Bug 513648

Summary:	Projects take too long to open
Product:	[Applications] kdenlive	Reporter:	David García <vivadavid>
Component:	User Interface & Miscellaneous	Assignee:	Jean-Baptiste Mardelle <jb>
Status:	REPORTED ---
Severity:	normal
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Microsoft Windows
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description David García 2025-12-21 12:34:48 UTC

ISSUE

Hi,

This might be my first report here, as far as I can remember, and I hope to do it right and be as informative as I can.

Since I installed version 25.12, projects take a really long time to open (in some cases, a few minutes) or they won’t open at all. I’m talking about extremely simple projects based on one clip, with no effects: just projects that I created for testing purposes.

To make sure the previous version wasn’t interfering, I uninstalled Kdenlive, deleted all remnants (though I must have omitted something, because the list of recent projects was still there) and then I reinstalled 25.12. I also reset the settings just in case.

I think this issue may have to do with the new layout system. In 25.08, I created a personal layout that, with the introduction of the new layout system, I had to recreate from scratch. Yesterday, I opened an old project and, without doing any modifications, I saved it on 25.12 just to make sure that this personal layout was also saved in the project, as indicated in the changelog for 25.12.

I’ve been opening this and other projects many times this morning: sometimes they opened after waiting for a few minutes; sometimes, they wouldn’t open at all. At some point, I deleted my personal layout, but things didn’t improve.

Every time that I opened a project, I could see Kdenlive displaying the layout and also the splash screen, but nothing happened, until I realized that, if I waited for a minute or two and then I clicked somewhere on the screen (even on the splash screen), suddenly my project was opened.

Projects created on 25.08 or earlier (before layouts were saved inside the projects) show the same behaviour.

The same happens with projects created from scratch on 25.12.

I’ve been unzipped Kdenlive 25.08.3 portable and my projects are opened instantly.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: Windows 11 (25H2).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Nvidia 2060 and 16 GB of RAM.

Comment 1 David García 2025-12-21 14:26:24 UTC

Hello again,

I've also unzipped the portable version of Kdenlive 25.12 and things work fine here.

Therefore, my issue only happens when I use the installer version.

As I said earlier, the second time I installed 25.12, I had previously uninstalled it and even deleted some folders that were still present, and I even reset the settings, so either there was something else that I should have deleted or the source of the portable version isn't the same as the source of the installer version.

Is there anything I could try?

Comment 2 David García 2025-12-21 18:37:20 UTC

This is interesting: after running 25.12 (portable version), now 25.12 (installer version) works fine. Despite being portable, it must be sharing the same settings file as the installer version and, if this is the case, it must have changed a common setting that was causing the problem. This is weird because, as I already said, I manually reset the settings from inside the programme.

Comment 3 David García 2025-12-22 10:25:45 UTC

I knew it was strange that the issue was fixed out of blue and so I kept doing some tests. Here is a new result that I've got:

1. If I double-click on a project from the Windows 11 file explorer, the project takes a long time to open. As expected, if I wait for one or two minutes and then I click somewhere of the screen, this seems to stop something that keeps Kdenlive busy and my project is opened.

2. If I open my project from within Kdenlive (File > Open), then it opens instantly.