PyCharm freezes during run

[mogmix]

Hi all,

I have been experiencing my PyCharm instance to freeze for up to one minute when running tex files.

• System: MacOSx 11.5.2
• PyCharm: 2021.x
• Texify: 0.7.x (it works fine for 0.6.x!)

I tried various compilers (pdflatex, latexmk, xelatex), all the same issue.

If minor changes are made to tex files, e.g. a few lines of text, docs are compiled as usual. But if some new \input, \usepackage, or larger code fragments are added, PyCharm freezes.

Running latexmk (or any other compiler) from within a terminal works as expected.

Also, for larger tex documents (multiple chapters), the instance also freezes when \input is used with auto-completion to add new files.

Any ideas?

[PHPirates]

freeze for up to one minute when running tex files.

if some new \input, \usepackage, or larger code fragments are added, PyCharm freezes.

Which one is it, or both? Please describe the steps you can take to reproduce the issue in detail.

If you add an \input-like statement, then TeXiFy needs to recalculate the file set at some point, but this should generally take one or two seconds for a small and like ten seconds for a really big project with hundreds of files (you can time it by looking at when the inspections finish). In any case it shouldn't freeze the UI, of course.

Texify: 0.7.x

That's not a valid version, I assume you are using 0.7.9 then? Even though the last digit in the version indicates (minor) bug fixes, those may still be relevant.

[mogmix]

That's not a valid version, I assume you are using 0.7.9 then? Even though the last digit in the version indicates (minor) bug fixes, those may still be relevant.

What I meant to say is that I tried multiple 0.7.x versions, including the latest 0.7.9, but also 0.7.6. I did not have time to test them all, but rolling back to 0.6.10 fixed the UI-freezing problem.

Which one is it, or both? Please describe the steps you can take to reproduce the issue in detail.

It is not easy to find the definite steps to reproduce the issue, but it always happens at one point while working on a project. For example:

1. Open a project (thesis/book, larger article).
2. Run latexmk via TeXiFy-IDEA config... everything OK.
3. Add or (!) remove a chapter or section with either \include or \input, or even \includeonly.
4. Sometimes, the auto-complete to find the file path already freezes the UI for about 30 s.
5. Then, running latexmk freezes the UI for up to a minute.
6. Repeated runs afterwards work fine until I make I make an \input change again (even if I remove all output files)

During the UI-freeze, my CPU spikes (2,3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5). Memory should not be an issue; the memory indicator shows only up to 25% utilisation.

I tried to reproduce this with a minimum example, but it seems to happen only for larger projects. There were instances this issue also happened with loading new \usepackage, but only sporadically.

[PHPirates]

Thanks, so this seems to be related to the file cache indeed.
Can you given an indication how large the project is, what is the order of the number of tex files (or lines, if they are very big)?
The problem is that I can't reproduce the issue with a project consisting of about a hundred files and ten thousand lines, so I have to do a bit of guessing here.

Which LaTeX distribution are you using?

What would show me the problem immediately is a sampling snapshot, as for example created by visualvm: https://github.com/Hannah-Sten/TeXiFy-IDEA/wiki/Contributing-to-TeXiFy#debugging-performance-issues over the time a little before and during the freeze.

[mogmix]

Can you given an indication how large the project is, what is the order of the number of tex files (or lines, if they are very big)?
Currently in a similar order, between 10-50 files and 1k-5k lines.

Which LaTeX distribution are you using?
TeX Live 2021, tlmgr updated to latest.

Here are some updated things I came across yesterday:

1. Did a fresh PyCharm install to latest version, and TeXiFy latest version.
2. First ~10 min. working on the project everything worked fine. Then the known UI-freeze issue happened again.
3. Rolled back to 0.6.10 --> UI-freeze issue disappeared.
4. However, I was experiencing full CPU usage (machine got really hot, burned my fingers) and slow IDE when using the bibtex \cite key suggestions... (general IDE problem maybe?)
5. Updated TeXiFy to 07.9 again, restarted the machine.
6. Since then (about 2h of working), all seems to be working for now. No high CPU usage, no freezes.

Not sure, how long this will last. If I experience the issue again, I will try to do the snapshot.

[mogmix]

No new issues to report :)

I am now using the latest versions for PyCharm (2021.2.1 and Texify (0.7.9). I am guessing the IDE was giving the CPU a hard time, which resolved itself by fiddling around with the versions and fresh install.

I'll mark this as answered, until or if it happens again.

Thanks for the support!