Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 October 30

= October 30 =

Process Suspension
In Windows 10, in the Task Manager, sometimes I see a symbol by the name of the process, and the comment, "This UWP process group is suspending processes to improve system performance." I know that UWP is Universal Windows Platform, but that says nothing. Occasionally Outlook is the process that is suspended, and in that case it stops checking incoming mail, and I have to end the task and restart it. What does the message really mean, and what causes it? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Cursor Jumping Randomly on Laptop
I have an old Dell laptop, maybe 2013, now running Windows 10, originally Windows 7, which gives me three annoyances. First, it is slow. That is the way it is. Second, after it has been running for a while, it has background activity of some sort that makes it slower. Restarting it is the solution. I am not asking about those issues, although I will be interested in suggestions about the background activity. Third, the cursor sometimes jumps. This mostly happens when I am trying to type in Word. Maybe it mostly happens in Word because typing in Word is what I am mostly doing. The jumping usually takes the cursor to somewhere else in the Word document, although it occasionally takes it to somewhere else. What causes the jumping, and how can I minimize this? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Could you clarify what is moving, please? Is it the mouse pointer (aka cursor) or the text entry point (aka caret)?  Whichever, it may well be that you are touching the trackpad with part of your arm or hand, and it's this that causes the movement.  Try disabling the trackpad and see if it stops.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:30, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * As for the slowness, there are alternatives to Windows that run on computers sold with Windows, and that in the opinion of many who have tried them are quite a bit faster. They don't cost anything and may have other pluses besides. -- Hoary (talk) 09:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you using an external (USB) mouse/keyboard, or the internal ones? To speed it up, you can disable the animated text entry feature, instructions are here . This will make Office feel faster, and might actually be faster. HTH. LongHairedFop (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * User:LongHairedFop - You ask what seems to be a two-part question. I am using the internal keyboard.  I am using a USB mouse.  When you ask about an internal mouse, I assume that you actually mean the touchpad that other posters have advised me to disable, and that I have now disabled.  I don't consider the touchpad to be an equivalent to a mouse, although some, mostly  younger, users like it.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:08, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Possibly you need to disable your touchpad. I find laptop touchpads fantastically annoying, as my finger or thumb or palm will graze them, causing unintended clicks all of the time.  I tried altering my typing position slightly, but it still doesn't help, so whenever I get a new laptop, the FIRST thing I do is disable the touchpad and use an external mouse.  See if that is what is happening.  -- Jayron 32 14:48, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * To the multiple posters: I will follow your advice when I am next sitting at the laptop rather than the desktop, and will disable the touchpad.  I will follow up to your comments.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Phil Holmes and User:Jayron32 suggested disabling the touchpad. I don't use it, and took their advice.  It seems to have solved the problem.  Thank you.  I don't know whether the pad was too sensitive to vibration, or whether my shirtsleeve was touching the pad by accident and causing the jumping, or what, but if it hasn't happening, that is what I wanted.  I was asked whether it was the cursor or the text entry point that was jumping.  I don't know, because I wasn't previously trying to answer that question, and now I think that I have solved the problem.  Robert McClenon (talk) 05:24, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Rotate video on Linux
Last year when I was at the World Bodypainting Festival, I took some videos of the models at the main presentations using my Olympus E-M1 camera. I turned my camera sideways because the human body is rather oblong and I thought I'd make better use of the video frame that way. It turned out that the camera only adjusts the aspect ratio sideways when shooting still pictures. As a result, the videos are otherwise OK, but they use the original landscape setting and so the model actually appears sideways.

Is there some way on Linux to rotate the entire video by 90 degrees counterclockwise so it would appear with a portrait setting and the model rightside up? J I P &#124; Talk 23:53, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * What are you playing the videos in? Bear in mind like JPEG and some other image files, most modern video containers support metadata that can have some sort of rotation flag. [//blog.addpipe.com/mp4-rotation-metadata-in-mobile-video-files/] [//www.reddit.com/r/mkvtoolnix/comments/dme9v1/rotate_and_save_mkv_file/] This is use but a lot of mobile phones when recording videos. If your player doesn't support this flag, then it will play it back with the wrong rotation even if the camera has correctly recorded the rotation. Modern versions of VLC should support most common rotation flags, so is probably a good quick test. Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 31 October 2020 (UTC)


 * You can try this:  to convert to a portrait format video say for tictok. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:49, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * If you simply want to upload IMO it will be better (to avoid generation loss) and potentially also faster to simply add a rotation flag to the video. Most non braindead websites intended for mobile uploads should support the rotation flag since this is what phones often use. This thread provides options for both and also explains the various transpose options [//stackoverflow.com/questions/3937387/rotating-videos-with-ffmpeg] Nil Einne (talk) 06:53, 31 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I duckduckwent for this and found "Rotate a video file 90 degrees using Ubuntu", from 2016.


 * I'm using MX Linux, as it happens; but anyway if you just want to play something once, then in VLC (3.0.11.1):
 * Tools | Settings | Interface | Show settings: All
 * Tools | Effects and filters | Video effects | Geometry


 * I tried it; it works. -- Hoary (talk) 08:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I am playing the videos in gThumb and VLC. Both work exactly like I said - the video is properly cropped to the model just like I wanted, but even though I held the camera in a portrait position, the video is still in landscape format, resulting in the model being sideways. This is at least better than having empty space on both sides of the model. I have to try out ffmpeg. J I P  &#124; Talk 15:29, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Using ffmpeg worked, now the model is rightside up. However, as my monitor has a landscape orientation as a physical fact as most monitors these days do, I now get blank spaces on either side of the model in VLC itself. I suppose the video now works better viewed on some other device, or maybe I could invest in a monitor that can be swivelled into a portrait orientation and the OS would adjust the screenmode accordingly. J I P  &#124; Talk 15:35, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Setting the geometry in VLC also works. Also, this way the VLC window itself got narrower, instead of presenting blank spaces. I think it's because the rotation was not in the video itself but in how VLC viewed it. J I P  &#124; Talk 15:38, 31 October 2020 (UTC)