[GUI] Strata Desktop 0.2.7/0.2.8 causes system-wide Windows freeze immediately after launch (0.2.6 works) #4661

Problem

Strata Desktop 0.2.7 and 0.2.8 cause a system-wide Windows freeze immediately after launching the application.

No user interaction is required to trigger the problem. No model is loaded.

The system drive (C:) reaches 100% active time and remains at 100%, while disk read/write throughput is approximately 0 KB/s. Windows becomes unresponsive, eventually requiring a forced power-off.

Strata Desktop 0.2.6 works normally on the same machine.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Home, build 26300 (windows 10.0.26300 in Strata logs)

• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K (8 cores / 16 threads)

• RAM: 128 GB DDR4

• Primary compute GPU: NVIDIA Tesla V100-PCIE-32GB (32 GB VRAM, sm_70, TCC mode)

• Additional GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB (Device Manager Code 31; currently unusable)

• NVIDIA driver: 582.99 (V100)

• Inference engine: Strata engine 0.1.52, successfully detected by Desktop 0.2.6

• Desktop versions tested: 0.2.6, 0.2.7, 0.2.8

• Model: None loaded when the freeze occurs

Steps to reproduce

1. Start Windows normally.

2. Launch Strata Desktop 0.2.7 or 0.2.8.

3. Do not interact with the application after launching it.

4. Observe the system drive (C:) reaching 100% active time and remaining stuck there, despite disk read/write throughput being approximately 0 KB/s.

5. Windows becomes increasingly unresponsive. The taskbar, Task Manager, PowerShell, and other applications stop responding.

No model loading, inference, or Settings interaction is required.

Expected behavior

Strata Desktop should launch normally without affecting the responsiveness of Windows, as it does with version 0.2.6.

If an internal host process or component fails to initialize, the application should display an error or terminate safely instead of causing a system-wide freeze.

Actual behavior

• The C: drive's active time reaches 100% and stays there.

• Disk read/write throughput is approximately 0 KB/s despite the reported 100% active time.

• The Windows taskbar and desktop context menus stop responding.

• Task Manager, PowerShell, Notepad, and other applications become unresponsive.

• Mouse movement may remain possible, but clicks and keyboard input stop working.

• Chrome Remote Desktop becomes unreachable.

• Terminating the Strata process does not necessarily restore system responsiveness.

• Windows cannot be restarted normally and requires a forced power-off.

This behavior occurred repeatedly with 0.2.7 and again with 0.2.8.

Version comparison

Reverting to 0.2.6 restores normal application operation.

Relevant logs

Strata Desktop 0.2.8 (affected)

[shell] Strata desktop 0.2.8 starting (pid 2484)
[shell] System: windows 10.0.26300
[host] engine bundle: kept in the install folder (0.1.46-windows-x86_64-cuda-cuda13 is not (or not completely) in the engine store)

The log ends here. No [host] strata host message appears.

Strata Desktop 0.2.6 (working)

[shell] Strata desktop 0.2.6 starting (pid 6516)
[shell] System: windows 10.0.26300
[host] engine bundle: kept in the install folder (0.1.46-windows-x86_64-cuda-cuda13 is not (or not completely) in the engine store)
[host] strata host  ...  http://127.0.0.1:47831
[host] hardware     ...  Tesla V100-PCIE-32GB / cuda / 8 cores / 128 GB
[host] inference    ...  Strata engine 0.1.52 is installed; no model is loaded yet

The cuda-cuda13 engine bundle message is present in both working and affected versions, so this message alone does not appear to explain the freeze.

Strata Desktop 0.2.7

The logs from 0.2.7 showed inconsistent startup progress: some attempts reached hardware detection, while others stopped after the initial startup messages.

No definitive crash exception was recorded.

Windows Event Viewer findings

I inspected Windows event logs after the freezes:

• No matching Application Error / Application Hang / Windows Error Reporting events were found in the inspected time windows.

• No matching storage or NVIDIA GPU driver warning/error events were found in the inspected System log interval.

• Kernel-Power Event ID 41 and EventLog ID 6008 were recorded following forced shutdowns.

• Windows reports the physical disks as Healthy / OK.

These observations do not rule out a driver, storage I/O, or host initialization issue.

The system drive reaching 100% active time with approximately 0 KB/s throughput may indicate stalled I/O, but the underlying cause has not been identified.

Reproduction status

Reproduced locally with both 0.2.7 and 0.2.8.

Strata 0.2.6 works with the same V100 GPU, NVIDIA driver, RAM, and Windows environment.

Because the affected versions can freeze the entire operating system and require forced shutdowns, I have stopped further reproduction attempts for now.

Request

Could you investigate changes to Desktop startup, host initialization, or component handling introduced between versions 0.2.6 and 0.2.7?

In particular, I would appreciate guidance on whether there are any known compatibility issues involving:

• Windows build 26300

• Tesla V100 (sm_70, TCC mode)

• Mixed NVIDIA GPU environments where a second GPU is present but unavailable (Code 31)

• Desktop host initialization and disk I/O

I can provide additional sanitized logs and perform read-only diagnostics, but I would prefer to avoid repeating the system-wide freeze.

Thank you for your work on Strata!