"Not responding"

james.k.russell
I love Zotero and rely on it. To try for best performance, I use Standalone. Nonetheless, I spend a lot of time looking at "Not responding". This happens regularly at startup, and irregularly during use - it is hard to identify a pattern. One example is when I enter something in the search box. Typically I start with "'" to suppress interim updates. Then I may see "Not responding" for 30 s before I see any more characters in the search box (though whatever I type is eventually processed into the search box). My usage is pretty simple - I avoid including .pdfs and other attachments. Mainly I populate my local library from PubMed. I suppress importing everything possible as controlled by the selections in Preferences/General. I have a bit under 12,000 items.

I run on Windows 7, 64-bit (not under my control). I have Zotero 4.0.22 installed.

I have no add-ons other than the defaults - Word and Libre Office integration, which I never use.

Tips for how to reduce time looking at "Not responding"?
  • aurimas
    If you can easily reproduce the freeze-up during search, could you submit a Debug Log for that action? Otherwise, submit one for Zotero startup (instead of clicking Enable, select "Enable after restart", restart Zotero and submit the log immediately after Zotero recovers from the freeze)
  • james.k.russell
    done. D287972423.
  • james.k.russell
    Looking for other ways to speed things up, I followed the instructions for deleting notes found in the forum discussion: "https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/35028/long-delays-slow-response/". Then, I took that one further, deleting all attachments as well (I have no use for these, as the original user explained re: notes, they are detritus from a migration from another program). Then I emptied the trash.

    This reduced my .sqlite file size by ~10%. But, it improved performance > 100%. So far (in brief testing) no sign of "Not responding".
  • aurimas
    Collapsing the tag pane in the bottom left corner also helps speed things up. Neither of these optimizations should be necessary from the end-user perspective though.

    We're always looking into ways to speed things up and the next major Zotero release (couple months away probably) should show substantial improvements. Until then, it's unlikely that anything will improve. (unless your report shows some sort of bug. Dan will take a look)
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