Slow Time to Exit or Close Files?

[tigmsm]

I'm a newly registered user of ExamDiff Pro. So far I'm pretty happy.

It does have on irritating feature that was not on ExamDiff (freeware) version. It takes what seems like forever to exit the program or to close the current files.

I often want to compare two files, then immediately compare another set. It sometimes takes as long as 8 seconds. This is incredibly annoying.

It's so annoying I can't believe I'm the only one complaining about it. So, I wonder if I have something set up strangely.

I have WXP Pro, service pack 2. My machine is a 2.6GHz Peteium 4 with 768MB RAM.

I running ExamDiff 3.3, but I saw this problem on 3.2 before I registered.

[psguru]

This is something that has not been reported yet. Is there anything special about your files (e.g. are they very large)? Does the delay occur no matter what files you compare?

[tigmsm]

The files are about 65K each (67,971 bytes and 66,466 bytes). Simple ASCII text files, loadable by Notepad with a double click. Each has about 1700 lines (1725 and 1685 respectively).

As reported by ExamDiff, there are 29 differences (60 lines + 581 words in changed lines).

It takes less than 2 seconds to load and display the differences, started by dropping the two files onto the desktop icon. I have no problem with the start up time whatsoever.

It takes 8 seconds for the program to end (terminated by clicking the [X] button in the upper right of window. There is nothing to explain what is happening during the 8 seconds. The mouse cursor does not change form (to a busy symbol, for instance).

Using these same files, the freeware version terminates immediately.

Would it help to have the files? I don't see a way to attached the files to this message. I can mail them to you.

[psguru]

Yes, I think having the files, along with your options exported to a file, may help. Please send them to the e-mail address that will be PM-ed to you shortly.

[tigmsm]

What's the option file?

[psguru]

Go to Options and use Export To File button.

[tigmsm]

Both sample files and the options file has been sent.

[psguru]

While I couldn't reproduce your problem, with your files and options (closing takes less than 1 second on a 1-GHz XP box with 1 GB of RAM), there will be some changes in the upcoming maintenance release to make file closing faster.

BTW, does it only happen when you close file comparison, not directory comparison?

Also, you may want to try setting 'Change notifications" option under Options | Misc | General to "Do not monitor".

[tigmsm]

It takes an similar long time to "Swap Files" as well.

Changing the setting as you suggested eliminated the problem.

[witzinpa]

I have a similar problem when ExamDiffPro is called by TortoiseCVS except that the time is about 35 seconds from when ExamDiff opens. A quick exit will result in a TortoiseCVS dialog box remaining open for the remainder of the 35 seconds.

The fix, in my case, was to set miscellaneous options "Number of recent files/directories" and "Number of recent searches and filters" to 1 (from 20).

[psguru]

We'll take a look at this. I suspect that you have some network files/directories in your recent lists, and that your network is either slow, or the network shares are no longer available.

[witzinpa]

You are correct. There are multiple instances to a shared network drive in the recent file and directory lists, and I know that particular PC is off-line. I cleared the registry values under HKCU\Software\PrestoSoft\ExamDiff Pro\Recent ... and bumped the Recent number of files/directories back to 20. No more delay. Thanks for the tip.

[psguru]

BTW, instead of going to the Registry you can simply hit the DELETE key while you are hovering over the item you want to delete in the recent list combo box. This is true for all ExamDiff Pro combo boxes that remember user items, such as the one in the Find dialog.

For more information, see our blog entry on this topic.