Slow to no response in Office 2010, Windows 10.

[GuruSR]

Steps to reproduce:

Watched as user demonstrated what it is doing, user then went to Open Word 2010 and Excel 2010, write something, push Alt for the shortcut key strip to show, most times no voice, work around was to push the key the user wanted and then the menu would show, again, no voice, had to arrow up to scroll backwards from the bottom of the menu up to "Save", then when pushing enter on Save, the "Save As" dialogue would show up, no notification of that either.

Actual behavior:

The voice would randomly or not at all, produce the necessary information on the tab strip, menus, open dialogues of Office 2010 products on Windows 10 and in some cases, within the edit area of them can lag up to a minute or two, even on an empty file.

Expected behavior:

Reasonable delay between activity of user and voice feedback.

System configuration

Intel NUC with an Celeron J3455 processor, 4GB ram, 240GB SSD.

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA is installed and set for usage on startup from the login screen onward.

NVDA version:

NVDA 2018.3, untested later versions to avoid issues with other things not working. The user can at least manage the machine at present.

Windows version:

Windows 64-bit build 1809.

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Office 2010, Word, Excel, Powerpoint.

Other information about your system:

Most systems in environments where the user or company have a limited budget, machines of this speed are purchased and used in office environments for cost effectiveness. Sadly, the versions of NVDA used on these machines, push CPU usage at idle as high as 25%, reducing the overall performance of the machine and the performance of NVDA in responsiveness.

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your PC?

Yes, it happens all the time.

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA?

Not any newer ones, the previous version worked better with 2010, this one introduced the absence of voice on the Open, Save and Save As dialogues, the user has to alt tab out and back to it for the window to be read.

The user is legally blind, is using a standard qwerty 101 keyboard, with no mouse usage, in fact I have turned some of the mouse controls off on NVDA so when users are using it outside of main use are using it, won't interfere with the normal usage by just the keyboard by having the mouse hovering over something repeating something that is not in context.

Wanted logs:

Open and Save As.txt Open and Save Snapshot.txt

The Snapshot mentioned, is reading the Open and Save As, but missed dialogues in Thunderbird.

[josephsl]

Hi, I understand that it might be a bit uneasy to do this, but can you try using 2019.1 beta 1 as a portable copy and see if it does make a difference? Thanks.

[GuruSR]

I'm an I.T., so I am the I.T. for a location with the blind person, I'd have to visit the site to test it, they're not present this week, so I'll have to wait until next week to do so, when it is convenient.

[Adriani90]

Could please try following?

1. Open nvda menu
2. Go to "tools"
3. Rund the com registration fixing tool.

But I guess the problem is caused by an addin which is installed in MS Word or MS Excel. Try to disable addins in MS Office and see if the issue is still occuring. If yes, then I would reinstall NVDA from scratch. Is this issue only in Office? Or is it occuring in other programs as well?

[DrSooom]

@GuruSR: Disable the option "Editor revisions" in the Document Settings in NVDA. Maybe this could help here too.

[GuruSR]

I tried the com registration fixing tool, along with some of the other suggestions except the "Editor revisions", though I am not sure any of these are going to help. The actual program was stalling itself, unsure what from, but the NVDA tray icon was unresponsive for a whole minute and during that time no voice was happening. I was remoted into the machine and saw the task manager, it was showing 16% CPU usage and using CPU sorting, NVDA was nowhere to be seen in that list as it wasn't using any CPU time so it was far down on the list. When it did come back up, I was able to use the com registration and restarted the machine for the person, then it was working again. I'll let everyone know here if the issue returns, but what was used was a single Excel sheet (had addresses, names and such on it, was a database of people basically, no macros), not sure now large it was, but the machine was at 16% CPU usage with it open, and it was the only user program open.

[DrSooom]

You should take a look at all processes of all users in the Task Manager (admin privileges required).

[GuruSR]

@DrSooom, umm. Cmd in Admin mode, running TASKMGR from that prompt, I see everything. Normally the threads with respect to NVDA are hovering up at the top when set to CPU usage highest to lowest, though during this NVDA not responding, they weren't in the top 10-15, meaning it was stuck waiting on something else, wouldn't even respond to the right click on the tray icon for a good minute. And the CPU usage in the Task Manager from Vista and upward, lists the full CPU usage, with the option to show system usage. Com registration did nothing to solve it, will attempt that "Editor revisions" setting next chance I am able to remote in to that machine while the user is present and having the issue, to see if it solves it, though don't expect anything from that, it was clearly waiting for something else and hung waiting.

[Adriani90]

hey @GuruSR which programs are in the autostart? Which programs are booting together with the Windows? If there is something with MS Office, please disable it. I had a similar issue some months ago and it made my machine unusable until I found what it was. It was a service in services.msc related to Office which really overloaded my processor. Can you have a look maybe you find alos such a service? As far as I am understanding the issue occurs only when an office program is open. Right?

[Adriani90]

Please test with NVDA 2019.1.1.

[GuruSR]

Tried "Editor revisions", did nothing, Excel seems to be the biggest burden, seems it is stuck in a WaitForObject which causes all of NVDA's user space to drop to 0 CPU usage (obviously), making the NVDA tray icon "dead to the user", I am not on location, will have to attempt to remote install 2019.1.1 when I can sometime soon, hopefully this will solve the issues, if not, I'll certainly hear about it.

As for Autostart, these are systems within a non-profit charity, there isn't anything running in them that isn't necessary, all of the Office services were shut off due to Windows 10 being present, as Windows 7+ offer Microsoft updates directly from Windows Update (properly, usually) and are pushed when necessary.

[GuruSR]

2019.1.1 seems to not have made any difference yet, there still is a large delay on the "Save As" dialogue box when just doing so from an empty document. At least the system is showing NVDA as having some CPU usage, But it now opened up a crash with NVDA's speech synthesizer change, crashes NVDA (close and restart, no settings save). I'll post the bug momentarily.

[GuruSR]

The crash of the synthesizer was fixed after a restart, but the issue is now, the "Save As" dialogue is not being read period, open Excel 2010, Alt key, F key, A key (Save As), window opens silently. IT will read it if I move the mouse, but not if I don't use the mouse.

There appears to be an issue with "Follow system focus", as the main window for the Save As isn't being seen as "New" and is not reading it.

[GuruSR]

The way the user has been able to hear the file dialogues in Office 2010, is using the alt and tab keys until they hear the program they are in and then letting go of it. I'm testing it now, the issues are slow to no response from the dialog, 2019.1.1 has no response.

I have all Mouse tracking off.

[GuruSR]

Just tried Narrator with NVDA, Narrator reads the file dialogues, NVDA will not.

[Adriani90]

@GuruSR I am testing in Excel 2010 with Nvda 2019.1.1 but I cannot reproduce the issue with the save as dialog. Could you please check following?

1. In NVDA's settings under object presentation: is the checkbox "report object descriptions" enabled?
2. Could you please install the NVDA addon bluetooth audio and the addon windows 10 apps essentials and check if the issues are still occuring? The addons can be found here: Bluetooth audio: https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/BluetoothAudio.en.html

Win10 apps: https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/wintenApps.en.html

Also please make sure that the window is maximized in Office when trying to reproduce the issues.

If all these steps do not help, then I think you should try to install MS Office again. I suppose there is a com dll in the system which is not registered properly. I had such a problem with Firefox some months ago and I had to reinstall my whole system to solve that. But I hope this is not the case here.

[Adriani90]

Could you please also write which addons are installed in NVDA currently? You can see the list of installed NVDA addons by going to NVDA menu / tools / addons manager.

[GuruSR]

No addons are installed in Office or NVDA. Why would I be wanting to install Bluetooth Audio, makes little to no sense to use that as the audio cable goes into the monitor so the user can plug headphones in to the monitor (which they have for years) and is comfortable doing so.

As stated, I tried Narrator and NVDA, NVDA would always read the section first, then Narrator would repeat, NVDA would not recognize the Save As or Open dialogue in Office 2010.

The "Report Object Descriptions" is on. Believe most of that section was on, but I am not on site anymore. The voices being used are not Espeak, the user was comfortable with the Microsoft voices. Could you possibly post the 2 settings files you're using, I'll get the machine up in the morning and look at it remotely to see those files, as I believe the person is not there this week, but I could be wrong.

[GuruSR]

One other notice, before I turned the mouse tracking completely off, moving the mouse over that window, NVDA would read it, but not when it was opened by keyboard only and the mouse was not moved over it. If Alt-Tab to another program and then back, it reads the window properly, seems to me that the system caret is not being recognized as moving from a main window to a child window. Sounds like NVDA cannot find the window or is not noticing the child window as a "change" because somewhere it's seeking the parent before testing the hWnd of the foreground window.

[DrSooom]

@GuruSR: Thanks for your last post. I sometimes have the same behavior with Microsoft Office 2010 after pressing F12 (Save as...). Pressing Alt+Tab twice solves this issue of non-recognized opened dialog by NVDA. And before you're going to repair/totally re-install Microsoft Office 2010, please create a full image-based backup of the whole system first.

[GuruSR]

Not reformatting a system to solve an issue with any piece of software, it is like shooting a horse for having scraped a knee. NVDA is not seeing the window, but the Narrator does, means it isn't an issue with the system or Office 2010, NVDA is simply (code wise), not seeing a "change" of the system caret or window change, unless the mouse is moved over it, then the mouse movement finds it, so clearly it is a coding issue with the system caret tracking, as it is showing the cursor flashing in the file dialogue's file name area, but it isn't reading it.

@DrSooom, try turning the Narrator on, you'll hear NVDA first, then a second repeat with Narrator, you'll see F12 works perfectly fine with only Narrator as NVDA doesn't seem to see the change.

[GuruSR]

(NVDA.ini)

schemaVersion = 2
[upgrade]
[update]
    autoCheck = False
    allowUsageStats = False
    askedAllowUsageStats = True
    startupNotification = True
[general]
    language = Windows
    saveConfigurationOnExit = False
    askToExit = False
    playStartAndExitSounds = True
    loggingLevel = INFO
    showWelcomeDialogAtStartup = False
[speech]
    synth = sapi5
    outputDevice = Microsoft Sound Mapper
    [[espeak]]
        voice = en
        variant = max
        rate = 30
        pitch = 40
        inflection = 75
        volume = 100
    [[sapi5]]
        voice = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens\TTS_MS_EN-US_ZIRA_11.0
        volume = 100
        rate = 75
[braille]
    [[noBraille]]
        port = ""
[presentation]
    reportTooltips = True
    reportKeyboardShortcuts = False
    reportObjectDescriptions = True
    reportObjectPositionInformation = True
    guessObjectPositionInformationWhenUnavailable = True
[virtualBuffers]
    autoPassThroughOnCaretMove = True
    passThroughAudioIndication = False
[keyboard]
    speakTypedWords = True
    beepForLowercaseWithCapslock = False
    speakTypedCharacters = False
    useCapsLockAsNVDAModifierKey = True
    useNumpadInsertAsNVDAModifierKey = False
    speechInterruptForCharacters = False
[documentFormatting]
    autoLanguageSwitching = True
    reportRevisions = False
[uwpOcr]
    language = en-US

(Gestures.ini)
[globalCommands.GlobalCommands]
increaseSynthSetting = kb(desktop):control+numlock+numpadplus
decreaseSynthSetting = kb(desktop):control+numlock+numpadminus

For testing purposes if anyone is attempting to track this.

[DrSooom]

I forgot to mention that I'm still on Win7x64. Sorry. (Win10-VMs aren't set up.)

But one more tip/try: Wait one or two minutes after logon and then restart NVDA. Then launch Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint 2010 and press F12. Any changes?

[GuruSR]

I am not on-site, so I cannot test anything with that system. I have restarted NVDA a few times to see if things would fix themselves, it hasn't. It got worse from 2018.4 to 2019.1.1, it won't read the window at all anymore, it would partially do so with the Save As dialogue if you wanted to wait a minute or two (to a blind person, the computer has crashed). I would rather find out if the authors have checked over the system caret code to ensure that the handle being addressed during only keyboard usage is indeed not looking at the parent hWnd of the foreground window.

[josephsl]

Hi,

!@MichaelDCurran,sorry to take your eyes off Threshold, but can you take a look at what might be happening?

Let's try something to see if it is indeed caret or not: can you try the following two things for us please:

1. Ask the user to use a synthesizer other than SAPI5. First, try with Espeak, and then switch to Windows OneCore and see if that makes a difference (probably not, but at least we've tried).
2. Please have the user restart with debug logging enabled (to do that, open Run dialog and type "nvda -r --debug-logging" without quotes and press Enter), use Microsoft Excel, reproduce the problem, then copy and paste the log as an attachment to this issue (to do that, once the problem is reproduced, do NOT exit NVDA; instead, press Insert+F1 to open log viewer, copy everything, and paste the whole thing as an attachment). Once that's done, ask the user to restart NVDA.

In regards to the second item: we need a debug log to narrow down the problem a bit further. Also, contrary to Daniel's suggestion, both add-ons won't resolve the problem.

Thanks.

[DrSooom]

@josephsl: @Adriani90 suggested these add-ons – that wasn't me. I also don't understand how they should help here. But you're right, a logfile with debug logging level will help here the best.

@GuruSR: Normally NVDA starts after logon. The user should just wait until everything has launched after the logon. I didn't suggest to quit NVDA for one to two minutes – I suggested to restart NVDA after those one to two minutes. Furthermore CTRL+ALT+N should be already allocated to the NVDA's shortcut icon on the Windows Desktop – if you have chosen this option during the installation process.

[josephsl]

Hi, yep, apologies for not checking who said what. Thanks.

[Adriani90]

Ok to clarify, the description of the bluetooth audio addon might be confusing. This addon does not apply only for bluetooth but for every sound card and every king of pairing regardless if it is by cable or bluetooth. I had this issues with windows not being reported by NVDA and I discovered it was because my sound card changed to standby after one or two seconds making the speech on mute. after pressing alt+tab, NVDA started reporting again. My suggestions are not just noise, they have a certain purpose, namely to be sure that some causes can certainly be excluded. That's why I propose these things. @GuruSR if you want to test those things it is helpful for us. If not, then sorry but this is a very specific issue which cannot be reproduced by everyone on Windows 10. I have consulted several users and I cannot confirm this. Narator behaves different when it comes to target the sound card when comparing to NVDA. That's why I proposed you to test bluetooth audio. To make sure that I am not completely on the wrong trip, @novalis7747, @bdorer, @ruifontes, @fernando Jose Silva, @lukaszgo1, @pranavlal, could you please test on MS Excel 2010 if save as dialog is reported for you when pressing alt, then f, then a?

I tried every test environment possible, from Windows 7 until Windows 10 and I cannot reproduce this issue. also NVDA is not hanging when attempting to save. In my opinion, this is a very specific issue which might be solved if NVDA would be reinstalled from scratch and if all com DLLs are registered properly.

[Adriani90]

Every software might have some problems some time, At least trying to reinstall it and trying to reproduce the issue afterwards is a step that would be logical in my opinion.

[Adriani90]

Anyway, @GuruSR could you please install the last NVDA alpha version and see if you hear a error sound when trying to open the save as dialog? If you hear an error sound, could you please upload the log file as suggested by @josephsl above? The last NVDA alpha version is here: https://ci.appveyor.com/api/buildjobs/k2pit1g3ugsp1bvp/artifacts/output/nvda_snapshot_alpha-17252,7e26d874.exe

[Adriani90]

@GuruSR if you reinstall NVDA, after remoing the current NVDA version from the system, please do following:

1. Press Windows+r
2. Type %appdata%
3. Delete the folder called "NVDA

After deleting the folder, please install NVDA again and try to reproduce the issue.

[ruifontes]

Can't test... I do not have access to Office 2010... In Office 2019 no problems...

Rui Fontes

Às 00:26 de 18/05/2019, Adriani90 escreveu:

Ok to clarify, the description of the bluetooth audio addon might be confusing. This addon does not apply only for bluetooth but for every sound card and every king of pairing regardless if it is by cable or bluetooth. I had this issues with windows not being reported by NVDA and I discovered it was because my sound card changed to standby after one or two seconds making the speech on mute. after pressing alt+tab, NVDA started reporting again. My suggestions are not just noise, they have a certain purpose, namely to be sure that some causes can certainly be excluded. That's why I propose these things. @GuruSR https://github.com/GuruSR if you want to test those things it is helpful for us. If not, then sorry but this is a very specific issue which cannot be reproduced by everyone on Windows 10. I have consulted several users and I cannot confirm this. Narator behaves different when it comes to target the sound card when comparing to NVDA. That's why I proposed you to test bluetooth audio. To make sure that I am not completely on the wrong trip, @Novalis7747 https://github.com/Novalis7747, @bdorer https://github.com/bdorer, @ruifontes https://github.com/ruifontes, @fernando https://github.com/fernando Jose Silva, @lukaszgo1 https://github.com/lukaszgo1, @pranavlal https://github.com/pranavlal, could you please test on MS Excel 2010 if save as dialog is reported for you when pressing alt, then f, then a?

I tried every test environment possible, from Windows 7 until Windows 10 and I cannot reproduce this issue. also NVDA is not hanging when attempting to save. In my opinion, this is a very specific issue which might be solved if NVDA would be reinstalled from scratch and if all com DLLs are registered properly.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/9374?email_source=notifications&email_token=ADZAPRXE2W3VRBV3JD5V333PV45KXA5CNFSM4G6QD2U2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODVWCFYY#issuecomment-493626083, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADZAPRVXD44C4CT3CMVWNFTPV45KXANCNFSM4G6QD2UQ.

[pranavlal]

I do not have access to office 2010 so cannot help.

-----Original Message----- From: Adriani90 notifications@github.com Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 4:57 AM To: nvaccess/nvda nvda@noreply.github.com Cc: pranavlal pranav.lal@gmail.com; Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Slow to no response in Office 2010, Windows 10. (#9374)

Ok to clarify, the description of the bluetooth audio addon might be confusing. This addon does not apply only for bluetooth but for every sound card and every king of pairing regardless if it is by cable or bluetooth. I had this issues with windows not being reported by NVDA and I discovered it was because my sound card changed to standby after one or two seconds making the speech on mute. after pressing alt+tab, NVDA started reporting again. My suggestions are not just noise, they have a certain purpose, namely to be sure that some causes can certainly be excluded. That's why I propose these things. @GuruSR https://github.com/GuruSR if you want to test those things it is helpful for us. If not, then sorry but this is a very specific issue which cannot be reproduced by everyone on Windows 10. I have consulted several users and I cannot confirm this. Narator behaves different when it comes to target the sound card when comparing to NVDA. That's why I proposed you to test bluetooth audio. To make sure that I am not completely on the wrong trip, @Novalis7747 https://github.com/Novalis7747 , @bdorer https://github.com/bdorer , @ruifontes https://github.com/ruifontes , @fernando https://github.com/fernando Jose Silva, @lukaszgo1 https://github.com/lukaszgo1 , @pranavlal https://github.com/pranavlal , could you please test on MS Excel 2010 if save as dialog is reported for you when pressing alt, then f, then a?

I tried every test environment possible, from Windows 7 until Windows 10 and I cannot reproduce this issue. also NVDA is not hanging when attempting to save. In my opinion, this is a very specific issue which might be solved if NVDA would be reinstalled from scratch and if all com DLLs are registered properly.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/9374?email_source=notifications&email_token=ACCF2A2AJPO2WXWBDKBKXZLPV45K7A5CNFSM4G6QD2U2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODVWCFYY#issuecomment-493626083 , or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACCF2AYIIG2Y7G3VRP2KO6LPV45K7ANCNFSM4G6QD2UQ . https://github.com/notifications/beacon/ACCF2AYL2XJYMFKCAX7XKHLPV45K7A5CNFSM4G6QD2U2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODVWCFYY.gif

[DrSooom]

I couldn't reproduce this issue with NVDA alpha-17252,7e26d874 (running from the installer) in Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Excel 2010 on Win7x64 by pressing Alt, D, T (German GUI, lead to "Save as...") or just F12 on my Stand_PC during a quick test. (Microsoft Office 2010 isn't installed on my NUC. And I have also to mention that most of the time I'm just using Microsoft Outlook 2010 followed by a hand full Excel-Sheets. The rest of Microsoft Office 2010 is used less than five times a year.)

Regarding audio: Updating the Realtek Audio Driver, if such hardware is used, should be performed as well. But I don't think that this helps here. We really have to wait for the logfile.

[lukaszgo1]

I also cannot reproduce this on Excel 2010 running on Windows 7 x64. @GuruSR Is the installed version of Office 32 or 64 bit? low-end hardware as these never worked well with NVDA unfortunately.

[GuruSR]

Finally back at my office, I am unable to test the machine in question until Thursday May 23rd at round 10AM EST, so I can obtain the log file then, I can clear out the %appdata% for NVDA and run a test version of the latest snapshot when I am present to actually hear the sound or not. The dialogues are an issue with both Open and Save As, not just the Save As. I cannot test Bluetooth but can install the addon and retry it, but seeming as how the mouse tracking instantly voiced that Open dialogue leads me to believe it isn't an audio fading issue. I will do the log here when I am there, as I'll have access to this thread while I am there.

As for this machine being "low-end", it isn't, most systems these days are 1.1GHz dual to quad core machines aimed at business for long battery life with cores that jump to way up in their 2GHz range (which this one gets to) and is considered business capable for standard "office work". An under-powered machine would be any machine less than DDR3 as laptops are still being made with DDR3. NVDA responds poorly on large Excel sheets left open for 10+ minutes with no work, the person has a seeing eye dog and has to take it out for, "you know" and when the user gets back, NVDA isn't responding, again, I'll try a file when that user returns from holidays and tells me what files to try this with. I can log that as well.

The system has all up-to-date drivers for Windows 10 and I am certain the audio is quite stable.

So I will on that Thursday, log the Open, then close, post it, do Save As, then close, post it. Open the file that causes issues in Excel and leave it for 15 minutes, then try anything, move caret around, Save As. The user uses Alt, then arrow keys to get to File and then to Save, doesn't use shortcuts, most times after the delay, the information doesn't announce, when that happened last time I was there, NVDA was showing 0% CPU usage which it never does, was stuck waiting for an object for a solid minute, Tray Icon was also dead. Hopefully this logging will help with that as well.

Office is 32bit, since the original systems installed were a mix of 64 and 32, so 32bit was used throughout as Microsoft recommended against 64bit as it had problems at the time of install.

[Adriani90]

Ok that could explain why people many people cannot reproduce it because most people tested with 64bit on 64bit system or 32bit version on 64 or 32bit system. I can imagine that there is a com dll not included in the com registration fixing tool which does not register properly on your system. If you say it's a mix of 64bit and 32bit system, this could be fairly heavy to find out exactly which com dll could cause this.

[lukaszgo1]

I believe by mix he means that he has Office 32-bit installed on 64-bit version of Windows. Very common setup I am doing exactly the same and from another tickets I believe @DrSooom is also using 32-bit Office on an 64-bit Windows. There is one more thing worth checking @GuruSR Could you please change power plan to high performance? It often makes huge difference when working with NVDA.

[DrSooom]

@lukaszgo1: Correct. To be exactly: Microsoft Office 2010 (14.0.7232.5000, 32-Bit, SP2) on Win7x64.

Regarding the Task Manager: Take a look at the menu "View", where you can change the update speed. Maybe the auto-update process was hold. Therefore its systray icon isn't updated too.

Regarding COMRegistrationFixes: This folder only contains the file "oleaccProxy.reg" with the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface{618736E0-3C3D-11CF-810C-00AA00389B71}] @="IAccessible" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface{618736E0-3C3D-11CF-810C-00AA00389B71}\ProxyStubClsid32] @="{03022430-ABC4-11D0-BDE2-00AA001A1953}"

Executing/Opening this reg file will only add these two registry entries to the Windows Registry. If they already exist, nothing will be changed. Does its corresponding menu entry in the NVDA menu do more than opening that reg file? As written in earlier issues, adding a new section regarding this menu entry to the manual would be appreciated. (It's still missing in NVDA 2019.1.1.)

[fernando-jose-silva]

My opinion is that this nvda problem of not announcing open windows on some machines is a chronic problem that exists for so many years, I've seen on so many machines. Strange that this could never be solved. My machine is very different is with windows 10 18362.113 and office 16.0.11601.20204 and I was able to reproduce this right now. I just opened a document in the word and pressed f12, the save window as it was opened and the nvda was silent. What changes on my machine is that this only occurs the first time the save window as it appears, then everything works fine until the notebook is restarted next time. follows the log: saveas.txt

[GuruSR]

But the user in question is not using CTRL+S, is using Alt, then F, then scrolling down to Save As and pressing Enter.

Also, the build is apparently reporting the Save As and Open dialogues fine, but, NVDA is still getting caught on some object while Office 2010 Excel is open and the user has left the machine to take the dog for "you know", upon returning, the machine "has crashed" because the user cannot see the screen (obviously) and there isn't any voice, so has to have someone come in to assist. This happens more than once a day, but always when at least 1 Excel sheet is open. No screen saver and the screen will not power save (for obvious reasons), my only thought could be the Auto Save is causing issues with NVDA, making NVDA wait on a COM object, as I did see the situation, normally sorted by CPU (Descending), NVDA is around the top 5, during that freeze, it was down near the bottom at 0%. NVDA's tray icon was unresponsive to mouse over or mouse clicks for close to a minute. If the log could be activated "during normal use", then when it happens, I could instruct someone to go into the room and right click on the icon and when it comes up, turn the log on verbose and leave it for a few minutes. The logging seems to be user unfriendly when it comes to someone who cannot see the screen nor understands what logging means! I'd rather have it so that the log could be added to an outgoing email, so the user could email it to me and I post it here. Or at least offer a "Copy to Clipboard" button on the View Log window for ease of use for the user.

[Adriani90]

@GuruSR when NVDA freezes, is there any other application which crashes at the same time? If yes, after terminating that applicatoin, does NVDA start talking again?

Regarding logging. With ctrl+nvda+f1 you can easily Display the logging window and you can save it like any other document. Even if NVDA freezes, after the freeze is gone you can press ctrl+nvda+f1 and all things are saved to it, also the keys that you pressed during the freeze. You just have to enable "debug" in NVDA's general Settings.

[Adriani90]

As far as I understand, NVDA does not Crash, it freezes. Right? Could you please try to use it with disabled Network Drivers? I know this is a mess but there were People reporting something similar which was apparently caused by a Network Driver. @qchristensen could you please give some more guidance regarding Network Drivers here? Thanks.

[Adriani90]

Sorry the key stroke for logging window is nvda+f1. Without ctrl. :-)

[Novalis7747]

Short correction to Adriani’s shortcut to open the log viewer, it is just NVDA-F1, not control-NVDA-F1

[Qchristensen]

Re network drives, they can cause a delay, but generally I've found the delay tends to be visual as well as for NVDA (eg, the files / folders take some time to populate in the save dialog even for a sighted user). I've got my Windows 10 set to save documents to my "OneDrive" and I find it can be very slow to bring up save as dialogs compared to dialogs which access local folders, but that's a general thing, not related to NVDA.

NVDA 2019.1.1 definitely should be much more responsive in Excel particularly than earlier versions, so if it's being less responsive, that's concerning.

Given the comment about the user stepping away from the PC for a time and the problems being worse upon returning, I'd be inclined to check the computer's power and sleep settings. Set those to basically never turn anything off (if using the latest Windows 10 update, they've hidden a lot of the controls now in "additional power settings" aside from turning off the monitor and putting the computer to sleep). We have found in the past that these settings could exacerbate sluggishness.

As others have said, a log while replicating this, particularly at debug level, would be very useful here to be able to analyse exactly what is going on and where things are slowing down.

[DrSooom]

It could also be that the HDD was turn off after a few minutes of inactivity. A HDD needs up to 10 seconds to turn on again. Normally you should be able to hear the HDD engine starting. If this is the case, it could take up to 10 seconds until the Open/Save as-Dialog opens. That's normal – but sometimes hard to explain casual users (based on my experiences). Please note that I'm not talking about SSDs.

[GuruSR]

I've not had time to respond, but, the "build" which was posted, is saying the Open and Save As dialogues only after folder population, which is very quick because of the local Documents folder in use, I've suggested they be leaned out for better performance. The machine is a NUC with an SSD in it, so load times are rapid as are saves. The machine's power settings are at max and no sleep of any kind are on the lot of the machines, so none of the issues with respect to power are present, it's merely if Excel is left open when the user goes out with the dog for a "walk", when returning NVDA is unresponsive (Waiting for some COM object or something, timing out after ~60 seconds before repeating, the NVDA icon on the tray is also non-responsive, an End Task is the only way to stop it quickly). If Excel is closed by someone with sight, the speech returns about a minute later and the NVDA tray icon responds as normal as does it show back up with CPU usage in the Task Manager (when it's not responding it is at 0%). My only thought would be possibly the Auto Save of the document open causing grief, while not there to see this happen, I cannot tell.

The machines are stripped down bare (no bloat, nothing unneeded for regular office use is present) and are properly setup to stay active 100% while on, hibernation is off and sleep is disabled (100%, user cannot even cause it). Only actions to the users are Logout and Shutdown, all Sleep functions are disabled on all hardware.

[Adriani90]

Yes, I am also thinking that a com object could be the issue here. But without a log file will be really hard to track what exactly is happening. After the freeze, when NVDA speaks again, press nvda+f1 and save that file and upload it here please.

Otherwise, I am not sure if autosave is the cause here. It depends. Is the folder where excel creates backup copies on a server in your network? In that case, this freeze could be indeed caused by a network driver or so. I am using autosave in Excel at work as well but Excel saves backups locally. I do not have the freeze.

If this occurs also with a blank excel sheet, it could also be caused by a security software installed on the PC. Something like symantec security or so. Is there any security software installed?

[Adriani90]

@GuruSR are you still able to reproduce this issue? Please test with the last alpha version of NVDA. You can get it here: https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/snapshots/

[GuruSR]

@GuruSR are you still able to reproduce this issue? Please test with the last alpha version of NVDA. You can get it here: https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/snapshots/

Due to the pandemic, I can't answer that, I do have direct access remotely to that machine, but I don't want to upset what is currently working (somewhat). Kaspersky is the antivirus in place, the machine is still in use only once a day, not sure if the person using it is actually hitting the issues, which have been happening still, restarts are needed to resolve the issue. When the pandemic is over, it'll be faster to test it then.