Timeline hangs when switching between Timeline and Spreadsheet views

Bug Reports
#1

Platform: Windows
OS Version: 10
OS Language Setting: UK English

Aeon Timeline
Version: 3.0.22
Shell Version: 3.0.22
Opening Mode: Editor
Operating System: Windows 10

Problem Description + Screenshots

My file currently has 234 events imported from Excel, which I am working through, setting appropriate dates and times for the story line, switching to Timeline view to check their relative positions and back to Spreadsheet to scroll to the next event I’m working on (“plot” and “character” events overlap, so I can’t simply work through them sequentially).

Occasionally when switching into Spreadsheet view, the app hangs (I have caught Task Manager reporting 100% CPU utilisation by “System Interrupts” on one occasion) displaying a blank (black) window. It will close down tidily (and - fortunately! - prompt me to save the file), and on reloading will correctly display the Spreadsheet view I was trying to reach before it hung.

Steps to reproduce

From Timeline focused View, click on Spreadsheet

  • Are you able to reproduce this bug reliably?
    No

  • Can you make this bug happen with a clean timeline file?
    It has never happened with a clean file, only after I’ve made at least one change and not saved.

  • Does it only happen with a specific timeline file?
    I only have one file.

Any relevant files?

I will send it.

#2

Although switching between views (especially the spreadsheet one) is resource-heavy (maybe too much? It should work on visible items only, IMHO, this way the total number of items wouldn’t affect the performance.) the kind of hang you are experiencing looks like it’s your machine “fault”.

To be fair, it’s a 50:50 fault between your machine and Aeon. The former for not being powerful enough, the latter for being a resource hog. Maybe you have too little memory?

On a 6gen quad-core@2.6Ghz laptop straight from the Mesozoic era, equipped with 16 GB of RAM, it takes three to four seconds to switch between views for a timeline with 350+ events.

Matt

#3

This kind of thing can depend on both the size of the timeline file and the specs of the machine. We are currently working on improvements to the overall system that hopefully will reduce hangs like this occurring.

1 Like
#4

This hasn’t happened since the 3.1.5 update, and I’m aware 16GB isn’t particularly high spec these days, but I run several other resource-hungry apps, none of which misbehave. It’s good to know you’re working on performance; scrolling response both in spreadsheet and timeline views can be quite laggy.