Mathcad Prime 10 - Possible Bug - Slow, Frozen, or Cyclic Behaviour

[StuartBruff]

Mathcad Prime (MP) 10 starts to become unusably slow after switching between Mathcad and other applications (even Character Map or its own windows (eg, right-click context or worksheet list drop-down). 

It usually manifests as unresponsiveness after switching back to Mathcad from another app.  Mathcad will freeze, unfreeze, and then freeze again before resuming normal service.  At the moment, though Mathcad is just cycling through freezes and won't let me do anything (including saving the active worksheet).

It seems to happen quicker when I have multiple worksheets open, even if those worksheets do not require saving or have any edit actions that might need undoing.

It happened in the initial MP 10 and in MP 10.0.1.0, but I've noticed it more in MP 10.0.1.0.

Stuart

Edited to add:  My Dell laptop doesn't appear to be overly strained during these freezes.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

I guess that the problem is related to specific mcdx file (containing time-consuming calculations) ...

[StuartBruff]

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@MartinHanak wrote:

Hi,

I guess that the problem is related to specific mcdx file (containing time-consuming calculations) ...

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Possibly, but I don't think there were any particularly time-consuming calculations going on most of the time it has happened.  I did note that Mathcad was taking up about 4GiB RAM when I checked during one of its "absences", but my Dell was still not using much more than 16 GiB out of 32 GiB.  

Stuart

[MartinHanak]

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@StuartBruff wrote:

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@MartinHanak wrote:

Hi,

I guess that the problem is related to specific mcdx file (containing time-consuming calculations) ...

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Possibly, but I don't think there were any particularly time-consuming calculations going on most of the time it has happened.  I did note that Mathcad was taking up about 4GiB RAM when I checked during one of its "absences", but my Dell was still not using much more than 16 GiB out of 32 GiB.  

Stuart

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Hi,

if you upload some mcdx file then I can check MP10 behaviour on my notebook.

[StuartBruff]

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@MartinHanak wrote:

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if you upload some mcdx file then I can check MP10 behaviour on my notebook.

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Thanks, Martin.

Please try the workbook attached to this post: https://community.ptc.com/t5/Mathcad/Vectorization-Function-Performance-Comparison/m-p/980793/highlight/true#M214670

I'm trying to fix the problem of not halting recursion when depth is greater than the nested depth, so my current version is less than fully functional (ie, I've broke it).

Stuart

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

I downloaded dev - Vectorization Function Performance 02.mcdx and opened it in MP 10.0.0.0. 

MP 10.0.0.0 consumed 442 MB RAM

I did not met Not Responding status.

I assigned MP 10.0.0.0 process to single processor core. During moving scrollbox quickly by mouse the core load went to 100%.

[StuartBruff]

Thanks, Martin. 

That core loading is interesting. How many worksheets did you have open at once?  I tend to have several open at a time so that I copy code from to another, maybe tinker with the code to meet a new situation and paste the code back to its original worksheet.   I think I had 7 worksheets open the last time the laptop started playing up (or down, in performance);  Mathcad said it was using about 3.5 GiB and the rest of the processes on the laptop were taking up about 13 GiB, so just over 16 GiB out 32 GiB being used and no evidence of hight peaks.

Stuart

[MartinHanak · Accepted solution]

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@StuartBruff wrote:

Thanks, Martin. 

That core loading is interesting. How many worksheets did you have open at once?  I tend to have several open at a time so that I copy code from to another, maybe tinker with the code to meet a new situation and paste the code back to its original worksheet.   I think I had 7 worksheets open the last time the laptop started playing up (or down, in performance);  Mathcad said it was using about 3.5 GiB and the rest of the processes on the laptop were taking up about 13 GiB, so just over 16 GiB out 32 GiB being used and no evidence of hight peaks.

Stuart

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Hi,

my todays test ...

• I created 14 copies of dev - Vectorization Function Performance 02.mcdx
• I started MP 10.0.0.0
• I opened 14 mcdx files one by one

Conclusions

• at the end MathcadPrime.exe process had 4GB of memory allocated
• each subsequent File > Open dialog took longer to display
• each subsequent mcdx file took longer to load (1st -> 12 seconds, 14th -> 30 seconds)
• it seems to me that 4GB of memory allocated is too much for single MathcadPrime.exe process
  • I think you can open Case at PTC Support and discuss the problem with them

Information

• MP 10.0.0.0 license enables you to start more than one instance of MP 10.0.0.0
  • this means ... instead of opening 7 mcdx files in single instance of MP 10.0.0.0 you can start 7 instances of MP 10.0.0.0 and open single mcdx in each of them
    • unfortunately I do not know if it is possible copy&paste between different instances of MP 10.0.0.0

[StuartBruff]

Thank you very much, Martin. That’s very useful information and a good, concise report.

@DJNewman . Is this something the Development Team would be interested in?

The slow down in performance having several worksheets open at once is quite restrictive (well, at least to the way I work! 😀 ).

Mathcad’s UI slows down to the point where I don’t see what I’ve typed for a few seconds. 

Cheers,

Stuart

[DJNewman]

"I think you can open Case at PTC Support and discuss the problem with them"

I'd recommend going through that process. It lets the team establish benchmarks.

I know that Mathcad R&D is actively working on improving performance for the next few releases.

[LucMeekes]

It is perfectly possible to copy&paste regions between (worksheets open in) different instances of Prime 10.

As a matter of fact it is the only supported way to 'downversion' a Prime worksheet: copying regions over from a Prime N version worksheet (In Prime N) to a Prime N-x version worksheet (in Prime N-x) where x<N.

Success!
Luc