Three minutes of waiting - why won't EA start?

[Ian Mitchell]

This is a strange one. In 20 years of using EA, I've never experienced this.

In the middle of doing some development, suddenly EA refused to load, the next time I started it.
I was using an older build of 16.1 64 bit.

BUT, this happens in both EA 15.2 (32 bit) and EA 16.1 (64 bit). In both cases I'm stuck at the EA Splash screen.

So far I have tried:
1 - re-installing EA (V16.1 64 bit - same build as I already had)
2 - de-installing EA 16.1 completely, then re-installing EA 16.1 64 bit, build 1625 - most recent
3. as above, with re-starting the machine afterwards
4. Deleting all addin entries from the registry, so there is no eaAdins64 folder.
5. Cold-starting the machine.
I can see that it's getting as far as contacting the licence server, because the lease checkout time changes.

Actually, in the middle of writing this, the EA load completed!

Now I see that it WILL load, but only after a delay of almost exactly 3 minutes.

This is true for both 15.2(32) and 16.1(64), which given that these are totally different pieces of software, is strange.

Ah, but their common element is my EA licence server!

So I added a fixed, local key to the 15.2 EA, and released the floating key.

..and it still takes almost exactly 3 minutes to load, even a local, empty EAP file, and using a locally saved non-floating EA key.

This is 100% repeatable - EA loads sucessfully, on whatever repository I want, 32- or 64-bit versions, but only after a 3 minute delay.

Any ideas anyone?

[BobM]

Based on the information we got:
On first sight the issue is the machine, but it is difficult to determine what exactly is wrong with it

It could be a system memory part EA needs to access, or it could even be a hard drive issue (personal experience it happens on powerbuilder based applications)

[Ian Mitchell]

Trie switching-off the Anti-virus. No difference.

[Ian Mitchell]

Big thanks to my new best friend- ChatGPT.
It suggested looking at Windows Resource Monitor, selecting the EA.Exe process, and choosing the option 'Analyze wait chain'.
This showed that it was waiting on the windows print spooler - spoolsv.exe.
Took ChatGPT's advice, and just re-started this windows service, and I'm back in business.

Can't remember the last time I even tried to print anything.
Random Windows &*%$

[Takeshi K]

Hi Ian,

I know that when Window default printer is set, and the printer is network printer and it is unreachable, EA will wait for timeout.
You mentioned the spoolsv.exe, so it might be the same or similar case.

Please try to switch the Windows default printer to another printer (or virtual printer like Microsoft print to PDF) and run EA.exe again.

HTH,

[Ian Mitchell]

@Sparx - does this qualify as a bug, which might be fixed?
It certainly would affect the perceived product quality for a new user who doesn't yet know that EA almost never falls over.

[Takeshi K]

Hi Ian,

If your problem is the same or similar to my reply, I am afraid that there might be no solution (i.e., not a bug).

I think that an application (not limited to EA) must receive a reply from a network printer to know if the network printer is alive (reachable) or not. Usually a printer replies very soon, but there is a case that a printer is in sleep mode and it takes some time to be able to reply. All application must wait by timeout to know if a printer is alive, and the timeout must be some length (e.g., 120 seconds).

And it is done by Windows printer service, so an application might have no way to solve this problem.
(And I can guess why EA needs printer information - but it could be delayed later or be multi-threaded not to block the main process.)

[Geert Bellekens]

(And I can guess why EA needs printer information - but it could be delayed later or be multi-threaded not to block the main process.)

Exactly. Doing this in the main thread (and blocking the user for up to 3 minutes without even a hint of why this is taking so long) is clearly a bug in my book.

Geert

[Ian Mitchell]

@Sparx - can you confirm that the startup of EA is waiting on this service? With no local timeout ?