Hi All. Apologies, but this is a long one.

I've been dealing with a very frustrating issue with one of my websites since April 27. I have reached out to Xara technical support (i.e., posted a ticket) but they seem too busy with other issues and I have not heard back after an initial request for my XAR file (which I provided). I am hoping to get some thoughts on "next steps" for me to try.

--- Background ------------------------------------------------
During April there were two or three updates available for my Xara Designer Pro X365 setup, which I installed. Since then I have had issues previewing and publishing one of my site. It eventually works, but it is painfully slower than before (thinking now about 15 minutes as opposed to perhaps 1 minute or less in the past).

Was there an issue with the update(s)? Initially I thought so, but I have since come to feel this issue is XAR file specific. Here's a not-so-brief recap of main troubleshooting steps I've done.

--- Troubleshooting Results ------------------------------------------------

What I've gathered while troubleshooting the issue is that it appears to be in the exporting phase of both Publishing and Previewing. Further, it appears to me that Xara Designer's attempt to render the page in the Page & Layer gallery also triggers the issue. I say this as I've noticed that each page's thumbnail in the gallery takes "forever" to go from a placeholder/outline to an actual thumbnail. This is especially true of my "resume" page which is a very long page.

As an example, note that only the first four pages have thumbnails below. This screen shot was taken perhaps 10 minutes after I loaded the website into Xara.

Click image for larger version.  Name: Page Gallery Placeholder.png  Views: 101  Size: 82.9 KB  ID: 117625

When I took this screenshot Xara was actively running as shown below, and consistently accounting for 12 - 13% of CPU utilization. The "hourglass" icon shows (as it should) and it will eventually finish, though it will probably be 30 minutes+ from now. This tells me the process is not hung, but rather is processing somewhat of a non-infinite loop in the .XAR file.

Click image for larger version.  Name: CPU Utilization.png  Views: 100  Size: 10.1 KB  ID: 117626

Let me describe my use of "forever": If I wait for Xara to become responsive again--sometimes it "only" takes about 5 - 10 minutes, but sometimes it takes 30 minutes or more! It does eventually finish its processing and allows me to continue. During these periods where it is unresponsive I can see CPU utilization being extremely high via a utility I use to monitor my computer (which is an extremely fast gaming machine, so I know I have the resources).

Finally, even though this problem occurred right around the time of a series of two or three Xara Designer updates, I am of the opinion this is not related to the new release of Xara Designer but rather to a corruption of my .XAR file and/or a specific setup in my .XAR file that exposes a Xara Designer defect. I say this because:

  • I am not experiencing these issues with another .XAR file after repeated attempts to replicate the issue.
  • The .XAR file that is causing the issue consistently causes it. (Note: I've actually recreated the issue on a separate computer using the same .XAR file.)
  • When I restore the .XAR file to a prior version (prior to my recent changes and the Xara Designer update) the problem disappears and behavior is normal. This is very interesting to me as:


    1. I decided to "re do" my recent changes using the backup / prior version, figuring that would resolve any .XAR file corruption.
    2. My changes were to replace a "Sticky" header area on my site to a more modern one that scrolls off the top with the exception of the navbar and two colored rectangles that are "Sticky at Top". You'll be able to see what I did in at http://www.jcn-associates.com/ (which I was able to update by letting a Publish run overnight).
    3. I "re-did" my changes to the backup .XAR file and now the same performance issue is occurring.



I find this extremely interesting as it "feels" to me as I've somehow triggered a defect in Xara Designer as manually redoing the above change on a "good" .XAR file replicates the issue.

The above is a lot to take in, so feel free to ask for additional information if it will help. For now I won't attached my XAR file as I will hope someone has seen this problem and knows how to solve it. Also, I don't want to give someone an .XAR file that will probably cause them to have to terminate Xara Designer if/when they encounter the same issue.

And THANK YOU one and all for any help you can throw my way.

_____/ Regards,
____/ al