I'm having very strange behavior from my Poser Pro 11 (Win 10) installation. It is hanging during start-up. Taking 2-4 minutes or more. It just keeps sitting there, little blue wheel spinning. Eventually it stops and the program loads and I can use it. But then sometimes the darned program itself hangs for ages.

I remember reading somewhere in these forums (looked but cannot find it) that there are some tools I could use to view a log and see what's going on? Could someone please point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

There is a log you can access but it won’t show you the start up process verbally in text form. Your slow start up could be due to: Poser looking for missing items in your default scene which is loaded on start up; Or, Poser going through many large external runtimes which you have added to your Library; Or, Poser has a corrupted configuration and/or library file(s).

There is the Event Viewer which the Application and System logs in the Windows folder are the most useful. There is also the Reliability Monitor which provides a history of crashes. Both can be find using windows search. These tend to only capture errors if the cause is the OS.

In your preferences, you have the option to re-index all your libraries every time Poser starts. Some rocket surgeon thought that would be a great idea... It's not completely necessary and Poser does fine with a standard OS indexing whenever it makes a directory call or you can force it to index as needed.

If that's not it, it could be that you're online and Poser is trying to access dynamic content or confirm the validity of your install and the recent IP exchange is causing delays or SM has already pulled that.

Event viewer for the OS is a good place to check for problems. This might not actually be reported as "a problem" though. Your computer does exactly what you or your software tells it to do. No problem! :D

If it were me, I'd delete all my Poser preference files and user settings files. Those can certainly cause issues with startups and it's usually best to overwrite them with factory settings every time you patch, just in case. Also, if you're loading a custom scene on startup, make sure that everything that is called in that scene is in Poser's indexed runtime folders somewhere, else it's going to have to hunt for it if it gets confused.

PS - There are actually two user-specific preference files. One is the standard config one located wherever and the other is a system-setting dependent generated file deeper in. The first is what is normally deleted to clear up small issues. But, both can be deleted at will to be sure you've covered all those preference/system inis. (A quick google will tell you the exact directory location for each. It may be in the current manual, too, dunno.)

If you're running multiple runtimes you could try de-selecting them one at a time to see if narrows down the problem.

Also, as above, check for re-indexing (Edit/General preferences/Library)

I reinstalled a sluggish windows including all programs, and boy, what a difference it makes. All programs start up quicker now. (My external runtimes are still the same)

samsiahaija posted at 1:07AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4357726

I reinstalled a sluggish windows including all programs, and boy, what a difference it makes. All programs start up quicker now. (My external runtimes are still the same)

Back in the early days of Windows, the common practice was for users to reinstall Windows every six months or so, give or take a few weeks. These days, with terabyte storage and fifty-eleven programs crammed onto computers, users are much less likely to clean up their installations with a completely fresh install.

But, it's still a good practice, in my opinion, so long as one can mange to keep one's system organized well. (Personal computer use and program installation habits are much more complex/varied these days, too.)

It wasn't completely voluntary. in my case either. My Windows became slower and slower. In the end, booting lasted a quarter of an hour. And Poser renders would sometimes pause in the middle for no apparent reason. (On a dual Xeon quadcore with 36 GB RAM). Then, the bootsector was damaged. Windows did not boot at all and there was no way to repair it. So I got myself a new harddisk and did a fresh install of everything. Replacing my normal SATA II HD with an SSD drive didn't hurt either. Poser is installed on an external drive, but benefited anyway. Windows boots in under a minute and Poser both starts and renders much faster.