DVDPedia napping under Snow Leopard

[sitenoise]

Since updating to Snow Leopard my DVDPedia is behaving badly. Every couple hours it just stops taken mouse input. I can't click on anything. I haven't done any investigation, I just quit it -- I can use the menus to choose quit -- and then everything is fine for a while.

Anybody else experiencing something like this?

Is there a way to rebuild the database?

[Conor]

Are there any errors in your console log? If it happens again please try sampling DVDpedia from the Activity Monitor application to see if it's thinking about something in particular. Are you using Spaces or doing anything in particular in DVDpedia that might trigger the behavior?

[sitenoise]

I have checked Activity Monitor (as I use iStatMenus) and there's nothing unusual, and as I say, I can use the File Menu to quit, so the app doesn't appear to be hung up on something.

You mention Spaces. Yes, I'm a big Spaces/Exposé user--both of which I think took a BIG step backward in Snow Leopard--so I'll try to look for a connection. I'll try exiting and re-entering DVDPedia's Space, etc., before just quitting the app, but if memory serves it doesn't happen directly upon using one of those functions. I'll just be fiddling about in the app and I lose mouse control over the Main window. I remember one thing distinctly, I opened the Edit window, pasted some text into the Summary field, clicked "OK", noticed that the text wasn't there in my InfoView, and then had no mouse control. I quit the app, re-opened and the text was there.

I will also check the console for messages. I did look the first time it happened, searched for 'DVDPedia' and got nothing.

As an aside, one of the ways that Spaces has changed for the worse, in my opinion, is that Dialog boxes no longer count as a window in an app, or are given a lower priority or something, so they ALWAYS go to the back. One of ways this seems to have affected DVDPedia is that when I add an entry by dragging a url to DVDPedia icon, as soon as the Search Dialog goes away the Edit Window jumps behind the Main Window, so I always have to 'Exposé' it back on top.

I don't know DVDPedia's use/connection to WebKit, but that's another technology that seems a little cranky in Snow Leopard. I make that statement in pure ignorance, however. It's just a feeling.

[Conor]

Thank you for the extra details. I'll play around with the programs and see if I can get the same behavior. The Pedias have been running well for us, except for the sending of the automatic overdue email notices. Which was a lot of work to duplicate the functionality that Apple took away in Snow Leopard but that is now fixed in the beta for those that use that feature.

It's always a lot of work with such a big change in OS X, even if it's one that is named similar and looks the same as the previous OS X. I personally been having a lot of trouble with Automator that I rely on to simplify my workflow, like building and uploading the latest betas. (The compress, create archive, inside Automator fails to compress all the files and black lines appear in the betas where a texture should appear. If done manually everything works fine.) Might be because I have to run it in 32 bit mode as the Transmit fellows haven't yet updated their Automator actions.

I'll see if there something I can do about the spaces issue with the auxiliary windows.

[sitenoise]

A Little update:

It does appear that it's still functioning but super super slow. I can get to a point where the image well, the highlighted collection, the table (I usually have in Cover view), and the Infoview are all thinking they are somewhere else ... I don't really know how to describe it except to say that after a bunch of clicking those four places are showing completely different things. That is, the image well will have an image that is not in the highlighted collection, the Infoview is showing something not in the highlighted collection (and doesn't match what's in the image well, or table) etc.

Does that make sense? And since I can use the Menus, if I choose "Edit DVD" it's totally random what will pop up. It will be something that I clicked on at some point, but who knows when. And if I hover over the Covers in the table, the tooltips might name a Cover that's not what is being displayed.

Here is an Activity Monitor sample (there's nothing in the Console and DVDPedia isn't using any CPU to speak of)

Sampling process 1365 for 3 seconds with 1 millisecond of run time between samples
Sampling completed, processing symbols...
Analysis of sampling DVDpedia (pid 1365) every 1 millisecond
Call graph:
2505 Thread_121709 DispatchQueue_1: com.apple.main-thread (serial)
2505 start
2505 _start
2505 NSApplicationMain
2505 -[NSApplication run]
2505 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:]
2505 _DPSNextEvent
2505 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode
2505 ReceiveNextEventCommon
2505 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode
2505 CFRunLoopRunInMode
2505 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
2505 __CFRunLoopRun
2505 mach_msg
2505 mach_msg_trap
2505 Thread_121716 DispatchQueue_2: com.apple.libdispatch-manager (serial)
2505 start_wqthread
2505 _pthread_wqthread
2505 _dispatch_worker_thread2
2505 _dispatch_queue_invoke
2505 _dispatch_mgr_invoke
2504 kevent
1 _dispatch_run_timers
2505 Thread_121732
2505 thread_start
2505 _pthread_start
2505 __CFSocketManager
2505 select$DARWIN_EXTSN
2505 Thread_121736
2505 thread_start
2505 _pthread_start
2505 __NSThread__main__
2505 -[NSThread main]
2505 +[NSURLConnection(NSURLConnectionReallyInternal) _resourceLoadLoop:]
2505 CFRunLoopRunInMode
2505 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
2505 __CFRunLoopRun
2505 mach_msg
2505 mach_msg_trap
1386 Thread_143613
1386 start_wqthread
1386 _pthread_wqthread
1386 __workq_kernreturn
1119 Thread_143446
1119 start_wqthread
1119 _pthread_wqthread
1119 __workq_kernreturn

Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):

Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
mach_msg_trap 5010
__workq_kernreturn 2505
select$DARWIN_EXTSN 2505
kevent 2504
Sample analysis of process 1365 written to file /dev/stdout

[sjk]

One of ways this seems to have affected DVDPedia is that when I add an entry by dragging a url to DVDPedia icon, as soon as the Search Dialog goes away the Edit Window jumps behind the Main Window, so I always have to 'Exposé' it back on top.

The Command-` (backtick) shortcut for Cycle Through Windows should also work, at least on a US keyboard, as an alternative to using Exposé. If you've got some other keyboard layout this posting (and the followup) might be helpful:

Betalogue » Blog Archive » Mac OS X 10.6.0 (Snow Leopard): Breaks ‘Cycle Through Windows’ shortcut on Canadian CSA keyboard layout

That was interesting to me, like "technical" details in many other Pierre Igot's postings are, even though I'm using US keyboard and not running Snow Leopard (yet).

[sitenoise]

Thanks for the tip. I'm a bit of a mouser and flinging my mouse into a corner to Exposé to the window I want is not so bad. I'm just kinda bummed about the havoc Snow Leopard has reaped upon my workflow. It is hands down the worst upgrade I've ever Apple done. The sad part is, is that it's not like things are broken, they've just changed the way things work.

<rant>
For me the Finder is a total pain in the butt, and the changes they've implemented make it "feel" A LOT slower because I'm all freaked out at the way things work now:

Selections are different in terms of where you can 'grab' something.
Selecting something now usually takes two clicks because of some sort of warped "click-through" philosophy gone backwards/nuts.
Highlighting and changing Label will scroll the window to where the file went to in terms of Label sorting. Scroll city for me now!
You can't drag a file out of a Folder by dragging it to the 'column' header any more. So if you have a 'full' window, you're kinda screwed.
All the silly Core animation nonsense REALLY slows things down for me. If you rename a file it sits there for a split second and then dances to somewhere else.

Not to mention that all this Finder/Expose/Spaces stuff is ridiculously worse if you run in "Better Battery performance" mode ...i.e., using the 9400 integrated chip rather than the 9600 discreet chip. The only (dis)advantage I've ever noticed about using the 9600 over the 9400 is that it makes my laptop run 10 degrees Celsius hotter. But I have to use it now in SL or everything is appallingly slow and clunky.

</rant>

[Conor]

Thank you for the extra details. As you mention there is not much that points to why Snow Leopard is confusing DVDpedia as it's not reporting an actual error. But at least now I know you use the cover view, so I will try that out more often, I tend to use the table view a lot more.

[sitenoise]

Oh ... I think it's Snow Leopard, not because something is pointing at it, but because I'm mad at it (and it never happened until SL). I did a clone backup and wiped my drive and did a clean install of Snow Leopard and slowly brought my data back. I compute a lot, I'm a smooth operator, and now my computer just feels dumb. There is no elegance to my experience now. This feels like OS X 10.0 to me.

[sitenoise]

Can I post a crash report here?

[Nora]

You can post it here or email it to us directly. (You'll find our email on the support page. We don't like posting it here to avoid extra spam...)

[Alex]

This won't help you with the pedia issue, but I thought I'd mention that the whole command-backtick issue can be solved by using command-shift-tab to cycle backwards.

This has always worked in OS X and I'm assuming even Apple wouldn't break that under Snow Leopard (haven't updated yet because of Maya ). Sure, it's not as nice as just command-backtick, but if that is broken at least this is an alternative.