2017-11-03 02:50:34

So I've been using NVDA almost exclusively for the last few years.
About 4 months ago, I started using jaws alongside it more for reading various things and that's when I started noticing huge problems and inconsistencies, especially on lower end computers.
This first one is probably the worst, ever. And it happens on everything though it's less prevalent on higher end machines - it doesn't happen nearly as often as on the little guys.

When browsing in windows explorer, NVDA literally stops reading everything. You tab a few times and you get the tree view with this PC. Tab again and you get nothing. Hit backspace and NVDA t only to find you actually have gone back a folder without NVDA reading. Similar story if you use first letter navigation and hit enter on a folder. Also, on lower end machines, browsing folders is simply painful. It's so laggy that I want to do very bad things. I have to wait between each folder - and yes, before anyone says anything, I understand these are lower end computers. But contrary to what NVDA is doing, jaws just...flies through these windows. Is it because of a different way of grabbing API's? I don't know anything about this - but what I do know is it's slowly driving me away from NVDA as a full time screen reader.

This second one usually only happens on lower end computers - we're talking Intel atom x5 z8500, z3740 on a t100, etc. Alt tabbing and holding alt down won't read windows and releasing sometimes won't focus windows. Restarting NVDA in both these instances sometimes helps, sometimes not. It happens frequently if the computer is over 50% used up - oh, and NVDA cuts my batterylife in half on the t100 when I'm using it for no reason.

Both of these are hugely frustrating - I can't even explain how frustrating - and I don't understand why this is even a thing and why more aren't noticing this.
Jaws is slower at just about everything else - responsiveness in general - but when it comes to being consistent, it's always right there. Explorer windows switch lightning quick in comparison and if anyone at all would like a recording showing this I'd be happy to provide one.

I have tried reinstalling, running NVDA with no add ons, everything. Nothing is helping. On this desktop it's okay. Not so much on the little t100 tablet.

I seriously need some help here. Maybe I'm taking this too literal but I don't understand why a screen reader is soo much slower in explorer than another, as well as the other problems I and, so far at least, 3 others that I have talked to  are noticing this.

Can anyone else confirm? And by this, I simply mean running both on a lower end machine. I can almost guarantee you you'll notice a difference, much as I wish I could say otherwise.

thanks

Something something something insert canine related comment here

2017-11-03 04:10:10

You don't need a low-end computer to reproduce this. Mine is an AMD octacore processor with 8 gb of ram, 120 gb ssd. And it does both of these annoying things. I think it has to do with how NVDA interacts with Win10's file explorer and shells. I ran NVDA on much lower spec machines on win7 without one occurrence of these issues. I am not yet at the stage where I reject NVDA fully. I have managed to deal with it at its worst by just using Narator or Jaws, and or waiting it out, as it normally resolves in a couple minutes. I've discovered some patterns of when it occurs, so I try not to use my computer much, while things I know will trigger it are happening. It is really frustrating though, and I am quicker to blame it on Win10 than NVDA, even though NVDA is the only thing I know that has trouble. If you end explorer.exe, alt tabbing should fix itself, at least it does for me. But of course you can't browse files that way, and you don't have a desktop so shortcut keys like control alt n or any others you've set up won't work. You could use another explorer, and I haven't really tried that much. Biggest problem I see with that is that you still wouldn't get a desktop, and if you have Classic Shell your start menu would also go away. Both of which I really do need to have. If there is a way to get these back, even if I have to rebuild everything with a third party shell, I would do that to get rid of this problem, since this isn't the only reason I don't like File Explorer. It just feels less responsive than something like Explorer++ which is the only third party explorer I"ve tried thus far.

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2017-11-03 04:55:40

Hello.

You might want to try writing to the NVDA team.

Here is the link to their contact us page.

https://www.nvaccess.org/contact/

I'm gone for real :)

2017-11-03 05:03:06

For me, the major issue is that, if you run it from an external drive, than you will often get lists saying unselected unselected unselected, until you install a local copy or, even, I believe, put the portable on the local drive.
That's with Xp through 8.1.
This thing your talking about sounds shitty, I haven't experienced it my self, but I don't doubt you, personally i haven't used it on win 10 with a slow machine, only with faster ones and I've had no problems.

2017-11-03 05:14:38

Hi.
It seems to be a problem with UIA more than anything else. To be safe, though, do you have any antivirus installed? Windows Explorer and the header controls with Name etc. are to blame for some of the issues with tabbing. If you press Tab and hear nothing, what do you hear when you press NVDA+Tab?
I hardly press Tab these days in File Explorer to even begin to see any issues with it. Are you running the latest Fall Creator's update? Consider creating a ticket on github, but be warned, be specific because if you merely did what you did in the OP then you certainly can't get the issue fixed.

2017-11-03 05:47:53

Have you tried it with any third party File explorer like Total Commander? That should helps you.

2017-11-03 06:31:37

I'd also be interested to know what voice your using, since I've noticed some lag in interactions with sapi enabled voices on Windows 10 even on a decent machine. This gets  worse when doing something like system updates, though it's general and not specific to Nvda from what I've gathered.
Interestingly Enough, my lady was having a similar issue on windows 7 with nvda, but the problem was simply a full recycle bin, just running C cleaner id the job fine.

I haven't noticed this issue myself either, like Defender I run Nvda on  my windows 10 laptop and desktop with no trouble.
I've also noticed that Nvda is faster at some things than Supernova, though being as I've been unimpressed at Supernova's windows 10 intiration despite the claims of dolphin this isn't surprising.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-03 09:08:09

I've been blaming this on Explorer, since I got awful lag with both Jaws and NVDA back on Vista, but 8.1-10 seems to wind up more like what you're describing. I wound up writing a minimal file explorer of my own to get around this, but it doesn't have anywhere near the features (sorting, zipping/unzipping, etc). When I do need to use features not in mine, the difference in responsiveness is a pest. (I mean, the first time I open the context menu in Explorer, the computer sits there for a few seconds like I told it to start streaming Hd video and update an antivirus all at once. For a context menu.)

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-11-03 13:28:53

interesting enough, I am having the same problem. Also, sometimes it just, crashes when I open task manager, though it may be for my huge list of huge processes witch are present when more details is checked. And, I think that going back one folder would help, or restarting, I am not shure my self.
ps: I am using eloquence as my voice, witch is known to be very slow. For example, it sometimes takes ages for NVDA to load just because I am using eloquence.

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2017-11-03 14:19:01

hi.

Yes, it's true.
NVDA is getting heavier and unstable.
cheers.

2017-11-04 10:43:39

Guys, all that problems can be reported to NVDA's github issue tracker. You don't have to be their authorized tester or registered user to do it. The issue tracker is public.

2017-11-04 12:48:14

I am using windows 10 last update with nvda 2017.3, and I don't have this issue. the only time my nvda crashes is when I force it to, or when a program freezes sometimes..
regarding the task manager, have you tried jaws with it?
you'll get a half second lag while pressing the down arrow to navigate with out forgetting the two seconds lag when you open the processers list. unlike jaws, nvda just lags when you open it, then later you can navigate freely.
My machine is a fast one, so can't really tell how it gos with the slow once, but I assume that you have to expect everything when you run a program on a low performance machine.
Greetings!

2017-11-06 05:46:47

you can just get the classic start menu and msconfig from winaero tweeker. that's what I did. I also got rid of the shitty start menu.

2017-11-06 07:39:01

@mario navarro, NVDA definitely isn't getting "more unstable." Problems like these are mainly problems with Windows 10 and not with NVDA itself; Microsoft's shitty decisions have caused these very issues. The simplest and fastest way to solve this kind of issue is to go back one level and then brows the folder that way; it should resolve itself automatically. NVDA might be getting more heavier on resource usage, but that's primarily because it runs in a Python interpreter, which is out of NVDA's control (unless someone wants to try and discover a compilation method that optimizes Python as fast as native code). Python is pretty damn fast as-is. The slowdowns are there because, as I said, it's running through a Python interpreter and not because NVDA did something like that deliberately. JAWS certainly isn't blazing fast, either, even though it's written in C/C++; as soon as Microsoft released Windows 8/8.1/10 with the new interface and thing, JAWS can be quite sluggish at random times wherever it wants to be, whereas NVDA can be quite fast. Certainly not blazing fast, but blazing fast performance is kinda hard to come by hese days since all of us run hundreds to thousands of tasks simultaneously on a computer.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2017-11-06 08:05:38

Now since they've dropped support for XP and Vista, NVDA would be even faster in performance since they no longer have to care about compatibility with an older os. Additionally, once they switch to Python 3, this will be additional speed boost.

2017-11-06 12:52:54

I haven't problems in windows explorer with NVDA, but Jaws does a various problems to me. I don't understand It.

Ja volim samo kafu sa Rakijom.

2017-11-06 14:00:54

I actually wonder if the fact that I'm running classic shell might be partly why I've not seen these issues. While Nvda does certainly work with the default windows start menu, I definitely wanted the classic one as I  proper program groups etc, however classic Shell also apparently includes a classic windows explorer.

I don't recall any issues with the windows 10 default one before I installed classic shell, indeed I actually like the windows 10 file explorer better than that in windows 7, but since I haven't modified classic shell's default settings for explorer it's probably got the classic view there too.

With respect to task manager, I have noticed on windows 10 that hitting ctrl alt delete brings up the secure desktop which is like the windows login screen and lets you do stuff like switch user, change passwords or even lock everything, so unless you have Nvda set to read the login screens I'm not sure if it would read this and you might be  with something you couldn't interact with.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-06 17:49:50

I recommend zabkats xporer2. Also I believe there was a project aimed at porting NVDA to python3, however don't know about progress. This took a while since NVDA relies on modules that haven't yet been ported.

2017-11-08 22:47:39

I actually haven't noticed the Explorer issue since either NVDA 2016.4, or maybe it was 2017.1. It sucks that people are having these issues though. I would be pissed too if that was happening with any regularity. I unfortunately don't have any low spec machines to try this out on, although I can ask my best friend what his opinion is since he has several that would be classified as such. I don't think he has this problem frequently though or he would have complained to me about it by now. In any case, I agree with others that reporting the issue is probably the best course of action at this point.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2017-11-09 00:30:23

My advice to you is to completely scrap NVDA, delete it off all your computers, and use jaws only. NVDA is not as good.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-11-09 00:36:26

@BlindJedi, uh... have you read the other posts in this topic? JAWS lags just as bad as NVDA does in other areas. And the only thing JAWS has that NVDA doesn't are table view and smart controls. And keyboard locking, a quite unnecessary feature, IMO.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2017-11-09 01:02:19

I haven't used JAWS in quite awhile, so by keyboard locking, do you mean that you can lock the keyboard so that it will accept no input? If so, there's an NVDA add-on for that. It's a damn useful thing to have if, like me, you live with any small children who get curious about your computer, lol.

And at 20, mind elaborating on that? Blanket statements such as yours with no explanation irritate me, to be honest. So if you have a case against NVDA, let's hear it.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2017-11-09 04:57:18

BlindJedi wrote:

My advice to you is to completely scrap NVDA, delete it off all your computers, and use jaws only. NVDA is not as good.

I agree with this 100%

2017-11-09 06:31:04

NVDA is just a knock off of jaws. Its free because it doesn't have all the things jaws has, and its open source so that people can create things that jaws has so they don't miss out on its features.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-11-09 07:00:41

I suppose you encourage the piracy of JAWS, then? Because actually, NVDA was created so that people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the steep price tag of all commercial screen readers which were available at the time, could have a free and yes, open source option. It is beyond ignorant to assume that NVDA was only created so that the developers could ride on the coattails of its predecessors.

It's true that NVDA does have many features which are found in JAWS. But so does Window Eyes. Never mind that it's deprecated for a moment. Think back to the lawsuit that FS had against GW Micro, and the bitter rivalry that they used to have. Also, who says that creating add-ons which emulate popular features is a bad thing? If you back people into a corner, and force them to perform illegal activities just so they can have the same rights as everyone else who uses a computer, that's not fairness. That's disgusting.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.