There seems to be some problem with the node Excel Reader that makes the knime to crash when it is used. It freezes the program and happens when you want to configure the reading of a file. Has anyone else had the same problem?
Hi @cristianleandro,
I did not yet read anywhere or experience that the Excel Reader dialog crashes KNIME. This would be highly unusual. In particular a UI freeze followed by a crash is very concerning.
Which version of KNIME are you using? Is your file particularly large (MB on disk, number of rows, number of columns, number of sheets in the workbook)? Does it occur reliably?
In case you can share the file, I would appreciate it so I can debug what the problem is, but I assume it contains confidential information. A small screenrecording with sensitive information blurred can also already help in this case.
Best,
Manuel
@cristianleandro try to enter a basic path that is not your entire home path before pressing browse.
It seems on Windows 11 if you just try to browse from your system default it might cause problems.
@hotzm this might be worth investigating since several people have mentioned it in my company with Excel reader and knime 5.3 and maybe earlier.
@hotzm I use 5.3 on Windows and OSX. This only happens on Windows from what I saw so far. The problem is independent of the file you use, because you can’t even get to select one, it freezes everything before. So, it’s a system problem, not a file problem.
@mlauber71 I did a new reinstall with different versions, 5.3 and earlier, but the problem persists. The only solution was to change the knime-workspace folder to another lower level location. It seems that Windows 11 mishandles whatever is in the user’s root folder.
I also use knime on Mac, but I have no problems there.
Thanks for the replies guys.
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@cristianleandro glad you found a workaround.
@ScottF this might be worth investigating. I have heard similar things from two people at my organisation about the Excel reader and windows 11 after a fresh installation of knime 4.7.8 (possibly later). Possibly when the reader tries to access a default (complex?) path on the operating system. Once you enter an ‘easier’ path and then press browse it does work.
I will try to reproduce on occasion.
Thanks for reporting it. If you happen to reproduce it, I would be interested in the path (length and any “special” folders involved, confidential info redacted of course).
Is it also happening with other readers, such as the CSV Reader? The file access logic is shared by a lot of nodes.
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@hotzm The dilemma is that if knime is marketing itself as an easy go to tool for even semi ambitious data analysts only a fraction of those will go thru the labour and report such problems so you will only get a glimpse of the problems with stability. Most especially new users will just dump the software, never come back and tell no one about it and continue to use excel. It takes years to build connections in company networks to get people to trust and approach you with such problems.
I think knime will have to invest more in stability on its own.
I agree that reports will be biased and we are thankful for every report we get, especially when it includes diagnostic information.
And we do take crashes and instability very seriously. Sometimes it is just very hard to even triage the problem or reproduce it to be able to investigate.
@cristianleandro and @mlauber71, if it happens to freeze again, could you extract a Thread dump as detailed here? https://www.knime.com/faq#q29 That would be extremely helpful.
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