Strange memory issues with windows desktop EN v10

[idoc 413]

Today I noticed that my entire windows computer was lagging and freezing.  I tried to clip a screenshot into EN and received a strange error message about not being able to complete the screen shot.  In fact, I noticed that I was clipping blanks.  I opened up my windows task manager and noticed that EN v10 was taking up a huge amount of memory (two processes were about 2,500,000 K).  In other words, about 10 times the normal amount.  I closed the program and re-opened it and everything behaved normally again (including my computer).    As far as I can tell, v10 uses about 7X more memory than Legacy .  I am appending screenshots of both as they normally operate.  I do not have a screenshot of what v10 was doing when it froze my computer because I couldn't even open up my task manager when that happened.  It was really bad.

Processes used by EN v10

Processes being used by Legacy

[PinkElephant 8,831]

You don't tell how much RAM you have, on what sort of computer, with which version of Windows, etc. Very little information. From what you describe, the OS started swapping RAM with disk drive, this is what slows things down. Especially on PCs with a laggy disk drive (HDDs ar really bad, bud slow SSDs are still no fun) swapping should be avoided.

The more you have open at once, the more probability there is that you run into swapping. The less RAM you have, the same may apply. So if your computer starts swapping, make it a habit to quit apps (not only close them), or get a RAM upgrade (if you can, many modern computers won't allow for it).

EN v10 is based on a framework, which itself is based on the Chrome(ium) browser engine. In normal use with some action, expect it to use approximately 1 - 1.5 GB of RAM. From what I see in your screenshot, this is more or less what you have, in your case even less. No surprises here.

Legacy is programmed as a native app, so it needs less RAM. And it still is 32bit code (completely outdated, nobody today is coding in 32bit any more, except for specific micro controllers), so on a modern 64bit-OS it will take up even less space. That's one view. Another is that legacy is a RAM hog, using a massive amount in excess of what is really needed to do the job - if you compare it with a theoretical app programmed in assembler code. THIS would be sneak and lean - except nobody would probably be able to code it.

And that's how things evolve: Modern software uses frameworks, engines and huge software libraries to do what in former times programmers have written in native code. Software development goes down that road, computers to need more resources to be able to keep up.

My first PC had an 8bit CPU, and an absolutely whooping 1MB of RAM (part of which I used as RAM disk, because the CPU could only address 640kB). Moores Law took us from there to here - there is not much we can do about it.

[idoc 413]

Thanks Pink.  It's a win7 Pro 64bit  (I know you hate Win7) intelcore i5 3.30Ghz, 16G DDR# Ram.  Memory usage is at 25%.

I get what you're saying about the RAM but I run a lot of different things on my computer eg: windows, excel, acrobat, QQuicken, Quickbooks, Avast  etc.  I don't run them all at the same time and when this happened almost nothing else was running.  I have never seen a program freeze my computer this way.  I have since re-started v10  several times just to see how much it is consuming in resources and it is now much lower than when it crashed my system.  Hopefully it was just a one-off event?  Just to be clear, two of those processes were consuming 10X what you currently see now ie: 2,510,000 as opposed to 264,000.  That is a huge amount of resources.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,006]

There have been other reports of one recent version of Evernote consuming large amounts of resources. Can't recall if the solution was to wait for the next upgrade (10.53), restart, reboot, or what.

[gazumped 12,073]

I'm currently running 10.52 and (probably annoyingly) not having any issues - I've noticed a couple of brief heavy use periods when I move notes around or tag a large group,  but nothing major.

[PinkElephant 8,831]

8 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

There have been other reports of one recent version of Evernote consuming large amounts of resources. Can't recall if the solution was to wait for the next upgrade (10.53), restart, reboot, or what.

If I remember it correctly this was a discussion about some Mac users complaining about high CPU (not memory) usage. Some made a fuzz about it, and then it stopped without any further action (and other, probably most Mac users never saw anything of it). RAM is a constant rumor in the basement, but I don’t remember anything specific.

We have here in addition a not supported config, with an outdated Windows version. I don’t think anybody is testing both the framework nor the app against an OS that is officially dropped.

So hard to tell if EN / Electron just does what it should, or something exceptional happens here. Could be that Win 7 has a problem with process / memory management, keeping RAM allocated that the app is not using any more. As I said, sort of hard to tell by peeking through the task manager window.

[eric99 1,083]

12 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

And that's how things evolve: Modern software uses frameworks, engines and huge software libraries to do what in former times programmers have written in native code. Software development goes down that road, computers to need more resources to be able to keep up.

My first PC had an 8bit CPU, and an absolutely whooping 1MB of RAM (part of which I used as RAM disk, because the CPU could only address 640kB). Moores Law took us from there to here - there is not much we can do about it.

 Wirth's Law :  "Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster"

[PinkElephant 8,831]

Sounds impressive ("Law"), but if I take Moores "Law" as a measure, legal action stops where the laws of nature (read quantum effects) take over.

Personally I think that the measure is still the human in front of the screen with his interactions, who is experiencing "fastness". Expectations play as big a role as the real action does. The real "fastness" is not a ramp, it is a meandering path around a straight line: On one side systems getting faster, on the other devs consuming the resources to create real or imagined progress of the software. In the end we always believe "this could run faster ...".

P.S. Just bumped the core of my home network up to 10GbE. Gosh, that's FAST 😉

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,006]

This is a very inside-the-U.S. perspective, but I once heard a speaker (in about 1974!) say that our pioneer ancestors in the 19th century, if they missed the wagon train west, just waited 6 months for the next one. We get aggravated if we miss one space in a revolving door.

[PinkElephant 8,831]

I like these huge revolving doors, moving slowly. They have a contactless security system: If you get too close to the glass, the rotation stops.

The fastest way to get through is to enter, go to the center spot and calmly wait until it has done a quarter revolution. Its quite fun watching at people in a hurry, approaching the still protected "exit" like forcing their way out, which makes the door stop, they realize it, step back, rotation starts again, next attempted escape, again a stop, and so on. Some need 3 run ups to be finally allowed to leave the Cristal cage. I think who invented them wanted to teach humankind a lesson.

So let's wait for the wagon train ...