Settings guide plugin often freezes Cura

[PhilBaz]

Initially raised the issue at Master fork here:

smartavionics/Cura#170

[Ghostkeeper]

I'm unable to reproduce this issue. Could you provide a log file of Cura, to see what's going wrong on your end?

[PhilBaz]

@Ghostkeeper Here you go.... I just opened Cura, sliced a box, and then accessed the settings guide through a right-click on a parameter. Settings guide works fine, but after I close it Cura becomes slow and unresponsive, then the 'program not responding window' pops up where I quit. This happens every time I use settings guide through right click.

Don't forget I'm using the smart avionics master fork..

Thanks!!!...ps zip'd it for compatibility with git upload.

cura.log.1.zip

[PhilBaz]

@Ghostkeeper seems to do the same in 5.0 as well.

[PhilBaz]

cura.log.zip

[Ghostkeeper]

Hmm, well the log file doesn't show the crash itself. That's probably because it seems that the crash is in Qt or some C++ library that Cura uses, not in the Python code of Cura or the Settings Guide.

The log does show a hint though:

file:///C:/Program Files/Ultimaker Cura 5.0.0/PyQt6/Qt6/qml/UM/TooltipArea.qml:0: ReferenceError: Tooltip is not defined

It seems that it can't find the tooltip QML element. It shouldn't cause a crash like that though, so we might be hitting a bug in Qt there.
It's frustrating though that it doesn't reproduce on my side.

[molotovgod]

I want to update that my Cura instance with your plugin was slowing down Cura significantly to the point I couldn't do any action on a rather powerful machine.
After uninstalling, I no longer experienced the lag, freeze and Crash on Cura 5.0

[PhilBaz]

@Ghostkeeper Yeah, I'm still getting the freezing/lagging when I open the full SG from the menu. I have it on as a tool tip but sometimes wish to look through.

I'm on the latest version of everything. Anything I can do to help track down the issue?

[Ghostkeeper]

I want to update that my Cura instance with your plugin was slowing down Cura significantly to the point I couldn't do any action on a rather powerful machine.
After uninstalling, I no longer experienced the lag, freeze and Crash on Cura 5.0

I consider this a different issue than crashing. It'd be best to open a different ticket about it.

The settings guide is supposed to load the articles in the background, which shouldn't impact Cura's performance except for other tasks that are also done in the background, which includes loading an STL file (basically anything that shows a progress bar in the middle-bottom of the screen).

I'm on the latest version of everything. Anything I can do to help track down the issue?

I don't know. I can't reproduce the issue, and don't see anything obviously wrong with what the Settings Guide does to tooltips. I hope that more people may report this issue so that we can see what the commonalities are between them.

[jcdeshaies]

Hi,
I get this problem from time to time, and it's always linked to Microsoft PowerToys. I just quit PowerToys and the problem vanish.

With Cura 4.x I did exclude these .exe from Fancy Zone: Cura.exe, CuraCLI.exe, CuraEngine.exe

Today I got the problem again. I updated PowerToys, no change. Then I added those two .exe from Cura 5.1: Ultimaker-Cura.exe and conhost.exe, but it still slows down Cura. Until the next PowerToys update I just have to remember to quit it before using the setting guide in Cura.
The problem right now is mainly when I try to collapse a category. I click on the Material to expand or collapse: “Not responding”. Quit PowerToys: Magically unfreeze.

Hope this help

[SkepticNerdGuy]

Good evening, I wanted to report the same issue that @PhilBaz is reporting.
It also hangs to an unusable state after opening and closing the Settings Guide main window.
Additionally, @PhilBaz apologies for being nosy, but your logfile you posted appears to be an instance of cura that does not actually have settings guide plugin installed? I don't see it loading, searching for - INFO - [MainThread] UM.PluginRegistry.loadPlugin [493]: Loaded plugin SettingsGuide2 2.9.0

I recently cleared all config files from %AppData%\Roaming\Cura and %AppData%\Local\cura as well as clean installs and still got the issue.

I just saw and installed the ExtensiveSupportLogging plugin and am going to clear all profiles again and do a bit more troubleshooting, so hopefully I can get you better logfiles really soon.

[SkepticNerdGuy]

I think i figured it out!!
at least for my environment.
My conclusion after resetting cura several times as mentioned above and messing around.

The more print settings that are visible (enabled) AND expanded in the print settings pane causes the stall when settings guide is opened and closed.

If I collapse every single print setting category, everything is fine. If I expand all of them, settings guide interaction (the window not the tooltips) causes cura to get stall and become unusable.

If a have one or two categories open (small ones). opening and closing settings guide doesn't cause a hard stall, but it gets very unstable and laggy. if I collapse all print setting categories, everything is fine a again.

I am unsure if logs say much even with the ExtensiveSupportLogging enabled that can narrow down what is causing it.
At least nothing pops out to me, but I am also quite the novice, even with cura and 3d printing. Which is why i rely on the print setting guide plugin so much, i love it. I honestly kind of wish it was its own application or even website. If I could export it to use as a standalone site, I would, but it just isnt the same.

I performed two "trials" where I started with wiped profiles by deleting %AppData%\Roaming\Cura and %AppData%\Local\cura.

I put exactly what I did for every session that cura opened and closed in a text file called "methodology".
Troubleshooting.zip

[Ghostkeeper]

Thanks for the investigation and the clear methodology. It appears though that @SkepticNerdGuy has a different issue from the originally reported issue because it appears that for them, Cura freezes instead of crashing.

I've repeated your steps, but for me Cura doesn't freeze, not even for a fraction of a second, upon closing the guide. So it's definitely different on different computers. The logs don't say a lot. ExtensiveSupportLogging doesn't add more things to the log (aside from when it starts and stops logging) but it does create a separate file if you start/stop logging. A PStat file should get written into the exported Zip file. This PStat file stores how long all of the Python code in Cura takes to execute, including the Python code that's part of the Settings Guide. I don't know if it would really show anything because the freeze could just be in Qt rather than in my code.

If I could export it to use as a standalone site, I would, but it just isnt the same.

The guide is made to also be readable on Github with its Markdown viewer: https://github.com/Ghostkeeper/SettingsGuide/tree/master/resources/articles It has two differences then though:

• The article files are not listed by their translated setting name, but by the internal name in Cura.
• You'll only see the article for the most recent Cura version. The Settings Guide normally hides or changes some text depending on the current Cura version you're using.

(feature request: when a new setting is requested via right click option, the settings guide window resizes even if I have it maximized on a second screen. wish it stayed maximized)

I'd consider this a bug, yeah. Separate from the issue reported here of course.

[PhilBaz]

@Ghostkeeper

Just want to clarify that my Cura does freeze. perhaps I used the term crash improperly. The program doesn't exit, it simply locks up to the point it is not usable.

[SkepticNerdGuy]

@PhilBaz Out of curiosity, can you try re-creating your issue that causes the freeze, with all settings panel categories collapsed, and see if it evades the freeze like it does for me? Then again with all settings panel categories expanded and checking if it does freeze?

@Ghostkeeper ExtensiveSupportLogging appears to create a YAPPI profile, rather than a PSTAT file. I started looking through how to read/parse the output. So far, with the documentation and also teaching myself basic python (haven't programed in a decade) I got yappi to load the file and i think i got it to convert it to a PSTAT file as well. I wanted to see what exactly was on the file before sending it, since it saves it in a binary format.

[PhilBaz]

@SkepticNerdGuy

Yes! this appears to have something to do with it. The number of open panels appears to be relevant and having all but one closed produced almost no freezing. Maybe just a touch of lagging after.

After opening all my usual panels and going through again Cura is now frozen...

@SkepticNerdGuy Nicely done!