Inskscape slows down when an external drive is connected

[George Atanasov]

Inkscape used to work fine on my Windows 7 machine. From some time however
the program slowed down when starting for the first time and saving files (primary save).
There is not any problem working with it (and saving the already created file),
but waiting for creating a new file and saving it causes real time loss and annoyance.

I have found a thread on
http://www.pubbs.net/201010/inkscape/5197-inkscape-user-inkscape-048-not-responding-windows.html
explaining the problem.

When my external USB drive where i have worked last with Inkscape and have some store files
is not connected, the program works as expected - lightweight and fast. After connecting it -
slows down enormously again. The problem occures only when the same external
USB HDD is connected, not when a USB flash or other USB HDD drive is plugged in.

There have to be located some broken files which are causing the program bug
thought, but how to distinguish them among the others, or reset any Inkscape setting
file, related to my working files and searching for a broken one?

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Hello,

You can set the preferences to their initial values by renaming the preferences.xml file located in (on Windows XP) C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Inkscape

Could you please tell us if it solves this issue, and if it's the case, attach your old file to this report so that we can try to find what triggers the bug.

Thanks.

[George Atanasov (novsait)]

Thank you,

but there is no such a file on Win 7 - on the mentioned location.
Neither in Inkscape installation folder.

Where must i look for it?

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

> but there is no such a file on Win 7 - on the mentioned location.
> Neither in Inkscape installation folder.

I forgot it's different on Win 7...
Maybe in c:\Users\%username% ?

[George Atanasov (novsait)]

I have found an old copy of the preferences.xml file
on my external drive in folder similar to Windows user location above (copy from my old Vista files).

What i have done is renaming the file to preferences_old and have copied the file
to my C:\Users\joro\Application Data\Inkscape folder - the latter have been created by me (on Win 7).

So my suspicion is that from some reason Inkscape tries to locate it's configuration file (or locates a duplicate one)
and might have found those on my backup drive (i have one with linux configuration folder too).

But on the other hand, Inkscape has a trail of my recent files when opening before
and they were accurate. The location of preferences.xml file on Win 7 remains a mistery for me
but for now Inkscape works fine. Attaching one of the old XML files from the external hdd.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> The location of preferences.xml file on Win 7 remains a mistery for me

With the regular installer version of Inkscape, the preferences file should be loaded from
%APPDATA%\Inkscape\preferences.xml

%APPDATA% according to [1] defaults to
- Win XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data
- Windows Vista / 7:
C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable#Default_Values_on_Microsoft_Windows>

[George Atanasov (novsait)]

\AppData\

There is no such a folder on my Win 7 localized in Bullgarian
installation. Attaching desctop screen.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Inkscape has a trail of my recent files when opening before

Inkscape 0.48 checks for the existence of all files listed in a separate file for 'File > Open Recent…' whether they exist or not and only lists files it can find. Look for a file called '.recently-used.xbel' stored most likely in 'c:\users\<username>' - if you can find one, quit Inkscape, rename it and launch Inkscape again.

possibly related:
Bug #210274 “In Windows the ".recently-used.xbel" file is stored in a wrong location.”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/210274>
or
<https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/125810>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> There is no such a folder on my Win 7 localized in Bullgarian
> installation.

AFAIK you can enter the path variable %APPDATA% directly into the address bar of the Explorer - maybe this will reveal the location of the currently used preferences file.

Alternatively, check the paths listed in 'Inkscape Preferences > Misc > System Info' for a file called 'preferences.xml'.

[George Atanasov (novsait)]

%APPDATA% helped to reveal location of inkscape folder an preferences.xml

Thanks very much :)

I have also found three files named .recently-used.xbel one in user folder
and two from my old archive on the removable drive.

Renaming the file in the user folder on C:\ drive solved the issue - thank you very much again ~suv

Inkscape is great and i have shared my experience with it and Gimp as a professional tools
in a small presentation in English >> http://linuxprojects.eu/OSS/present_OSSC_ok_English.pdf

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Could you possibly attach the old version of '.recently-used.xbel' which slowed down Inkscape with the external drive connected? Or - if you do have privacy concerns - inspect the file yourself for any clues what could be causing the slow-down?

This file could be shared with other applications based on the GTK+ toolkit (e.g. GIMP). It's format is XML-based and can be viewed/edited with any plain-text editor. Possibly there are either many currently existing files from the external drive listed, or files that no longer exist on the drive.

[George Atanasov (novsait)]

Yes, no problem for that. As you have mentioned - there are plenty of files
included as bookmarks and obviously shared with Gimp.

Take a look and if you find something unusual please share.

Thanks again, George.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Related:
Bug #740843 “Really slow to start because of .recently-used”

[MatatTHC (matatthc)]

I just added a related bug (#1274850). Inkscape freezes forever if there are recently used files on an unaccessible NFS share .

I completely agree with the suggestion made here not to check the files on startup.