Slow startup with no internet?

[Enjay]

Not really sure where to post this - I think this sub forum makes sense.

As some folk know, where I live my internet connection isn't always reliable. It went down for a couple of hours today and I noticed an oddity when running GZDoom: it took longer to start.

I would get the usual startup window of console messages going past then it would sit and apparently do nothing for about 10 seconds. After that, it continued to start and worked just fine. It didn't always stop in the same place in the startup log.

When the internet came back, so did my normal GZDoom startup speeds.

I have a funny feeling that it's not GZDoom but, maybe, some sort of check that the OS or maybe anti-virus software is doing somewhere. I tried rebooting, I know my machine is virus and malware free, I did a quick checkdisk too and tried a separate install of GZDoom.

I'm not particularly bothered by it but I just wondered if anyone had a better explanation than my hunch?

[PersonalComp234]

This actually happened to me recently when my provider was installing new internet, but it happened randomly for me.
It might be just your OS or something, but I'm not a full-on computer geek, so I don't know for sure.

[wolfman]

Maybe it's because GZStats wasn't able to connect to gzstats.drdteam.org?

[Graf Zahl]

Unlikely, considering that this is not active in 3.4.x and also runs asynchronously to the main thread.

[Rachael]

The stats thing was specifically designed to not slow the startup process whatsoever, even if the host cannot be found. It uses a thread dispatch to accomplish this, as Graf basically hinted at. Plus, even if it was active, Enjay has run GZDoom enough times that it won't even attempt this. But it's long since been disabled anyhow, so it yet still isn't going to attempt it.

[Nash]

For me, the only situation where GZDoom does take a little longer to start is if a new version of GZDoom is ran that contained main.fp (shader) changes - seems with nvidia, the shader cache has to be recompiled. But even then, this only ever happens once; then subsequent runs will be fast again. That is, until main.fp is changed again...

[wildweasel]

It may be worth trying to run some kind of TCP traffic monitor like tcpview to see what kind of connections are failing to be made when GZDoom launches. Though, in honesty, I'd guess at it being what Enjay said it might be; some anti-virus tools' On Access scanners may try to contact HQ for "second opinions" before allowing the program to continue to execute.

[Graf Zahl]

For me, the only situation where GZDoom does take a little longer to start is if a new version of GZDoom is ran that contained main.fp (shader) changes - seems with nvidia, the shader cache has to be recompiled. But even then, this only ever happens once; then subsequent runs will be fast again. That is, until main.fp is changed again...

... and that is pretty much unavoidable. If the shader source changes it has to be recompiled, and there's a lot of variations main.fp has to be compiled into...

[Enjay]

I tried tcpview (thanks) and I *think* I may have an answer. Once my anti-virus (Avira) avguard.exe went red momentarily in the list. So, that could confirm my suspicions. Also, NVIDIA Web Helper.exe went red a couple of times. Things are working just fine ATM (i.e. fast) so it could be that tcpview (which only updates once per second) didn't have time to catch the communication attempts every time. The next time things fail, I'll see what tcpview reports.

I'll maybe see if I can disable NVIDIA Web Helper too. I don't think I use any of its features.


As a side benefit, tcpview also showed me that my Logitech mouse/keyboard drivers auto-start an instance of discord, so I disabled that too.

[Graf Zahl]

As a side benefit, tcpview also showed me that my Logitech mouse/keyboard drivers auto-start an instance of discord, so I disabled that too.

WTF?!?

[Enjay]

Yup, found the information about it, and how to disable it, here. It was pretty well hidden (the options don't even appear unless you enable them) and I've never used it. In fact, even if I'd wanted to, it was so well hidden that I would have used Discord via another means anyway because I wouldn't even have known it was there.

[Graf Zahl]

How about suing them? That stuff should be illegal with a) being opt-out only and b) being so well hidden that nobody can do it.

[Rachael]

As a side benefit, tcpview also showed me that my Logitech mouse/keyboard drivers auto-start an instance of discord, so I disabled that too.

WTF?!?

My sentiment exactly.

[Enjay]

Given how many people use Logitech products, and use their software to drive them, I guess that there will be loads of machines out there with an instance of Discord sitting there unnoticed. It showed up in tcpview as logitechg_discord.exe

[Cacodemon345]

Oh god. Why people want to put privacy-invasive features? Logitech should be sued.

Also, I was glad not to have Avira, Nvidia and Logitech on my computer, or else my internet connection would be destroyed considering how slow is this. Moral of this: Never try to use invasive programs and products, else you are fucked. Was glad to go back to Windows Defender, it doesn't slow down my computer to a crawl. I also use AMD, so I am glad that my computer isn't infected with such invasive programs.