Switching Toolbars Causes "Program Not Responding"

Help & Support
21

Well, I found out a couple of things that might help you to give me some other suggestions. First, I was mistaken, and I did not have "always enable this toolbar's keys in listers" enabled in any of my toolbars at all.

Then I thought I'd turn off the background image on one of my custom toolbars, to see if it would switch faster. I rebooted the system, started Opus, and clicked the appropriate button on Main Programs to switch to that toolbar without a background image. Same result as always, it took about 10 seconds to switch. So, I Right clicked on that toolbar, selected Customize, and restored the background image.

Here's where it gets interesting again.... While I was still in Customize mode, over on the left I clicked the check box for my CD toolbar, and what do you suppose happened? It still took about 10 seconds for the toolbar to show up under the already opened toolbar, and I still got the "Not Responding" message. So, I tried it with another toolbar, the 'Games' toolbar. I checked that box in Customize, and same thing, took 10 secs to show up under the other 2 toolbars, and I got the message again.

I then un-checked those selected check boxes, and then I checked the exact same ones again, and they showed up almost at once, one under the other. No delay, no message....

So, does that help you to narrow anything down, with that new information? It's not a Button issue, and it's not a toolbar issue, if the same thing happens from the Customize menu, is it? Would that point to anything else, do you suppose??

22

Opening the toolbars from the Customize dialog doesn't change anything, the toolbars are still opened.

You really need to try to narrow it down to a particular button or buttons that's causing it, before we'll be able to do anything about it.

23

If it helps make it easier, you don't need to test one button at a time - you can use a "binary search" type technique. Start with the full toolbar, remove half the buttons and see if it still happens. If not, you know the problem button was one of the ones you removed. Start again with just the ones you removed, and remove half of those, and so on.

24

[quote="jon"]Opening the toolbars from the Customize dialog doesn't change anything, the toolbars are still opened.

You really need to try to narrow it down to a particular button or buttons that's causing it, before we'll be able to do anything about it.[/quote]

So, you are basically saying that on each and every one of my custom toolbars, there is a button or buttons that are causing problems? On each separate toolbar I've created? Well, I will heed your advice, and do it your way.

Let me ask you this... is there a setting for iconcache size that I can increase anywhere in the Opus settings? I've already done the task of deleting all my iconcache* files from my local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer folder, then rebooted to let them rebuild, thinking that maybe one of those was corrupt. It did help the speed of my Quick Launch toolbar, and the third party Start menu I use, but it had not effect on Opus. The delay was still there. But if there's a way to increase, or rebuild the iconcache of Opus, that might also help things, yes?

25

Forgot to mention that I did as the Help file said to do, which was to delete all files in the "/dopuslocaldata/Icon Cache" folder, and restart Opus.

No joy there.....

26

Without knowing anything about your toolbars it's impossible to say, but if you have a delay with the buttons there and no delay with no buttons, doesn't it seem at least possible that the buttons are involved somehow?

I get that you don't want to spend time adding and removing buttons, but seriously we have no idea why this is suddenly happening to you, so unfortunately there's no option but for you to do some investigation.

Opus doesn't have its own icon cache, we use the same cache as Windows. One thing you could try (on the assumption that the icons are involved) is to set the toolbar to text only using the Image State drop-down in Customize. In theory setting that to off should stop Opus attempting to load the icons for the toolbar.

27

That last sounds like a quick way to find out if it's an icon issue.

And I did send my entire Button folder to leo, who reported back that they all were in order, with no apparent issues. So, he does, in fact, know all about my toolbars.

Also, I do not want to send the wrong signal here. I don't mind investing the time and effort to add and remove buttons, jon. It's just that I want to learn something along the way, and adding and removing buttons that have worked well for years is puzzling to me, that's all.

As I've already stated, I'm not a programmer, just a faithful user, so I'll do as you suggest, no matter the amount of time or effort it takes. That being said, I'll try the 'text only' approach first, and if that doesn't do the job, I'll do your binary method of removing buttons until the problem is solved with each and every toolbar I use. I shall report back when I have finished those tasks.

I don't know if either you or leo celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, but if either of you do, have a great time with family and friends!! :slight_smile:

28

No need to do it with all of them, just try with one that exhibits the problem. Once we know what's causing it we can hopefully fix it!

29

OK, I've been at this for hours, removing buttons, then adding them back one by one, rebooting, and seeing if there was any change in behavior. I don't understand why I have to reboot every time to get the toolbars out of my RAM after I have closed the lister, and then ended the background process in Task Manager. I would think that would clear whatever Opus puts into RAM, but it doesn't. If I start Opus again, then the toolbars switch instantly, just like after I reboot the system, start Opus, switch a toolbar once, I get the delay, and from that point on if I switch the same toolbar, it's lightning fast. I even defrag memory after shutting down the lister and killing the background process. But anyway, I digress. It's almost 3AM here in the US, and I've been at this all night.

My results working with just one toolbar, my Apps bar, is this. The fewer buttons on the toolbar, the faster it switches. If I get down to just one button, any random button, and the toolbar switches almost immediately after a reboot and a Opus start. The bottom line is that the more buttons I add, the longer the toolbar takes to switch after a reboot of my system. And we are talking about only 15 program buttons on the App toolbar. Add that to the fact that I'm running a SSD, and it just floors me as to why the performance is so slow, just for Opus to fetch 15 icon images from a SSD before it will display the toolbar. I even made a custom shortcut for Opus that set the CPU priority to Realtime ( which one should NEVER do with any app ) and the performance was the same.

I was about out of ideas, when I thought I'd try one last thing. I changed the button icon images on all 15 buttons from their valid program .exe icon images, to 15 random Opus internal icon set images. For the 452end time, I rebooted my system, started Opus, and clicked on the Main Programs toolbar button to switch to the Apps toolbar. BAM!! The Apps toolbar switched fast as lightning. No delay, no message of 'Not Responding'. As I said, using a SSD I just don't understand, because all my programs load extremely fast, and performance is excellent from the drive. I double checked with the Toolbox program for the drive, and it reports the SSD as being in 100% health with about 32 more months of use left. I make a habit of running a TRIM on it twice a week to keep it in as good of condition as possible.

Bottom line is that when I use the internal icon set of Opus, the App toolbar switches fast, like it always did before a few weeks ago.

That leaves me with a task that I do not know how to achieve. I don't want my program icon images to be the random images that are available within the built in icon sets that I have installed in Opus. I want the real program images. So it all comes down to this: Will it be possible for me to somehow gather all my installed program icon images, make an icon set, and then install that set within Opus?

If that is possible, please point me in the right direction to learn how to get that job done. I have a feeling it's going to be a pain in the posterior, but if that's what I have to do, then I will do it, if possible.

30

UPDATE: OK, let me ask this question. I went out searching for some icons I can live with, and found some in the form of 128x128 images in .png format. Now, I can get them resized down to 32x32 .png, but after that, I have no clue as to how to make them into a .dis icon set for Opus. Would anyone be willing to school me on how to do that? Many thanks, in advance!!!!

Oblias2

31

Nevermind. I found a tutorial/help file on gpsoft.com.au that should let me at least give this a try. The .xml file seems like it's going to be the most difficult for me, seeing as how I've never done this before...

Off I go to experiment. Who needs sleep? Plenty of time to sleep when we die, right? :slight_smile:

32

I don't have time for a detailed reply right now sorry (on my phone) but you don't need to make an icon set, toolbar buttons can use individual .png files directly.

33

P.S. It sounds very much to me like the sort of slow-down a virus checker or anti-spyware tool might cause.

34

And to get those images there is software out there that will extract icons from programs – extract icons freeware - Google Search – so you can extract those that you want.

35

This I already knew, but isn't that the same thing as Opus going out to get the image from the original .exe file?? The only difference is that Opus has to go out to get a .png file, yes?

And as for the next post your made, I do not run an anti-virus program, or an anti-spyware tool. I only run Windows Defender, and that does not slow down any of my other programs...

36

Hello, and thank you for your suggestion. I have found a very good free program called IconsExtract v1.47, that will extract the .exe images for me. I'll have to experiment with jons' suggestion of just using the images directly, instead of installing them into Opus so that they are internal. If there is no slow down just using the images directly from a group of them in one folder, that would be excellent!

37

Well jon, I replaced those 15 internal button images with 15 external 32x32 .png images, rebooted, started Opus, clicked the button to switch to the Apps toolbar, and it was just as fast as using the internal icon set images. So, I thank you for your guidance, once again, and now it's just a matter of using that free program I got to extract the images from my installed .exe files, putting them all in one folder, and changing the button images on all my toolbars. Sounds like a lot, but it shouldn't take too long to get done.

Right then, I'm off to get a bit of sleep, then I'm back at it again. After I get a couple of my custom toolbars altered, I'll post back with the results. They should be the same results as the test App toolbar that I've been working with, which switches very fast now, and no message either.

I'll update later on in the day. Take care!

38

Windows Defender is an anti-virus program in Windows 8 :slight_smile:

I think it would be worth the 2 minutes it would take to try turning it off to see if it makes a difference. I found this thread from a couple of years ago where someone is complaining about slow program icons due to Windows Defender, so I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility.

39

Windows Defender is an anti-virus program in Windows 8 :slight_smile:

I think it would be worth the 2 minutes it would take to try turning it off to see if it makes a difference. I found this thread from a couple of years ago where someone is complaining about slow program icons due to Windows Defender, so I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility.[/quote]

After all this effort, it turns out that you are correct. I had whitelisted the Opus install folder, and also the Opus data folder, in Windows Defender, but that did not help, as so I thought that Windows Defender was not the 'Offender'.... :slight_smile:

Turns out it IS the Offender! I turned it off, rebooted, started Opus, and switched to a toolbar that I have not altered yet, and the switch was instant, with no 'Not Responding' message. I then tested my other un-altered toolbars, and they too, switched in an instant, just like they used to.

Now that I know what was causing the problem, it all make perfect sense to me. The November Microsoft rollup of updates included an update that changed the Windows Defender program. And, that update was issued just a couple weeks ago, right about the same time I started having my problem. I did not connect the two events as being related, however, seeing as how Windows Defender never caused that problem with Opus in the past, and also because, at the time, I was un-aware that the rollup contained an update that changed the Windows Defender program itself.

You certainly hit the nail on the head... Thank you VERY much for hanging in there with me to track down the problem. I knew that switching the button images was only curing the 'symptom', and not curing the problem, just masking it.

Well, that solves this mystery. It also leaves me in a quandary. I either turn Windows Defender back on, and continue changing all my button images on all my toolbars, or I leave Windows Defender off, and start running a third party Anti-virus/Malware program.... I have not run one of those in years, due to the fact that they tend to bog down the system and hog resources. Of course, that was years ago, so perhaps some have changed by now.

It's unfortunate that Opus seems to be the only program that was affected by the update in Windows Defender. All my other programs start almost instantly due to the speed of the SSD, and run well while Windows Defender was turned on. It certainly did not slow down Opus until the update.

Right then, I have some thinking to do, and a decision to make. I'm leaning towards trying some third party Anti-virus program, because otherwise if I add new program buttons to any of my custom toolbars, I'll have to go through the routine of extracting the icon from its' .exe, and then changing the button image to point to that extracted .ico .

I will repeat myself, and thank you, once again, and thank you also, leo, for the time and effort spent in helping and guiding me to find out what was causing the problem!! Top notch, the both of you!!!

Oblias2

40

As a side note, I wonder why my system was affected that way after the update, and you have had no other reports of people who run Windows 8.1 Update x64 reporting the same issue?? Seems strange to me... Then again, some questions just cannot be answered...