PI Getting really slow start

[sreilly]

I've just recently started noticing PI loading a bit more sluggish (SSD) and when I do a process of say making master frames or aligning many images, which normally goes quickly, it can take a long time for the Process Console to open and show any progress at all. Once it opens it does great but it can be a minute or two before it opens. I have now idea where to look. I haven't changed any settings, the hard drives aren't anywhere near capacity, and the computer was restarted to clear any issues. I'm not noticing any problems with any other programs. I actually had to use the Task Manager to close PI as I was under the impression it was hopelessly hung. The next time, after re-booting the system, I just let it run and it finally opened the Process Console and proceeded. This system is a Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with 16GBs RAM, Intel i7-2600K cpu running at 3.4GHz. Windows and PI all up to date. PI version is 01.08.01.1087 (x64).

The SSD has 63GBs free of 223GBs and the image storage drive has 293GBs free of 931GBs. Any suggestions would be great.

[cdesselles]

Interesting... 

I've noticed PI loading more slowly also since the last update.  My machine specs are very similar to yours excpet for a slightly older AMD Phenom quad core processor with a clock rae under 3Ghz.  Also, my Windows 7 Pro 64bit recently went through some updates.  I have no clue which is the culprit either.

[IanL]

I have also seen the same issue recently, start a process and there is a quite a long delay before the process console opens and visible progress of execution is displayed. I have not sat there with a stopwatch to check whether things are genuinely taking longer or whether it is just a cosmetic issue (e.g. maybe stuff is happening the background before the process console opens where previously the process console opened and then those same things happened).

It is normally only a few seconds on some of the 'big' processes like integration.  This is Win7, 64bit, 6GB, Core i7, HDD with plenty of space, etc. Latest release of PI and all up to date.  Can't honestly remember when this issue crept in as the delays are usually only a few seconds - no interminable lock-ups or similar.

[sreilly]

For me it's been getting progressively worse. It first started off as you just explained, "(e.g. maybe stuff is happening the background before the process console opens where previously the process console opened and then those same things happened)", and then over a period of weeks became worse. I just went through the calibration process on about 75 different images and they went smoothly. I'll repost when I see the process that seems to hang.

[IanL]

To be clear, in my case I'm fairly certain it just started after upgrading to one of the recent new releases. No gradual degradation of performance over time, just suddenly there are pauses after launching big processes that weren't there before.

[james7]

Have you tried to clear or purge the file cache that is maintained by ImageIntegration? I'm not certain whether that would affect what you are seeing but this cache does have a significant impact on the performance of PixInsight. It does speed up repeat integrations but in my hands in can also slow down some operations in PixInsight.

The preference to clear or enable this cache is in the ImageIntegration module, under the arrow/pointer icon at the bottom of the ImageIntegration panel.

[sreilly]

The fact that I closed and rebooted the computer should clear any cache. The behavior continued. And to be clear this has all been with the latest build only and only the last maybe 6 times I've used it. I restarted the computer because it can be days or weeks between reboots so when a problem happens that's one of the first things I'll do as well as clean out all temp files and so on on using CCleaner. This gives me a good fresh start. I'm also using a scratch disk as well.

[pfile]

well rebooting the computer may clear out OS level caches (and certainly the CPU's cache) but i believe PI's file statistics cache is persistent across reboots…

rob

[sreilly]

If that's so Rob isn't it actually a problem at least eventually? I've been calibrating and aligning 54 image files and so far haven't seen any slow down. The Process Console open immediately and the process beings. If this isn't a problem now than I can't fathom what's changed from before if it is PI's file statistics cache. This again has been an on/off again problem of late and no other programs other than e-mail (Outlook) is running in background.

[pfile]

i'm confused, i thought you were saying despite rebooting your PI installation was slow, but now it's running fast again after a reboot? or are you saying the problem seems to come and go randomly?

rob

[sreilly]

It's been running fine today, right now, up until I tried to combine 19 images a few minutes ago. I have an attached screen shot of my current settings and "Use file Cache" has always been checked. I haven't changed the size at all. Maybe this should be off?

[pfile]

well i think it's worth clearing out the cache and see if that helps. normally "use file cache" speeds things up a lot because if it's already computed the statistics for a frame, it can just go look it up in there rather than re-computing it, which takes time.

rob

[sreilly]

I agree but the question remains why now after all this time and working with even larger groups (more MBs) of data and it's just starting to rear its head. And the process console taking a long time, maybe a minute or more to even display before the process begins. It's just puzzling but I'll keep the cache off for now and see what happens. I don't think this was the only process it was happening to and I'll keep an eye on that as well..

Thanks for the help Rob.

[sreilly]

Just started PI up again and making mater PI flats. The first master made from 36 frames each took 93.28s and the second master (different frames) took 23.09s. Both masters made with same number of frames and same size images (all 2x2 binned).

Total :   1990280   2.065% (   986635 +   1003645 =   1.024% +   1.041%) 93.28 s

Total :   1975421   2.050% (   979277 +    996144 =   1.016% +   1.034%) 23.09 s