notecase consumes 100% CPU

[macavity]

Hi guys,

As soon as I start notecase, one of my dual core CPUs is constantly running close to a 100% load for process X.
(see attached screenshot) making the entire system very slow and unresponsive.

I am not sure what data I should provide to report this bug but I ran strace on notecase for about 5 seconds to capture some system calls. (see attached text file)

Here is some additional information about my system.

Lenovo X200 laptop
Xubuntu 9.04

uname -a:
Linux x200 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Let me know what else I can do.

[macavity (bschroder)]

Here is the version of Xorg I am running:

$ Xorg -version
X.Org X Server 1.6.0
Release Date: 2009-2-25
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-23-server i686 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux x200 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 09 April 2009 02:10:02AM
xorg-server 2:1.6.0-0ubuntu14 (<email address hidden>)

[Buzzhost (ubuntu-buzzhost)]

Getting exactly the same issue here;

Xorg -version

X.Org X Server 1.6.0
Release Date: 2009-2-25
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-23-server i686 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux mobilebox 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 09 April 2009 02:10:02AM
xorg-server 2:1.6.0-0ubuntu14 (<email address hidden>)

Tried it with and without desktop effects before anyone points to compiz. Was working flawlessly with 8.10
Fresh OS install and apt-get install notecase from channel makes no difference. Made author (Miroslav Rajcic) aware.

strace

Appears to have xorg running around 95% and notecase at 50%

[Buzzhost (ubuntu-buzzhost)]

Maxed out notecase/xorg attached screenshot

[pezcurrel (pezcurrel)]

Same problem here with jaunty amd_64.
As a workaround here works this:
"edit" -> "configure notecase" -> "global" -> deselect "use system language settings" and select your language from "language" menu; restart.
(it's the "opposite" of what's suggested here: http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00659)

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

Thanks for taking the time to make Xubuntu better!

[macavity (bschroder)]

The workaround works for me.
So the issue might be that notecase is unable to pick up the system language settings (?) Just guessing but maybe that narrows it down for the developer.

[escapedturkey (escapedturkey)]

"NEWS: This project is now discontinued, the last version being 1.9.8.
Read more at my blog."

http://notecase.sourceforge.net/

The developer has discontinued support for the project.

It is open-source, so someone could fork it.

macavity wrote:
> The workaround works for me.
> So the issue might be that notecase is unable to pick up the system language settings (?) Just guessing but maybe that narrows it down for the developer.
>

[Buzzhost (ubuntu-buzzhost)]

Indeed, the author has gone the 'paid' route. Problem is it runs flawlessly on all other Ubuntu's. Just 9.04 borks it, this suggests the issue is with the OS and not the application. The coder has *not* changed the app, but the OS has changed. Somewhere this is a Ubuntu bug (or change) that breaks the package.

[Patola (patola)]

This problem has turned worse to me.

Although dentament's tip improved loading speed, notecase still takes most of my CPU time and now it's making compiz-manager crash and if I keep it open for more than a couple of minutes it simply freezes my laptop. Completely. Not even the magic sysreq keys work.

I used notecase regularly as a work tool and now I am rather lost on what to do. My notes need to be converted to another similar program - and I am considering freemind for this - but I don't have a converter. Since I rely so much on the notes I've been accumulating, I was forced to dump them to a text-file and consult them whenever I need, but I practically can't add notes anymore.

I am very frustrated with this program going the non-open-source paid route. The changelog for the commercial version seems to have a number of bug fixes that were related to performance, and none of these fixes went to the free version. It seems it was sort of a time bomb to lure users in paying. Am I being paranoid here?

Can someone please suggest an alternative? And a way to convert notes? My notes are too many to be converted by hand. I'd lose the whole day doing that, and I can't afford that time.

[escapedturkey (escapedturkey)]

If I recall the author suggested that someone take over or fork the free
project. The open source is available. Can some kind soul be a hero for
us all and take over the project? :)

Patola wrote:
> This problem has turned worse to me.
>
> Although dentament's tip improved loading speed, notecase still takes
> most of my CPU time and now it's making compiz-manager crash and if I
> keep it open for more than a couple of minutes it simply freezes my
> laptop. Completely. Not even the magic sysreq keys work.
>
> I used notecase regularly as a work tool and now I am rather lost on
> what to do. My notes need to be converted to another similar program -
> and I am considering freemind for this - but I don't have a converter.
> Since I rely so much on the notes I've been accumulating, I was forced
> to dump them to a text-file and consult them whenever I need, but I
> practically can't add notes anymore.
>
> I am very frustrated with this program going the non-open-source paid
> route. The changelog for the commercial version seems to have a number
> of bug fixes that were related to performance, and none of these fixes
> went to the free version. It seems it was sort of a time bomb to lure
> users in paying. Am I being paranoid here?
>
> Can someone please suggest an alternative? And a way to convert notes?
> My notes are too many to be converted by hand. I'd lose the whole day
> doing that, and I can't afford that time.
>

[Patola (patola)]

I think it would be more useful (and it would take less effort) if someone wrote a converter. Really, there are dozens of programs similar to or better than notecase. freemind is one of them, while it lacks on a few features. kbasket/KDE basket, on the other hand, is much more powerful than notecase (but it was not cross-platform, that's why I didn't choose it in first place - I need to change notes with my colleagues which use windows). Before notecase I used tuxcards that, while less powerful, had a much better search system. The hard part is really choosing a decent one amongst all the alternatives. And I trusted notecase to this but now I feel betrayed.

To make things worse, I won't pay 35 euros to rent such a commodity software for two years, much less 117 euros for a 'lifetime license'. It's just too expensive. I live in a developing country, I don't earn 10 thousand euros a month and I don't agree with proprietary code anyways.

[velain (velain-email)]

had same problem in amd64 Ubuntu 9.04 (was working nice in Ubuntu 8.10)

Workaround resolved the problem, now is good and fast

Miles

[James Sunderland (k-marshal)]

Same situation as velain: amd_64, ubuntu 9.04. Everything was fine on 8.10. After upgrade notecase uses 100% CPU.
Workground resolved the problem but in my case "use system language settings" was already unchecked and language form list was selected, so I checked that option and it works fine now... Weird...

[alexbevi (alexbevi)]

Same exact issue as #15, and the same workaround solved it (checking "use system language settings").

Using ubuntu 9.10 x86.

[Patola (patola)]

I took the time and converted my notecase data file to freemind, http://freemind.sourceforge.net - great app, much, much better than notecase and it seems it will be forever FREE (as in freedom). Albeit it is in Java, it handles big files much better than notecase. My 900+ nodes file is very responsive under freemind and the two hours I fiddled with shell scripts and manual fixes to change the notecase XML into a freemind XML were well worth it.

Notecase is dead, let it rest in peace. There are better programs for hierarchical notes - kbasket is much better and there are others. Freemind is a mind-mapping application but can be used for exact the same thing as notecase, provided you use the latest version - 0.9.0RC4.

[magical_widget (sandshrew)]

@dentament
Thanks! Had to actually SELECT the option (it was deselcted already), but after that everything's back to normal.

BTW, for those looking for an alternative to notecase: try zim ( http://zim-wiki.org/index.html ). Has more features and is still developed (notecase officially dead project).

[magical_widget (sandshrew)]

Just looked through the comments...

Do all of you experiencing the bug use xubuntu? Do you have "Use system defaults" selected in xfce4-keyboard-settings -> Layout ? Might be xfce bug.

xubuntu 9.10 here

[Patola (patola)]

No, I was using Kubuntu at the time.

[Michael Luthardt (michalu)]

In natty amd64 still persistend. Notecase and Xorg bring my system with 4x2 CPU nearly down.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Lowering importance to wishlist, according to http://notecase.sourceforge.net/ this project is discontinued. Since this is no longer in active development, there is little chance of this issue being fixed.

[Patola (patola)]

This problem has not been dealt with in a long time with "Medium" importante, so now that is was demoted to "wishlist" it will never ever get fixed, even with notecase being open-source (and actually, only the open-source version is discontinued, the proprietary one is still thriving).

I do not find it adequate or respectful to users. If Canonical does not wish to make an application minimally functional, it should not have it in its repositories. As it is today, notecase is unusable.

[jpfle (jpfle)]

See cherrytree. This note taking application (GPL) can import from notecase.

Web site: http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

I think this is wontfix in Ubuntu now, see above comments for the reasons

I'll also suggest gjots2 here, another hierarchical note-taking app. I'm the Debian maintainer for it.