SageService Version 6.3.10 Randomly Maxes CPU Resources

[mike1961]

(Admin - please move this thread to Sage Software as this is not the Beta I'm running and I posted here by mistake)

Hello, I noticed something else interesting in 6.3.10 SageTVService. On my SageTVclient when I start or stop watching a show, SageTVService temporarily jumps to 50% CPU usage and sometimes even higher (I have a dual processor). This would be the equivalent of 100% CPU usage on a single core. It jumps up there for about 5-15 seconds and then goes back down to the usual 0-2% CPU usage. Also, it jumps to 50% CPU usage or beyond when I simply start a SageTVClient from the desktop.

What is causing this? I think it's possible that it is jumping to 50% cpu usage (on my dual core) perhaps at various times and this may be causing the hesitation people are reporting. Also, this might be the reason why Sage has not always properly tuned multiple channels on the ExeMultiTuner that I use (if it's CPU usage is temporarily maxed out).

I have already installed the latest version of Java as well as increased the JAVA heap size to 200H as recommended in another thread.

Any comments or suggestions as to how to stabilize the CPU resources on SageTVService?

Thanks,
Mike

[pseudonym]

I am seeing the same behavior on 6.3.10, I am also on a dual-core and SageTV Media Center takes 100% of one CPU at intervals.

Right now I just selected to play back a recording from last night. Since I watched almost the entire show on the TV when it aired, I immediately drug the slider up to around 50 minutes (it's a one hour show) on the SageTV video display.

That was 10+ minutes ago. SageTV is using 100% of one CPU and is displaying the circular "wait" symbol in the middle of the video, and that's where it sits. I am going to leave it for a while but I expect if it hasn't recovered by now, it isn't going to. Must be in some kind of loop?

Using SageTV Media Center running in the system tray, not as a service. Java JRE 6 update 5. Windows XP Pro SP2 plus all post hotfixes. Dual-core E6850's.

Any ideas would be appreciated, otherwise I'll send this in to SageTV support.

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

[GKusnick]

Momentary CPU spikes are not necessarily a sign of something wrong. If the program needs to do something compute-intensive, it's going to use your CPU to do it. Starting/stopping playback and connecting/disconnecting clients sound to me like reasonable times to expect such spikes. I don't see anything random about that.

Hanging for ten minutes is obviously a different story. My advice is to enable debug logging and see what the logs say. Support is going to want logs anyway when you contact them.

[pseudonym]

Thanks Greg. Mine are not momentary spikes, though I don't always have to 'kill' the SageTV process with Task Manager. (I did have to kill the above mentioned 'hang', it never returned control.)

Most of the time for me, the CPU spike is as soon as I bring up the SageTV opening menu UI, and click on 'Schedule Recordings' or 'SageTV Recordings', I get the grey circular 'wait' for up to a minute or more, then SageTV advances normally to the requested menu. I don't generally get 'hesitations' after that, and I haven't noticed high CPU after that, either, except when I get a 'hang' like the one mentioned above.

I will try enabling the debug but I know from past experience that is a HUGE log. Since it can be a day or two until the CPU and hesitation or hang happens again (I don't seem to be able to recreate it), I'm not sure how useful such a huge log is going to be... but I'll give it a shot and see what I get.

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

[pseudonym]

It took awhile but I was able to recreate the hang from this morning.

3/17 14:16:26.923 EventThread-SAGETV_PROCESS_LOCAL_UI Hang Detected - hang time = 74452

This is being written over and over, with the time value getting bigger. Time to email support?

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

It took awhile but I was able to recreate the hang from this morning.

3/17 14:16:26.923 EventThread-SAGETV_PROCESS_LOCAL_UI Hang Detected - hang time = 74452

This is being written over and over, with the time value getting bigger. Time to email support?

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

Right when Sage starts up, it hists the disks to verify paths to recordings and such. Where do you store your recordings? Locally? Any chance on a USB attached disk or something slow?

[pseudonym]

No externals or USB. All disks are internal SATA 3Gbit drives running in AHCI mode (using Intel Matrix Storage drivers), the disks are very quick by all measures I have used on them.

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

[bones5050]

I have noticed a hang in the 6.10 release as well. I notice this when using the FF control to move past the commericals in Sage recordings. Sometimes Sage hangs for a bit, 2 - 3 seconds, sometimes up to 10 seconds, and at times, Sage just hangs with the busy cursor going round and round. I need to kill sage and start it back up again... I have reverted back to 6.5 until this get s sorted out.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by bones5050

I have noticed a hang in the 6.10 release as well. I notice this when using the FF control to move past the commericals in Sage recordings. Sometimes Sage hangs for a bit, 2 - 3 seconds, sometimes up to 10 seconds, and at times, Sage just hangs with the busy cursor going round and round. I need to kill sage and start it back up again... I have reverted back to 6.5 until this get s sorted out.

Me too. Except that more often than not I have to use the power button to hard boot the entire PC.

S

[pseudonym]

I'm using 6.3.10. What is 6.5 and 6.10? Are these different Sage versions (server, client, etc.)?

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

[unkyjoe]

Same here,

Lockups, timeouts on the extenders same type of errors.

I guess I will enable the log and submit it, I am not very happy with this version, been nothing but problems since upgrading.

I only have pentium 4, but same cpu spikes whenever you ff-rw, sometimes it will lock hard, I have to hard boot the extender.

I will let you know what they say!

[mike1961]

I agree that spikes are normal but spikes up to 100% CPU or 60-70% CPU with a dual processor for 10-15 seconds seems very excessive. I bring up my task manager and double click on any other program and nothing even gets close to 50% CPU on my dual core. I look at my total CPU resouces and they might spike down from 99% free down to 75-80% for a second or two and that is all. They don't get down to 50% (which maxes out one of the CPU's) for 10-15 seconds.

I'm thinking that if one SageTVclient maxes the SageTVService server's CPU resources for 10-15 seconds when starting or stopping a show or just starting up a client, what does that do to the SageTVService if it is trying to record other shows or do other things with other clients? It just doesn't seem right and I don't know if the problem is Sage or Java or something else. But, I know that the problem became so frequent and was happening so often that I had to restart my server, router and hub. Now it still happens but seems to happen just when I start or stop a show or the Sage Client. It may happen other times as well but I don't think it's necessary to track everywhere it is happeing because it's clearly a problem with Sage or Jave and I don't think it's with my computer if so many others are having the issue as well.

Where do we go from here

Mike

[bones5050]

Originally Posted by bones5050

I have noticed a hang in the 6.10 release as well. I notice this when using the FF control to move past the commericals in Sage recordings. Sometimes Sage hangs for a bit, 2 - 3 seconds, sometimes up to 10 seconds, and at times, Sage just hangs with the busy cursor going round and round. I need to kill sage and start it back up again... I have reverted back to 6.5 until this get s sorted out.

I had a typo... I reinstalled 6.3, not 6.5

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

It took awhile but I was able to recreate the hang from this morning.

3/17 14:16:26.923 EventThread-SAGETV_PROCESS_LOCAL_UI Hang Detected - hang time = 74452

I submitted a Support Request on the website form and provided this info. Have not yet been contacted by Sage yet, but it has only been a couple of days. Will post back when I hear something.

--pseudonym

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

I'm using 6.3.10. What is 6.5 and 6.10? Are these different Sage versions (server, client, etc.)?

Thanks and regards,
--pseudonym

Sorry, I didn't catch that. Mine is version 6.3.10 and the issue is occuring on the one of three clients that I upgraded to 6.3.10. Continues to happen and is becoming quite aggravating. Mouse clicks on the timeline to FF are OK but if I use the remote to skip 10s, 2 1/2m, or commercial I'm risking a lockup or Sage just crashing. Always requires a reboot.

S

[pseudonym]

*I'm* sorry, I should have quoted what (and who) I was replying to!

bones5050 first posted about versions 6.10 and 6.5, I wasn't clear if these were different versions of the various flavors of SageTV products. But now I am thinking that was actually referring to versions 6.3.10 and 6.3.5, it was just shorthand (?)

--pseudonym

[pseudonym]

Just an update... I've heard from Support and my logs were requested.

I see a couple of other threads now that also state a Hang was detected when they enabled debug.

Perhaps we'll see a solution very soon.

--pseudonym

[bigbbri]

Hi, I am newly upgraded to 6.3.10 and I noticed the same problem. Mine locks up quickly. I noticed it happening when I hit "10 second" fast forward fast a few times. I have to reboot the box when it happens. It only happens on the server. I am still running 6.2 on the client and I never have an issue on the client. Only when watching on the server. I hope the problem is found soon.
PS. LOVE THE ONLINE SERVICES!!!!!!
B

[pseudonym]

Hello all,

I heard back from Support.

I was using the SageTV MPEG audio decoder (which was set as the default during installation and I did not change it).

Support asked that I change to using AC3Filter for my audio decoder to resolve the issue.

I did and it worked. I could NOT recreate the "hang UI" lockup. I switched back to SageTV MPEG audio decoder and was able to recreate the "hang UI" very quickly. I also saw the CPU spikes for a minute or more, return.

I have written back to Support to ask for more information.

So, those of you getting a "hang" or "lockup", or long-running CPU spikes, please try the AC3Filter? This should not be required of us long-term, but it seems an acceptable workaround until the SageTV MPEG audio decoder can be corrected. I haven't noticed any new anomalies from using AC3Filter (so far), but it has only been a few hours.

--pseudonym

[sleonard]

I also reported this to support and they asked if I could revert to an earlier version. Last night I went back to 6.3.7 and the total lockups ceased but I was still experiencing an issue where after a skip the video and/or the audio was garbled. Another skip backwards 10s would fix it though. This I had been experiencing since the 6.3 betas started.

That is when I noticed that I too was using the Sage audio decoder. I changed it to the Cyberlink decoder and that problem went away as well.

Today I was going to re-install 6.3.10 and try it with the Cyberlink decoder and then report the result to support.

Together with your results it does indeed look like the Sage audio decoder is the cause of the problems.

S