Three instances running, and one is at 20% CPU

[terrypin]

I found I had three instances running, and one of them was consuming about 20% of my CPU resource.



I terminated two them (without checking what version(s) they were, which I should have done) and the one now remaining is apparently working (I did a test search) and is version 1.5 Beta.

Please advise.

Terry, UK

[void]

Thank you for the issue report terrypin,

Could you please send your Help -> Troubleshooting information.



The next time this occurs, could you please create a mini crash dump:

• Wait for Everything hang
  --Keep Everything running / do not close Everything
• Download Process Explorer from Microsoft:
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer
• In Process Explorer, select Everything.exe (If there is two, select the one using the most memory)
• Right click Everything.exe and under Create Dump, select Create Mini Dump.
• Choose a filename and click Save.
• Please upload this dmp file to /bugreport

voidtools does not collect any user data.
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Please take note of the command line column in the task manager to see if you are running multiple instances of Everything.

[terrypin]

The next time this occurs, could you please create a mini crash dump:

But would those instructions apply, as this was not a 'crash'? My PC was running normally, apart from discovering that instance of Everything (without any search initiated) consuming almost all the current CPU activity.

Below is a screenshot this morning, before I do almost any other work. 'Everything' is quiet. Am I correct that just two instances is normal?



Looking at my previous screenshot of three instances I see that the voracious one has the username 'tpinn', which may give you some clue as to the cause. While troubleshooting an unrelated problem a few days ago I created a new user account to see if that problem occurred. It did, and I duly reverted to my normal user account. But during my work within new account settings (particularly the rather confusing login procedures) I also appear to have created a 'family account'. That's currently showing as 'pending', whatever that means. However it may be relevant that the first six characters of that username are 't.pinn'. Close to 'tpinn'.



Terry

[therube]

Am I correct that just two instances is normal

That is not two instances.

That is one instance with the associated service running.
(The service is the 7K item.)

And in that respect, seeing 1 "Everything" & 1 Everything "Service" is normal.

[void]

But would those instructions apply, as this was not a 'crash'?

Yes, the mini crash dump still applies.
The mini crash dump will show exactly what Everything was doing.



Two processes is normal.
One for the GUI.
One for the Everything Service.

Looking at my previous screenshot of three instances I see that the voracious one has the username 'tpinn', which may give you some clue as to the cause.

Ah, yes, you have a GUI process running under another user account.
Please try switching to that user and see if anything is shown in the status bar.
A mini crash dump will also show why it is busy.

[terrypin]

"Everything" & 1 Everything "Service" is normal.

Thanks both.

[terrypin]

But would those instructions apply, as this was not a 'crash'?

Ah, yes, you have a GUI process running under another user account.
Please try switching to that user and see if anything is shown in the status bar.
A mini crash dump will also show why it is busy.

"had" not "have"! So, with Everything now running OK, I'll pass on that experiment for now. I hope not, but a reboot (deliberate or by WU) might make it happen again, in which case I'll run the crash dump.

Can you throw any light on how a GUI process, presumably initiated during the 5-10 minutes I was somehow logged into that family account, could persist under my normal account? In fact, given its 'pending' status, I don't get how I was ever logged into it at all. I created Terry2 as the temporary account, not 'tpinn', whose existence only became apparent when I used TM as I described to investigate.

Terry

[therube]

If you didn't actually log out of the other account, anything that had been running there, will continue to do so, until you do actually log out.

[void]

Everything will start on all user accounts if you enable Tools -> Options -> General -> Start on system startup.

Consider disabling "Start on system startup" and create a shortcut to Everything.exe in your shell:startup folder.

Use the following command to start Everything without showing the GUI immediately:

Everything.exe -startup

[terrypin]

Thanks for your patience, but I'm still a bit confused. 'Everything' (Version 1.5.0.1343a (x64)) is running OK in my normal user account. As I reported, it shows the two normal processes in Task Mgr. So I assume that nothing that may have been initiated during my few minutes in any other temporary user account can now be affecting Everything's performance? Even though it apparently did so shortly after using those temporary accounts, prompting my original post.

To be honest, I don't see how **anything** from another user account could affect this one? Are accounts not 100% independent?? But that's no doubt down to my limited techical know how on the innards of Windows OS!

I'm also unclear about startup, and whether I need to make any change? In 'Open All users > Startup' I see that Everything is not on the list. In Nirsoft's Autoruns > Everything (the ALL catgegory) the current Product version 1.5.0.1343a is included. (There is a second entry for an older version,1.4.1.1022, which is not enabled.)

Of course, I have not rebooted for several days, and do not want to do so right now, but perhaps that will change things!

[void]

I assume that nothing that may have been initiated during my few minutes in any other temporary user account can now be affecting Everything's performance?

Can you remember if you signed out of the other user account or switched user?

Signed out = Close/terminate Everything.
Switch user = Everything will still be running.

I'm also unclear about startup, and whether I need to make any change?

To disable Everything from running on startup for all users:

• In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the General tab on the left.
• Uncheck Run Everything on system startup.
• Click OK.

To start Everything on startup for the current user only:

• In Windows Explorer, type in the following address and press ENTER:
  
  shell:startup
• Right click an empty spot in this folder, and under the New submenu, click Shortcut
• Click Browse.
• Select your Everything.exe
  (for example: C:\Program Files\Everything\Everything.exe )
• Click Next.
• Click Finish.
• Right click your new shortcut and click Properties.
• Change the Target to:
  
  "C:\Program Files\Everything\Everything.exe" -startup
  
  ( add -startup to the end to prevent a GUI window from being created on startup)
• Click OK.

[terrypin]

Thanks. I'll report back after my next reboot.

BTW, should I run Everything as Administrator? What are the pros/cons?

[void]

BTW, should I run Everything as Administrator? What are the pros/cons?

Avoid running Everything as administrator.

Running Everything as administrator will cause communication issues with other programs/shell-extensions running as a standard user. (thumbnails, previews, content searching often break)
Programs run from Everything will also launch as admin.

[Herkules97]

BTW, should I run Everything as Administrator? What are the pros/cons?

Avoid running Everything as administrator.

Running Everything as administrator will cause communication issues with other programs/shell-extensions running as a standard user. (thumbnails, previews, content searching often break)
Programs run from Everything will also launch as admin.

And on the pro side there is that if a program is already launched, it will not alter the privilege mode so it doesn't matter there.
Also if you run a program as admin, EBV may actually be able to communicate with it.
I am not sure, never tried EBV non-admin to see if it is unable to communicate.
Take Windows Explorer non-admin and foobar2000 in admin.
Can't communicate.
Of course I have no reason to use Explorer for adding stuff to foobar2000 when I have EBV, but sometimes I am lazy and I try because I already have the window I want to add from open in Explorer.

As for his cons, I can't speak for the first two and not sure what content searching breaking means. If he actually means searching existing content indexed, I haven't noticed anything broken.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I even needed to run as admin from the start to get multiple instances.
Maybe I had issues with the service, like not being able to use different versions of EBV and I was too lazy to always keep all instances on the same version. That's at least the case now, but now is maybe 5 years after I started using admin EBV and I don't know any downsides that would get me to switch to service method.