SE2012 unresponsive after showing "Reload Modified Files" dialog

[Christoph]

Quite often, I have a log file open in one of my tabs so that I can keep track of what's been going on.  When that file gets updated (or even one of the other files I have open), SE notifies me of the change with the "Reload Modified Files" dialog.  I do not have it set up in the preferences to auto-load changes because I oftentimes want to do a diff on the file to see what's different.  The problem is that when I go to click on any of the buttons (Reload Selected, Cancel, Invert, Diff Selected), there is no response.  In fact, there is no response no matter what I try to click (the buttons, the checkboxes to select/deselect a file, etc).  I can close the dialog but when I do, SE is totally unresponsive.  I can't click on any menu item, file tab, etc.  At that point, the only thing I can do is quit SE altogether and reload.  This happened a lot in SE2011 and I was hoping it was gone in this new version. Sadly, it seems to be happening with more and more frequency, though at random times (which is most frustrating about this).  It doesn't seem that the file size is a factor because it'll happen even if it's trying to reload a very small (or very large) file.

I've searched the forums and saw that something like this (but seemed to me to be a little different) was reported and fixed (http://community.slickedit.com/index.php/topic,8324.msg35484.html#msg35484) but if mine is the same issue, it's still a problem.  If it's not the same issue, is this something that is known?  Is there something I can do to keep this from happening?  If it's not known, here's some basic information about my install.  If there is any additional information you need, just let me know.  Please note, this information was retrieved after having had to shut down SE (as a result of one of these locks) and right after I reloaded the app.  There was no way for me to retrieve it before then (menus were not responsive).

SlickEdit 2012 (v17.0.2.0)

Licensed number of users: Single user

Build Date: August 09, 2012
Emulation: Mac OS X

OS: Mac OS X Mountain Lion
OS Version: 10.8.0
Processor Architecture: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU M 620 @ 2.67GHz 64 bit (4 cores)

Memory: 99% Load, 8128MB/8192MB Virtual
Shell Info: /Applications/SlickEdit2012.app/Contents/MacOS/secsh -i
Screen Size: 1600 x 900, 1680 x 1050

Project Type: Php
Language: .tpl (HTML)

Installation Directory: /Applications/SlickEdit2012.app/Contents/
Configuration Directory: /Users/jcboget/Library/Application Support/SlickEdit/17.0.2/
Spill File: /tmp/$slk.jcboget.22731

[Matthew]

Are these reloads happening when you switch away from and back to SlickEdit? Or are they coming up while SE still has focus?

In the Tools > Options dialog, please go to the Editing > Context Tagging section. There's an option titled "Update workspace tag file on activate". What is your setting for that value? If it's ON, please switch it to OFF, and let me know if that helps.

[Christoph]

Are these reloads happening when you switch away from and back to SlickEdit? Or are they coming up while SE still has focus?

When I switch away from then back to SE.  Sorry I didn't include this in my original message.  Sometimes when I switch back, the dialog is responsive and sometimes it's not.

In the Tools > Options dialog, please go to the Editing > Context Tagging section. There's an option titled "Update workspace tag file on activate". What is your setting for that value? If it's ON, please switch it to OFF, and let me know if that helps.

It is currently set to OFF.  Attached is a screen shot of all of those options, in the event that it might be useful information.

thnx,
Christoph

[Matthew]

Looks like your settings match up with mine on Context Tagging. (I was chasing a hunch...)

 Below I'm attaching a screenshot of my Auto Reload settings from the File Options > Load section. Let me know if any of these don't match up with your current settings.
I'm currently using 10.6 and 10.7, and I haven't encountered this type of hang. We did see very similar issues in a lot of places with modal dialogs early on in the native Mac rewrite. (Nasty issues issues with multiple run loops trashing each other). I'll have to see if I can get 10.8 to misbehave like you're seeing.

[Christoph]

The only difference between your settings and mine is that I had "Reload on switch buffer" turned ON (I turned it OFF).  Would that option be a factor in the unresponsiveness when switching back to SE?

thnx,
Christoph

[Matthew]

Hard to say if that would be a factor or not, but well worth trying out. The real underlying problem is that there are unprocessed messages in the main run loop when the modal loop for the reload dialog is triggered. We just have to figure out why that event queue isn't clean.

[Christoph]

Hmm, ok.  I'll reply if/when it happens again.  Because it's so random, it's hard to say when that will be.  Hopefully this setting had an impact and the issue will resolve.  If it does happen again, is there anything I can do outside of SE that might be able to provide you additional information on it's current state?

thnx,
Christoph

[Dennis]

How large are these log files?

[Christoph]

I have 3 of them still hanging around:

-rw-r--r--  1 jcboget  wheel  11594000 Aug 22 09:58 $slk.jcboget.12244
-rw-r--r--  1 jcboget  wheel  11594000 Aug 22 10:25 $slk.jcboget.12672
-rw-r--r--  1 jcboget  wheel   1092080 Aug 23 10:35 $slk.jcboget.22731

The spill file referenced by the info after the lock up has been deleted, almost certainly when I quit the app.

thnx,
Christoph

[Dennis]

Crank up your setting for "load partially".  Tools > Options > File Options > Load > "Load partially when files are larger than (KB)".  The default is 8M (8000k).  Crank it up to 100M or more.  This may slow down file loads, but I think what is happening is since File locking is turned off by default, which is necessary since these log files are being written to, SlickEdit has the file open and then it is changed out from underneath it.

[Christoph]

How large are these log files?

I took this to mean how big are the $slk.* files but your subsequent reply makes me question my understanding.  Were you asking about the $slk.* files or the log files I referenced in a previous message which I have open in SE?  If the latter, then those files are typically very small.  Usually hovering around 50k (I clear the contents regularly) but really anywhere from about 5k to 150k, rarely bigger than that.

thnx,
Christoph

[Dennis]

I was talking about your actual log files, not the spill files.

Ha, I just figured it was a weird coincidence that your log files were named $slk...   

[Christoph]

I was talking about your actual log files, not the spill files.

Ha, I just figured it was a weird coincidence that your log files were named $slk...   

They aren't named that; they have a completely different name.  I do not see my reply where I referenced the $slk.* file (I guess it got deleted somehow), but I brought that up because it was showing as the (current) spill file when I went in to Help -> About Slickedit -> Program Information after the lock up.  I figured it was a temp file of some sort (it was in /tmp after all :p) and since I had a few still hanging around (see above), I thought it might be the case, longshot that it might have been, that SE was trying to write to them (tagging perhaps?) when the "Reload Modified Files" dialog displayed.  I was grasping at straws, basically, and I implied as much (or tried to) in that missing reply.

So, since my log files don't get to nearly that since (100M, let alone the original setting of 8M), is there still a chance that modifying that setting might help?

thnx,
Christoph

[Christoph]

Changing the setting for "Load partially when files are larger than (KB)" to 100000 didn't prevent the problem from happening again.   Is there anything else I can try?

thnx,
Christoph

[Dennis]

Next time it happens, you could go to the process explorer, select SlickEdit, and do a "Sample process", the report may help us figure out where it is hanging.