Support Requests item #869, was opened at 2007-09-23 02:30 You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=494&aid=869&group_id=106 Category: None Group: None

Status: Closed Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Theo Hopman (thopman) Assigned to: Nobody (None) Summary: pdflatex slow to start on Cygwin

Initial Comment: I use Cygwin on WinXP pro, with teTex 3.0 installed. I recently built pdftex 1.40 (which went well), manually replaced the old binaries of pdftex, and rebuilt the various formats using fmtutil. Now, however, pdflatex starts up only after a considerable delay (anywhere from a couple of seconds up to half a minute). While pdflatex sits there looking like its doing nothing, it also responds slowly to interrupt (^C) signals. Why might this be? `pdflatex --version`, by contrast, is instantaneous, so the issue is likely something to do with searching or loading formats. THeo ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Martin Schröder (oneiros) Date: 2007-09-23 20:19

Message: Logged In: YES user_id=421 Please continue the discussion on the pdftex mailing list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: George N. White III (gnwiii) Date: 2007-09-23 20:16 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=4692 So path searching is not slow and CPU usage is slow, which indicates waiting for I/O. This could be loading files (.pool file, format, ...), console output, or file output. You didn't mention of whether files are on local disk or network, USB, etc. 1. on general principles, I'd do a disk cleanup and run chkdsk /f to make sure disks are OK. 2. check for signs of trouble in the event viewer. 3. run "pdftex -recorder story" and and "pdflatex -recorder sample2e" to check for files in unexpected locations, especially network or USB drives. 4. try a different terminal program -- there have been reports of widely varying performance between different terminals, remote ssh, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Theo Hopman (thopman) Date: 2007-09-23 18:34 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=4690 kpsewhich shows no noticeable delay. pdftex 1.40 was slow when building formats. While pdftex is starting (and delaying), the system idle process is using 90%+ of CPU. The memory usage of pdftex does grow slowly, then jumps once it stops delaying. I don't think the problem is with search paths, because I didn't change these when I upgraded, and besides, kpathsea seems to be plenty fast still. THeo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Nobody (None) Date: 2007-09-23 13:56 Message: Logged In: NO Is kpathsea also slow? Was pdftex 1.40 slow when building formats? What do you see in the Windows process viewer (there are two CPU columns, one shows cumulative CPU time and the other current CPU usage, by default only one is shown)? For me, when apps are slow to start it is usually mcafee that is using 98% of CPU. Matlab takes over 2 minutes to start with McAfee running, but only a few seconds with McAfee configured to ignore the Matlab directory. Are there network directories in the search path? I use Win32 at work were the users "HOME" directory is on a network drive, but many users systems don't correctly negotiate the duplex setting with the ethernet switch. When network access is slow, running the network "repair" tool (sometimes takes several attempts) will (usually, eventually) make things better (linux has mii-tool where I can check the duplex setting and force it to full). If "man pdftex" is working, look for: -recorder Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls. This still omits a few files, but may give you a hint. Have you tried simplifying the search paths in texmf.cnf? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=494&aid=869&group_id=106