High CPU Usage with SageTV

[joe123]

Hi.

I recently upgraded my SageTV system with a new Intel Pentium D 915 and ECS motherboard. My old system, AMD CPU and ECS mb was old and dying.

I installed latest SageTV 6.1.19 and moved everthing over. Everything is fine EXCEPT that now, after SageTV has been up for a few hours, it mysteriously begins to use up around 80% of the CPU while there is nothing going on (no recordings, no showing, etc).

So it starts and all is well, 0-2% CPU usage and then, later on it's at 80% cpu usage with SageTV process and nothing going on with Sage.

Never had this problem before upgrading.

I am trying to see if I left something obvious out or if this is a known problem?

[wrems]

My experiences with 6.1.19 are about exactly the same. My Pentium D 940 with 3 gigs of ram along with a fresh install of windows running only Sage (not even recording, or transcoding) was crippled. Previous to that I was running 6.0.19 no problems what-so-ever. I ultimately went back to 6.0.19. Nothing I did with 6.1 worked for me. 6.0 is still working perfectly for me Not sure what to tell you. I would be curious to know if others have experienced this with 6.1.9 and if there is a fix.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by wrems

My experiences with 6.1.19 are about exactly the same. My Pentium D 940 with 3 gigs of ram along with a fresh install of windows running only Sage (not even recording, or transcoding) was crippled. Previous to that I was running 6.0.19 no problems what-so-ever. I ultimately went back to 6.0.19. Nothing I did with 6.1 worked for me. 6.0 is still working perfectly for me Not sure what to tell you. I would be curious to know if others have experienced this with 6.1.9 and if there is a fix.

Thanks! I'll will downgrade to 6.0.19 tonight. This sure sounds weird...

[rickgode]

Are you running any other clients or MVP? I had the exact same problem when I upgraded to 6.1.19, but when I ran sage in service mode, it fixed everything.

[sainswor99]

You may also want to make sure that the BIOS is updated for your motherboard; I had a similar problem with transcoding using an excessive amount of one CPU. After I updated the BIOS (which included support for my CPU), the problem went away.

Just a thought.
Stu

[carlgar]

Sage is aware of the problem but there are unable to duplicate it. Narflex made a recent post about it but I am unable to locate it. When you see the high usage, check the number of threads. If the number of threads is more than 100 then you probably have the same problem I saw. The fix given to me by support was to set the following true in the sage properties file:

ui/disable_native_image_loader=true

If this corrects your problem and you are willing to give support remote access to your system and you have DSL or faster access, you should let support know. They are still looking for the exact cause of this issue.

[joe123]

Thanks guys.

I will make sure my BIOS is update as well and will try the config add line.

By the way, how do I run Sage in "Service Mode"?

[dvd_maniac]

ui/disable_native_image_loader=true

If I run Sage in service mode do I change it in the sage or sageclient properties file? In your post it says Sage properties but I just want to make sure...

And thanx for the tip Carigar

[carlgar]

I don't use service mode so I am not sure. I changed it only only for Sage itself. I have not seen the problem in the client. I doubt if it would hurt to set it in the client.

[akenis]

What do you mean by "more than 100 threads"....?

Andrew

[carlgar]

I am not really sure what your question is. Use the task manager to view the number of threads currently used by SageTV. SageTV normally uses about 60 threads. The high CPU issue is cause by Sage starting threads that never go away. I have seen as many as 800 threads in use by Sage (when the problem occurs) and that is what is eating the CPU cycles.

[joe123]

Ok, I tried EVERYTHING listed here (except downgrading to 6.0.19) and nothing worked.

I even re-installed Windows-XP, re-setup everything, same problems.

So, where can I get Version 6.0.19 to downgrade? I see the web link, but it point to the main web page which goes to 6.1.

P.S. My thread count for SageTV is very high, 200 or more when the problem starts as Calgar noted.

[dvsing]

HELP! I'm having the same problem. I recently upgraded ALL of the hardware on my sage box (new motherboard, CPU, fresh XP installation, fresh SageTV installation).

When I start SageTV all is well.. but it seems that if I come back to it after a few hours the CPU is pegged very high and on the task manager that I use (irsan taskinfo) it indicates that the majority of this time is "Kernel" time, even though it says that SageTV is responsible for it.

I tried setting ui/disable_native_image_loader=true and this had no effect.. problem is still there.

I have 4 encoders: A Hauppauge PVR-250, PVR-350, and a dual-encoder HDHR (networked encoder mode, *NOT* using the BDA driver hack).

I installed brand new drivers from Hauppauge's website since this is a fresh system install. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it or not.

SageTV is pretty useless right now for me so I am at anyone's disposal if they have any suggestions on how to fix this!!!!

-Dan

[joe123]

Ok, I found the problem.

Before I go into details, let me wait 1 day to make sure the problem has in fact gone away. So far, it's been up for 2 hours with lots of usage and NO high CPU usage like before.

If by tomorrow the system is still normal, I will explain what I did and what is causing the high CPU usage.

Joe

[dvsing]

Adding some information here... So on Irsan TaskInfo, it shows the sageTV process as having 980 windows,... and it's steadily increasing. about 2 windows every 30-60 seconds. So in the course of writing the note and monitoring it it's now up to 1000. This has to be what is causing the huge amount of kernel time and the resulting swamping of CPU cycles.

What could be causing Sage to open so many Windows -- and by windows, I mean Threads I think.. I think that's what TaskInfo means when it lists Windows.

-Dan

[dvsing]

joe123 - I'm very interested to know what you are trying to do to fix the problem. Let us know your results ASAP!

[stevech]

Originally Posted by dvsing

Adding some information here... So on Irsan TaskInfo, it shows the sageTV process as having 980 windows,... and it's steadily increasing. about 2 windows every 30-60 seconds. So in the course of writing the note and monitoring it it's now up to 1000. This has to be what is causing the huge amount of kernel time and the resulting swamping of CPU cycles.

What could be causing Sage to open so many Windows -- and by windows, I mean Threads I think.. I think that's what TaskInfo means when it lists Windows.

-Dan

I believe that a "handle" in the Task Manager's display corresponds to each window and each object on the window such as a text box or button. I see handle counts climb then suddenly drop, due to "garbage" collection in Java's VM. But if the handle count just goes to tens of thousands and never decreases, there's a handle memory leak problem. After enough time, this form of memory leak will lead to high swapping and CPU thrashing.

There have been previous discussions of handle leaks here - in older versions. Some were attributed to certain versions of JVM.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by joe123

Ok, I found the problem.
If by tomorrow the system is still normal, I will explain what I did and what is causing the high CPU usage.

Joe

Great to hear.
I will be checking in to read your solution for the high CPU usage problem in 6.1.19. I was dealing with this for weeks and ended up downgrading back to SageTV 6.0.19.

[doc]

I may be joining this a litttle late, but have you upgraded to Java 6 yet?

[Fluffdaddy]

Personally I tried both Java Versions 5.0 and Version 6, the CPU pegging was the same. Sage starts out after a fresh install with 0-20% CPU usage and then, later after a few hours it's pegging at 100% sometimes with nothing being recorded or watched.