WEKA 3.8.4 is very slow to Start on my Windows 10 PC

Question

I recently discovered WEKA 3.8.4 for Machine Learning and installed it on one of my Windows 10 Machines. To my surprise, it is very slow to start and calling any of its functions takes forever to load. I wonder if there is anything I can do to troubleshoot this behavior and git it resolved. Here is a copy of my SystemInfo, just in case it is needed.

WEKA_HOME   C:\Users\jxxx\wekafiles
awt.toolkit sun.awt.windows.WToolkit
file.encoding   Cp1252
file.separator  \
java.awt.graphicsenv    sun.awt.Win32GraphicsEnvironment
java.awt.printerjob sun.awt.windows.WPrinterJob
java.class.path C:/Program Files/Weka-3-8-4/weka.jar;
java.class.version  55.0
java.home   C:\Program Files\Weka-3-8-4\jre\zulu11.35.15-ca-fx-jre11.0.5-win_x64
java.io.tmpdir  C:\Users\jxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\
java.library.path   C:\Program Files\Weka-3-8-4\jre\zulu11.35.15-ca-fx-jre11.0.5-win_x64\bin;C:\WINDOWS\Sun\Java\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\Rtools\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft MPI\Bin\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\CLI2\wbin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v10.2\bin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v10.2\libnvvp;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\;C:\Program Files\SlikSvn\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\170\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Pages\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Graphviz2.38\bin\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Graphviz2.38\bin\dot.exe;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Nsight Compute 2019.5.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVIDIA NvDLISR;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Scripts;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Library\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\150\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\150\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\150\R_SERVER\bin\x64;C:\Users\johnny\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\johnny\.dotnet\tools;C:\Users\johnny\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\bin;C:\Users\johnny\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;;.;C:\Users\johnny\wekafiles\native
java.net.useSystemProxies   true
java.runtime.name   OpenJDK Runtime Environment
java.runtime.version    11.0.5+10-LTS
java.specification.name Java Platform API Specification
java.specification.vendor   Oracle Corporation
java.specification.version  11
java.vendor Azul Systems, Inc.
java.vendor.url http://www.azulsystems.com/
java.vendor.url.bug http://www.azulsystems.com/support/
java.vendor.version Zulu11.35+15-CA
java.version    11.0.5
java.version.date   2019-10-15
java.vm.compressedOopsMode  Zero based
java.vm.info    mixed mode
java.vm.name    OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM
java.vm.specification.name  Java Virtual Machine Specification
java.vm.specification.vendor    Oracle Corporation
java.vm.specification.version   11
java.vm.vendor  Azul Systems, Inc.
java.vm.version 11.0.5+10-LTS
jdk.debug   release
line.separator  

memory.initial  510MB (534773760)
memory.max  8144MB (8539602944)
os.arch amd64
os.name Windows 10
os.version  10.0
path.separator  ;
sun.arch.data.model 64
sun.awt.enableExtraMouseButtons true
sun.boot.library.path   C:\Program Files\Weka-3-8-4\jre\zulu11.35.15-ca-fx-jre11.0.5-win_x64\bin
sun.cpu.endian  little
sun.cpu.isalist amd64
sun.desktop windows
sun.io.unicode.encoding UnicodeLittle
sun.java.command    weka.gui.GUIChooser
sun.java.launcher   SUN_STANDARD
sun.jnu.encoding    Cp1252
sun.management.compiler HotSpot 64-Bit Tiered Compilers
sun.os.patch.level  
ui.currentLookAndFeel   com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsLookAndFeel
ui.installedLookAndFeels    javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel,javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel,com.sun.java.swing.plaf.motif.MotifLookAndFeel,com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsLookAndFeel,com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsClassicLookAndFeel
user.country    US
user.dir    C:\Program Files\Weka-3-8-4
user.home   C:\Users\jxxx
user.language   en
user.name   jxxx
user.script 
user.timezone   America/New_York
user.variant    
weka.version    3.8.4

Answer 1

Ensure you're using a compatible Java version (Java 8 or later), increase the memory allocation by modifying the weka.ini file with -Xmx2g, and check for any background processes consuming system resources. You can also try disabling antivirus/firewall temporarily, run it via the command line for faster startup. If these steps don't work, reinstalling WEKA may help resolve any issues.