Speed up SageTV's startup

[Opus4]

There is a new FAQ about how to speed up SageTV's startup process, so it opens quicker. See:
SageTV is taking a long time to start. Is there a way to make its startup process go faster?

Normally, I wouldn't make a new thread just to say there is a new FAQ, but I figured there may be some discussion about people's results after trying this.

- Andy

[peternm22]

Andy,

That works really really well. I don't use IR, so that isn't an issue for me.

Startup of the SageTV service is now within seconds. Nice work!

-Peter

[mayamaniac]

I think this should be a default settings since IR can always wait a few seconds later.

[Crashless]

I was just going to start looking at this problem - my wiz.bin has exploded recently from 34mb in november to nearly 70mb currently. (probably because I expanded my tv storage space from about 300gb to 1tb. )

Startup was becoming a chore - I'll take a look at this and see how it goes.

Thanks for posting this!

[JREkiwi]

Running in Service mode

Set to false = startup 116 secs to usable GUI

Set to true = startup 86 secs to usable GUI

Not quite sure what I'll do with all these accumulating 30 secs. If I restart SageTV enough, I'll have enough extra time to watch something.

John

[carlgar]

Set to false = startup about 5-6 minute to usable GUI

Set to true = startup about 90 secs to usable GUI
about 55 minutes till IR recordings started showing up

[hemicuda]

I usually time mine based on the listed CPU Time in Task Manager when I can access the web plugin. When set to 'true' the delay dropped from just over 2min down to 30sec . Set to 'false' Sage service would run 98+% for a full 2min during startup. After having typed this and waited for the HD100 to restart the CPU Time is still under a minute and using less than 20% CPU.

for Andy on this tip.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

for Andy on this tip.

I'm glad it is working well, but I simply posted the info that SageTV asked me to pass along.

- Andy

[RobJ]

By setting limited_carny_init=true, I can report going from 95 second startup to 44 seconds, on an old slow computer with about 3 to 4 years accumulation, but no IR.

By the way, I noticed disable_carny_init=false, is there any info on what that might do, if set to true? I do not use Intelligent Recordings.

[Goodspike]

I think this may only help if you don't use SageService. At least on my fresh install startup takes a lot less time with the service running--it's so short it wouldn't really matter if it was speeded up.

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

I think this may only help if you don't use SageService. At least on my fresh install startup takes a lot less time with the service running--it's so short it wouldn't really matter if it was speeded up.

Yes. its not that bad on a fresh install. The problem comes like six months down the line, then the old way you would basically sit at the windows 'welcome' screen for a few minutes while the service loads the DB. Anyhow, this option was just what I needed, especially since I didn't use intelligent recordings anyways. I kind of dreaded weekly reboots and that will make it a lot easier to bear.

[lamanmi]

Sage was taking quite a while to start, this cut my 100 sec startup to about 60 secs!! Thanks!!

[tmiranda]

I avoid this issue by never turning off my Sage server unless absolutely necessary. (I'd estimate that I reboot about once a month.)

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

Yes. its not that bad on a fresh install. The problem comes like six months down the line, then the old way you would basically sit at the windows 'welcome' screen for a few minutes while the service loads the DB. Anyhow, this option was just what I needed, especially since I didn't use intelligent recordings anyways. I kind of dreaded weekly reboots and that will make it a lot easier to bear.

But I guess what I'm not clear on is this: Does it affect the startup time of SageService at all? On my new computer with the lastest version of Sage, the service seems to take a lot longer to start. Is that due to this or some other factor.

I think that's why I was noticing SageTV taking so long to start--I didn't have SageService running.

[Opus4]

This affects the core startup of the server, whether you are using service mode or not. It affects whatever you are starting as the server's recording engine and does not affect a client.

When using service mode, the UI starts as a client & this setting will have no affect on the UI's startup in that case.

- Andy

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by Opus4

It affects whatever you are starting as the server's recording engine and does not affect a client.

Sorry I don't understand. So does that mean it does affect the startup time of SageService, if that's what you're using?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

So does that mean it does affect the startup time of SageService, if that's what you're using?

Yes, that was what I was trying to say above. It affects whatever you are using that handles the recording schedule & related tasks -- in service mode, that is the service; in non-service mode, that is the UI on the SageTV server.

- Andy

[Goodspike]

Okay, thanks--that means I should make the change.

I tried to make it earlier but opening the file in Notepad I had an issue saving it that seems to be related to Vista on that computer (not a Sage issue).

[md2020]

Just some feedback:

I made this change last month and while startup time improved, I've slowly seen SageTV performance decreasing. It started with stuttering during HD playback, then slow menu performance, and finally stuttering SD playback. CPU loads were constantly in the 90% range whereas normally I rarely see above 30%.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this setting is what caused the problem but immediately after setting the value back to "false", performance went back to normal and has been that way since. YMMV

[stanger89]

Well if you wanted to see an endorsement for the improvement:

limited_carny_init=false - 10 minutes for profiler to initialize
limited_carny_init=true - 36 seconds to have a system

That's almost a 20x reduction in startup time.