Interface freezes when dragging and dropping entries to groups after adding entries

[thomaskisler]

I am not sure this is related to other freezing issues, but I think I can reproduce the freeze.

0. Open group dialog
1. Create new bibtex entry
2. Copy and paste bibtex entry into "Bibtex source"
3. Click somewhere into the interface (otherwise the list above the editor is not updated)
4. Search for keyword in the newly created bibtex entry (unfortunately the focus is left on the current entry)
   (optional 4a: Save -> does not change behavior).
5. Drag and drop the entry to a group
6. -> freeze

After killing the process and restart, the group is correctly assigned though and after restart I can assign groups without problem. I am on Ubuntu 16.04 and using JRE "1.8.0_45".

If I can help you any further in finding the issue, I'd be more than happy. I really like using JabRef for my literature management.

[lenhard]

Hi @thomaskisler

You are using a rather old JRE, but that is probably not the reason for the freeze. So far, practically all freezes on Linux systems have been down to the look and feel. The GTK look and feel seems to have some serious problems. Are you using that one, and if so could you please change to another one (e.g. plastic) and check if the freezing problem goes away?

[thomaskisler]

Thanks for the quick response. I was using "javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel", did also try "com.jgoodies.looks.plastic.Plastic3DLookAndFeel" and because I felt lucky also "com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel". But the error still occurs.

With "com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel", believe or not, every second time it already crashes at step 3 (tried 3 times).

[Siedlerchr]

Have you tried updating your JRE`? JabRef requires at least v.60

[wbmacleod]

This version of Jabref is unusable for serious work. I have a large database of about 4000 entries - I really rely on the group feature of jabfer, but it constantly freezes. Not only with drag and drop for groups, but even when editing an entry. I downloaded the latest JRE from oracle on both my linux and Mac, and I have the same problems on both. I would like to go back to jabref 3 if possible - the groups layout is not the same for both.

Also, in jabref 3 the auto linking of files works - but no longer works in this version. At this point we need to have a branch that maintains 3 since it also serious work with some way to maintain compatibility of groups forma with 4 until 4 become functional? wbm.

[wbmacleod]

Two additional comments on this. First, jabref does not seem to work with JDK 9. Second, I found that on the Mac using the jar file (java -jar Jabref.jar) works much better than the native Mac version with JDK 8.

[lenhard]

That's correct, JabRef does not yet work with Java 9. We still have to accommodate the new module system that came with Java 9.

Regarding a possible JabRef 3 branch: That's not going to happen, as we have zero resources for that. It's hard enough to keep up the current work with the very small team that we are. @wbmacleod You're of course very welcome to step in here. You could fork a v3 branch and backport the features that you want and you could write a group conversion from v4 to v3. We'd really appreciate that!

[wbmacleod]

Well I hope you get 4 sorted out. I have so many projects at moment.. For people like me it is a serious research tool, not a toy. So the current bugs are pretty serious for individuals with large databases. Again what happens is that the program often becomes unresponsive for example when simply opening a file. Somewhere it is doing something that gets trapped waiting. I am guessing it is looking online for something.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 03:28 Jörg Lenhard ***@***.***> wrote: That's correct, JabRef does not yet work with Java 9. We still have to accommodate the new module system that came with Java 9. Regarding a possible JabRef 3 branch: That's not going to happen, as we have zero resources for that. It's hard enough to keep up the current work with the very small team that we are. @wbmacleod <https://github.com/wbmacleod> You're of course very welcome to step in here. You could fork a v3 branch and backport the features that you want and you could write a group conversion from v4 to v3. We'd really appreciate that! — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3304 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABmNkUnW6NdhQradC4scoFul8at8mRoYks5sswWvgaJpZM4P5ZpT> .

-- W. Bentley MacLeod Columbia University in the City of New York wbentleymacleod.wikischolars.columbia.edu

[lenhard]

@wbmacleod We will not "get 4.0 sorted out", unless people actually step in and help. We're all professionals and we're all hopelessly overloaded with work. The current developers are working on JabRef voluntarily and for free, that's just something I'd like to repeat.

I'll not reply to this thread any more.

[thomaskisler]

So maybe we can bring back the discussion back to the original issue and trying to narrow down the error of this particular freeze. I unfortunately did not have the time to update and test the new JRE but will do asap!

[wbmacleod]

When I try to edit a citation jabref just freezes on both the jar version and the Mac version. The control panel reports java as not responding. If you want I can dump the messages from Java when I use the jar file since this is done from a terminal. I would send you my bib file, but it is large and really all my research over the last 20 years…. Let me know what you want in terms of error messages and I will send (though I will soon be on an airplane). Best b. Best b. W Bentley MacLeod Columbia University in the City of New York bentley.macleod@columbia.edu

…

On Oct 16, 2017, at 9:06 AM, thomaskisler ***@***.***> wrote: So maybe we can bring back the discussion back to the original issue and trying to narrow down the error of this particular freeze. I unfortunately did not have the time to update and test the new JRE but will do asap! — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[halirutan]

@wbmacleod If you have a stack trace (the error messages), this would be helpful since we might be able to find what goes wrong. A stack trace looks like the code block in this issue and we can analyze it.

Furthermore, your bibfile and a detailed list of steps (1. click this, 2. click that, ...) to reproduce the freeze is necessary. You should see my mail address in my GitHub profile.

[koppor]

@lharzenetter also has this issue. No output is available. When restarting JabRef and starting from stratch, the minimal example is not reproducible. We'll keep an eye open on that.

[i2000s]

4.0 also freezed on Windows 10 when I clicked the "Generate Key" button. It's reproducible for me with 2000+ articles in my bib file, but may not always happen to other people like this issue. I guess my issue is the same as this issue. I have the following tracking code:

>java -jar JabRef-4.0.jar                           
AI: INFO 19-10-2017 18:08, 23: Configuration file has been successfully found as resource                                                                       
18:08:48.542 [AWT-EventQueue-0] INFO  
org.jabref.logic.importer.OpenDatabase - Opening: E:\References\Archive\Archive.bib                                       
File: grouptree.fxml not found, attempting with camel case                      
File: grouptree.css not found, attempting with camel case                                                                             
AI: TRACE 19-10-2017 18:14, 49: App is throttled, telemetries are blocked from now, for 300 seconds                                     

Missing files? How are they related to generating Keys? In working cases, I also see the missing files, but it runs fine sometimes.

[Siedlerchr]

The freeze is probably coming from the javafx swing interaction. The log messages are not relevant

[Siedlerchr]

@i2000s To reproduce this erorr I need some details:
Do you call generate keys from the context menu or from the menu?
Do you have groups open/assigned, entry editor open?

Coud you please test again with the latest dev version?
http://builds.jabref.org/master/

[tanglebridge]

This affects me too. I suspect this is the same as bug #3345. Another way to produce this: organize some groups (some entries in multiple groups); manually delete a group with the entry editor (i.e. remove a group label from the "groups" tag. I have worked with the recent openjdk and the latest oracle 8 on linux. My database is a remote database.

I think this may be a race condition that results in a lockup.

[koppor]

@wbmacleod We currently have no money to pay someone for that (donations page). No one of the JabRef team gets paid for JabRef. Thus, working on this really depends on the availability of our personal free time. - We really welcome feedback on our volunteer work. In case you can spend some more time (other than reporting issues), we would really like to encourage you to check https://help.jabref.org/en/FAQcontributing - especially the part asking for improvement of our help pages. This would help JabRef getting better as a whole. 🥇 UPDATE: In @Siedlerchr we found a volunteer working on that issue.

[koppor]

Will be fixed with #3765, current state at http://builds.jabref.org/fixdragandrop/.

After it gets merged it, will be available in our maintable-beta, which you can tested at http://builds.jabref.org/maintable-beta/.

[Siedlerchr]

Thank you for reporting this issue. We think, that is already fixed in our development version and consequently the change will be included in the next release.

We would like to ask you to use a development build from https://builds.jabref.org/master and report back if it works for you. Please remember to make a backup of your library before trying-out this version.