Most Intel i7 CPU's (except for super expensive ones near or over $1000) are 4 cores with hyper threading: hyper threading adds 4 more "logical" cores for a total of 8.  So you have 4 cores that can do just about anything they want at the same time, with 4 more that can do only certain (mostly integer) operations simultaneously.  The hyper threading (4 logical cores) add 15-30% performance in general (to the 4 "real" cores) so you end up with the performance equivalent of a system that has maybe 5 physical cores in the end.

The reason the operating system reports 8 cores (4 physical + 4 logical) is that they want software like QU to know that they should run 8 threads to get the most performance.  In the grand scheme of things, none of this should matter because the operating system should be able to handle 10, 20, 30, or more threads without you losing control or bogging down such that any one of those running threads won't run until you are down to 7 (or 3) so that one is freed up... but that's how your machine is acting.

As soon as you click the "Done" button on that refine window in your video, QU creates 7 threads to build the 7 raw thumbs and cache.  Fred has the same CPU as you and his behaves like mine, and all others I've seen: you get back to the main window and have control immediately.  I don't have a guess right now as to why yours is behaving like the whole machine is locked out until it gets down to only 3 threads remaining.

I would guess that your entire machine is locked down until the raw cache counter gets to 5/7.  To test that, try this: do the same thing you did in your video and while the QU screen is still unresponsive and showing that partial refine screen, try opening another program that isn't already open: like Chrome, FireFox, MS Word, or some other "small" program.  I bet they won't even open until QU gets to that 5/7 on the raw cache counter; in other words, QU is becoming responsive when the machine itself becomes responsive.

Mike

The rabbit hole goes deeper: that's even stranger.    That's the same thing that is happening in QU for you: the refine window won't close.

Fred mentioned video card on the previous page.  I didn't think that could cause this but now I'm beginning to wonder.  Did you check for an update to your video card driver as he suggested?  Another thing I would suggest is temporarily disabling any anti-virus or anti-malware software you are running to see if that makes a difference.

Mike

Thanks Mike.

I have tried all the things you mentioned.

I then re-installed QU17-121 and the problem went away.

I have to go out to take some photos but I'll try to make a video asap and you can see what happens.

Tony

Yes it was going back to the old software that did it.

None of the other actions made any difference.

This is what the old software performs like.

http://www.tonygamble.uk/QimageThumbnails/20170705-082500_2_2.mp4


I have gone back to 18.103. Sometimes it works and sometimes it will not clear that refine screen. With the old 17 software it works without a delay every time. There is a difference. I'll stay with v17 until we work out what the difference is.

I think 18.103 worked for the first time I reverted from v17 - but then became slow. I need more time to confirm this but need to go out now. I'll experiment again later.

Tony

I think 18.103 worked for the first time I reverted from v17 - but then became slow. I need more time to confirm this but need to go out now. I'll experiment again later.

No. It was either luck or bad memory on my part. I have reverted  from v2017 to the latest v2018 and even the first multiple RAW refine was hopelessly slow

2017 does all I need as most of the variations in 2018 are to do with printing. Yes, I use QU for printing but its main use for me is converting RAW files.

Nevertheless I will be fascinated to hear what Mike says he introduced that may be causing my malfunction.

Tony

Is there a reason that, in the old version, you only selected the left two columns of thumbnails: such that when the refine screen appears, there would be no thumbs selected under the refine window?  Since part of the problem is that the refine window doesn't close, what happens when you select the entire top row of thumbs and repeat the multi-refine in the old version with an entire row of thumbs selected: can you post a video of that?

Mike

That helps, thanks.  In this one, it is more apparent that it is building the thumbnails that happen to be under the refine window (in the foreground) before giving control back.  That could be timing (video card/CPU) related.  With that in mind, I just emailed you a link to a beta that may fix the problem.  Could you give that a try and reply here as to whether the beta fixes the problem?

Thanks,
Mike