consumption. The CPU comsumption of all other apps together is 10% - 15%, so there is no usual performance issue. But the UI of FFS needs over 20 seconds until it appears, same with XMR and BRU which I mentioned above.

The only similarity between these apps seems to me that they are loading lists of files, which seems to take extraordinary long and is slowing down the whole UI.

For comparison: Mozilla Thunderbird with thousands of E-Mails needs only about 5 seconds to start and be usable. Affinity Photo takes 22 seconds, but 20 seconds of these are used for scanning my fonts-folder which ist very large.

[therube]

10% CPU

Does that persist or does it subside to near nil after a few seconds?
If it persists, that is certainly unexpected.

BRU does load a directory tree, enumerates your drives, so if a drive is flaky... that could be a cause, but FFS does not do that (afaik).

Again reboot your computer into Safe Mode & check.
Do not, necessarily, try to start FFS/BRU... immediately - cause no telling what Windows (10 in particular) may be doing behind the scenes.

Skip that for the moment. Answer shares (below) instead.

Oh, that's right, shares!
If you are connecting to shared devices & if you have not "logged in" to that device, there could be a long delay before windows gives up & returns control to the calling program - FFS/BRU.

AllDup, Slow to open when device offline

On my end, both FFS & BRU open in <~1 second. BRU being a touch slower then FFS.
After opening, doing nothing, RAM usage is 14/9, & CPU is 0.04/0.

(at present) Win10 i7-3770S, 8 GB RAM
(more often) XP, 2 GB RAM

[toniclife]

The 10%-consumption persists only while startup, then it drops to 0% and 16,2 MB RAM. BRU is at 0% and 7 MB RAM. So this is fine.

The idea of offline network drives sounds pretty good, but I only have 2 network drives (Fritz NAS and a Cloud drive) which work well and pretty fast. I think a drive issue wouldn't explain why FFS is also closing slowly.

I unplugged every external drive and my internal drives work pretty good,

I made some further investigations:

Every time I change the session in FFS the UI seems to take much time to build up again; I mean the area in which the folders etc. are shown. Also, when I resize the window it takes 5 seconds until the UI has rearranged itself. Same in BRU.

In BRU it also takes seconds to select all files in a directory - which should happen immediately. And in BRU when I want to add e.g. a prefix the whole app freezes more than 10 seconds and then I have to add letter, wait, add the next letter, wait ... it takes minutes to rename a large number (I mean about 1000) files. Normally it took only seconds.

I'm really confused. Every other app starts and works as fast as it should. Even really heavy apps. with 1 or 2 GB RAM consumption.

It must be some process which slows down the reading of filenames and properties, but antivirus is completely inactive while BRU is trying and reading large directories or FFS is opening a new session. Mysterious.

[therube]

Another thought, on a different track, & while it doesn't really sound like it...

Nirsoft: ShellExView - Shell Extensions Manager
Winhelp: Fix: Slow Right Click and Explorer Crashes Caused by Shell Extensions

[Zenju]

But the UI of FFS needs over 20 seconds until it appears

Then it should be straight-forward to find out what the application is doing if you send me a (or better a couple) crash dump file right in the middle of this 20 second delay: https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#crash

[toniclife]

@ therube
Thank you, I will check if there is any positive effect.

@ Zenju
Allright, I created the dumps and I will send you an e-mail in a few minutes.

[Zenju]

All three crashdumps are currently executing win32u.dll!NtUserMsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx(), so this seems where the application is hanging. Unfortunately there is nothing apparently problematic about this call.

One thing however that does look fishy is the following module which is injected into every process. So I suggest deactivating/removing it as a test:

C:\Program Files (x86)\1&1\1&1 Upload-Manager\SHNDLERS64.DLL
Module version: 2.0.676.0
Timestamp: 21.11.2011 11.54


[Zenju]

This one sounds eerily similar: https://aloiskraus.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/the-mysterious-ui-hang-which-resolved-itself-after-20s/

And indeed there is a strange COM thread I don't know what to make of:

ntdll.dll!NtWaitForMultipleObjects()
KERNELBASE.dll!WaitForMultipleObjectsEx()
combase.dll!WaitCoalesced()
combase.dll!CROIDTable::WorkerThreadLoop()
combase.dll!CRpcThread::WorkerLoop()
combase.dll!CRpcThreadCache::RpcWorkerThreadEntry()
kernel32.dll!BaseThreadInitThunk()
ntdll.dll!RtlUserThreadStart()


[toniclife]

All three crashdumps are currently executing win32u.dll!NtUserMsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx(), so this seems where the application is hanging.

Yes, after your suggestion about the dumps I did a little research how to read these files and found the same exception regarding other applications too.

C:\Program Files (x86)\1&1\1&1 Upload-Manager\SHNDLERS64.DLL

This sounds plausible. It's a cloud connection and maybe it's responsible. I will check later and keep you informed.

I have to apologize: As I am no programmer I am not really familiar what COM-Threads are. I will just try and do my best.

[toniclife]

Okay, I uninstalled the "1&1 Upload Manager", did a reboot and voila - the delay at start of FFS and the lagging in BRU were gone, so you, Zenju, were absolutely right! Thank you and expect my small donation! I can live without this Upload Manager, because I can easily access the cloud drive via web browser.

I will see if the problem comes back some time, but for the moment it seems to be gone.

Though, when I make a dump, there ist still the exception regarding the file win32u.dll. Should I do something about it? May it be corrupted?

[xCSxXenon]

Amazing, I hope to be there one day! I would wager a guess that the hanging call is being hooked onto by the upload manager causing the delay. The call itself isn't hanging, but the injected steps themself. I don't there is an issue with it. You could always do the normal sfc, dism, then sfc again steps.

sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
sfc /scannow

[toniclife]

Thanks! The sfc-scan says:

"Der Windows-Ressourcenschutz hat keine Integritätsverletzungen gefunden."

Something like: "The Windows ressource protection has found no integrity violations."

So, this seems to be allright.

[xCSxXenon]

Awesome, seems like you are all good to go!

[Zenju]

SHNDLERS64.DLL has a timestamp of 21.11.2011. Maybe 1&1 has an update with a fix to the startup bug?

[toniclife]

Pretty funny ... I downloaded and installed that product only a few weeks ago, so 1&1 doesn't seem to update their software regulary. The reason why I didn't see the connection between the problems with FFS, BRU and XMR is that I don't use these apps very often and I almost forgot about the 1&1 uploader.

I think I'll report our investigation to 1&1, maybe they'll think about an update. Really unbelievable. FFS gets updated every some weeks and a large company offers 10-year old software.