Performance of HD extender?

[KJake]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Sorry I spaced
Another thing to rule out. Use SageTV3.xml and turn off any unsupported extras via 5309 in the system info screen if you are using them.

Yup, I've been testing with both SageMC and the default STV (noted in the first post).

[ToxMox]

How is your network setup and any firewall running? Sorry noticed you posted about default STV in first post. I'll try not to make you repeat yourself anymore.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

How is your network setup and any firewall running? Sorry noticed you posted about default STV in first post. I'll try not to make you repeat yourself anymore.

I don't mind it at all, I appreciate the help.

The two extenders that I'm testing are wired on all CAT5e, connected to a gigabit switch (Linksys SLM2008), the server is connected to the same switch and uses a Broadcom 57xx gigabit chipset.

[ToxMox]

Hrmm...I'm out of ideas for now. I'm curious what support will have to say.

[sakker]

Did support ever give a solution to this? I have the same issue on the HD extender on my videos. After messing with it for a couple of hours I have been informed that it better be fixed or I am shipping it back... I've had to re-hook up the mvp.

[Crashless]

I'm not seeing this issue on my setup, but I'm using Vista, so it might be related to XP in some way.

Have you tried my old STV? It's the only one I'm using, and it seems ok - minus the rather large and growing bug list...

[KJake]

Originally Posted by sakker

Did support ever give a solution to this? I have the same issue on the HD extender on my videos. After messing with it for a couple of hours I have been informed that it better be fixed or I am shipping it back... I've had to re-hook up the mvp.

This happens on my MVPs too, so I'm not sure what the deal is. Support got back to me tonight. I'm trying to solve a different problem (did a re-install and seriously broke my setup). I will keep you all updated though.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by Crashless

I'm not seeing this issue on my setup, but I'm using Vista, so it might be related to XP in some way.

Have you tried my old STV? It's the only one I'm using, and it seems ok - minus the rather large and growing bug list...

Only the Default STV is supported, so I'm using that.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by Crashless

I'm not seeing this issue on my setup, but I'm using Vista, so it might be related to XP in some way.

Have you tried my old STV? It's the only one I'm using, and it seems ok - minus the rather large and growing bug list...

I don't think it's XP related. I'm running XP (P4 2.8Ghz) and last night got the first significant spinning icon. However the server was recording 4 shows (2 HD 2 SD) and also trying to run ShowAnalyzer on 2 previous recordings.
That is the only time so far I've seen a spinning icon for any significant (i.e. more than 1-2 seconds) amount of time.

I'm not sure how the 2 SA's happened. I was sure I had Dirmon set up so it would only fire one SA at a time. Must not have saved the settings because that happened after a reboot.

[tmiranda]

I get the spinning circle after some DivX files play to the end. When they finish it takes a minute or two to return to the menu.

I'm on XP, using the default STV with the extra enabled and ComSkip Playback import.

[sakker]

I haven't gotten to the point of watching movies, so I'm not sure if there is a significant delay there. Mine grinds to a standstill when you're navigating your movie collection. When it first comes up you can move around fine, then each line of shows you move down it progressively gets slower and slower eventually taking 4-8 seconds to move from movie to movie even on the same page without loading new thumbnails.

I'm not sure if it is an image caching problem or something else. I've filed a support ticket we'll see what they say.

fwiw I use the file structure, and take a .jpg of each movie for the thumbnail. so the main directory has subdirectories of each movie with the .avi and .jpg file named the same. The mvp handles this fine and is very zippy, you can move all the way to the end of the listings, and the thumbnails catch up as they load, it seems like the HD extender won't show the next line until after the thumbnail loads.

I have tried to downsize all of my thumbnails to make them smaller but it didn't help. I guess I could also try deleting all of my .jpg's but I believe then it just makes it's own and uses it.

Does anyone else have issues browsing their media library? I did a new install of the latest SageTV, updated java etc. It seems odd the mvp would handle it well and the HD extender be brought to a crawl.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by sakker

I haven't gotten to the point of watching movies, so I'm not sure if there is a significant delay there. Mine grinds to a standstill when you're navigating your movie collection. When it first comes up you can move around fine, then each line of shows you move down it progressively gets slower and slower eventually taking 4-8 seconds to move from movie to movie even on the same page without loading new thumbnails.

I'm not sure if it is an image caching problem or something else. I've filed a support ticket we'll see what they say.

fwiw I use the file structure, and take a .jpg of each movie for the thumbnail. so the main directory has subdirectories of each movie with the .avi and .jpg file named the same. The mvp handles this fine and is very zippy, you can move all the way to the end of the listings, and the thumbnails catch up as they load, it seems like the HD extender won't show the next line until after the thumbnail loads.

I have tried to downsize all of my thumbnails to make them smaller but it didn't help. I guess I could also try deleting all of my .jpg's but I believe then it just makes it's own and uses it.

Does anyone else have issues browsing their media library? I did a new install of the latest SageTV, updated java etc. It seems odd the mvp would handle it well and the HD extender be brought to a crawl.

mine is so bad, it happens at the server console too

waiting for the next support reply, but if I don't get one soon, I'm going to wipe the computer next week and start over. Saving my Wiz.bin though, because I've had the same Wiz.bin since 2003! ... there's a lot of viewing history in there...

[KJake]

Support had me set this tonight:

ui/thread_hang_delay_to_dump=2000

It seems to have gotten rid of the spinning circle from my testing so far, and possibly uncovered what I think the real problem is. It seems like the server isn't releasing the file after you hit stop, because if you try to play another file right after ending a previous one, it won't start. What's interesting is that it will start after a minute or so - about the same timeframe that my UI was hanging. I suspect that this is the real problem that I was having, but becaues of the way things are threaded, the UI hung waiting for the file to close or whatever.

I'll keep testing on my extenders tonight.

[KJake]

I was too hasty, this hasn't helped my extenders - and I'm sure it wasn't meant to help now, just to help debug.

[jgs14]

Hello,

Did you ever get a solution to this problem? I am having the same issue (same logs, and everything) and have filed a bug report... but it looks like this might be the same thing.

--
Joe

[KJake]

Not yet. I took a 3 week break for the holidays and didn't get back to it until last night. I just sent a new debug log last night, so I don't expect to hear back until tonight at the earliest.

[sakker]

Not here either. They basically told me that my thumbnail size was too large, which shouldn't matter as the MVP's run flawlessly, the sluggishness only comes into play on the HD extender. They've pretty well blown me off so I don't expect to be using my HD extender which puts a real sour taste in my mouth.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by sakker

Not here either. They basically told me that my thumbnail size was too large, which shouldn't matter as the MVP's run flawlessly, the sluggishness only comes into play on the HD extender. They've pretty well blown me off so I don't expect to be using my HD extender which puts a real sour taste in my mouth.

That's too bad. I'll definitely post something here if they fix it.

[KJake]

For those having a problem, try turning off Offline Files. In any Explorer Window, Click Tools > Folder Options, click the Offline Files tab, and then uncheck the Enable Offline Files option (you can also goto Control Panel and open the Folder Options dialog there). Reboot for fun. This has sped things up for me tremendously. Offline files will cache your network shares. All of my storage is on a different server and that share is 4.3TB. I used the File Monitor from SysInternals to track this down; it was showing that when I encountered a spinning circle that there were a lot of reads going to C:\Windows\CSC\00000001, which is part of the Offline Folders cache. Thanks to Sage Support for suggesting this. I'm still having a few spinning circles and I'm going to spend some more time today to try and track it down.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by sakker

Not here either. They basically told me that my thumbnail size was too large, which shouldn't matter as the MVP's run flawlessly, the sluggishness only comes into play on the HD extender. They've pretty well blown me off so I don't expect to be using my HD extender which puts a real sour taste in my mouth.

We came up with a workaround for this one that will be in the next build that we put out. It'll decrease performance on the extender as a consequence of using the same image loading techniques as on the MVP though (so it'll require a property setting to enable it). But the STX-HD100 will then be able to handle libraries with high resolution custom thumbnails.