Extender UI slow

[PiX64]

I recently upgraded from a very stable setup in XP pro SP3 to win 7 ultimate 64 bit with Sage 7. After fighting with windows 7 i was able to get it up and running. now with sage it runs beautifully. I am having a bit of trouble that I can't seem to figure out and I was hoping someone could offer up some ideas.

Current Setup
----------------
win 7 ultimate 64 bit
AVG Antivirus
SqueezeBoxServer (Disabled for now)
Playon
sage 7 (running as a service)

Sage 7 plugins
----------------
Phoenix Core Services (Disabled)
SageTV H2 database (disabled)
Java heap monitor
Playon for SageTV stvi

I had a bunch more installed (jetty, all webapps, commercial detectory, diamon theme) but removed them in order to do some trouble shooting.

The issue I am having is that on ALL of my extenders the UI is just a bit sluggish. Server side ui works like a champ, but the transitions between line items, and the transitions between menus are all just like 1.5 seconds behind. I have tried disabling all core animations, and that didn't due the trick, but rather just made it look as though the user forgot to press the button fully.

I have my java heap set to 1024.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Pix64

[PiX64]

I just did a complete reinstall of Sage, fresh/empty wiz.bin no plugins, and I am still seeing slow ui response. it is almost as if it can't render the graphics fast enough.

any ideas?

*edit - I set all the video codecs on the server to default rather than allowing it to use hardware acceleration and such, and it appears to be slightly better, but still not right. Something goofy is going on here.

[PiX64]

Its almost as if it is a caching issue. for example i start out on tv hit the down arrow, and it is slow to render the transition between Tv and Video on the main menu. Then if i go back up to TV it is fine. I see this same slow behavior on most menus the first time i access them. Once accessed the ui performance seems to be better.

However there are still a few screens which will not show animations consistently.

*EDIT*

Even when turning off the core animation system i get the same lag. Only thing i have running right now is Sage as a service, and AVG
I turned off squeezebox, playon

only plugins are comskip and comskip playback plugin.
* I read another post that said these two could cause problems so i removed them and still no dice.

could it be AVG??? possibly a windows 7 security setting im not aware of? Only thing i have is windows firewall thats it.

[PiX64]

I just uninstalled comskip ui along with comskip from the plugin repository and things immedietly got better. not 100% how they should be nor how they were with XP, but better.

I also turned off AVG along with windows firewall....is there something im missign here?

i disabled firewall and AVG, then tested before removing the plugins just fyi.

~Pix64

[PiX64]

completely uninstalled AVG, and same garbage is happening.

i did notice that there is extreme lag on the sagetv plugins screen. so going to all available plugins there is lagging in menus roughly 5 seconds, when switching between plugins in the vertical list, and plugin groups (horizontal list)

could my issues have something to do with the plugin repository??? I really just don't konw at this point. Im kind of shooting in the dark.

*Maybe a Java 6 Update 22 issue???
*64K recording cluster size? (they are set as this currently but i know they dont' ahve to be for win 7)

[PiX64]

I am back to a bse install.

did the following:
1)Removed sage and directory
2) removed all other servers installed (not just disabled, squeezebox, playon, etc.)
3) Removed java 6u22
4) removed hauppauge 2250 and 1600
5) removed ati usb capture card
6) uninstalled sage
7) uninstalled AVG
8) made sure windows defender is OFF

then i:
1) reinstalled sage/java
2) loaded up the service
3) problems already. when starting an extender and setting it up the first time I get the sluggish ui, and issues with loading menus, etc.

*Unless anyone has any ideas I guess I am goign to just start from SCRATCH. completely reinstall win 7 64 bit utlimate (tomorrow morning)

Here is the kicker though. One of my friends has his PC over here for me to get up an running for him with sage. it is a dual core athlon 3GB of ram. I installed fresh copy of win 7 utlimate, then sage/java, connected with one of my hd200(s) works perfectly!!! 100% no problems at all.

I don't get it. im truly stumped...

[PiX64]

My final reply for today...not good news

So I reinstalled my HVR2250 and 1600 along with the ati 650usb only for purposes of doing a complete hardware uninstall of them, deleting files and such as you can do in windows 7.

Thought for sure this would do the trick, but no go.

Tomorrow morning i will be completely starting from scratch. Fresh windows install, testing clients at every single step of the way.

My plan
--------------
1) install windows 7
2) install Sage/Java
3) Test Extender
.
.
.

One step at a time testing the extender at each step of the way. I can't think of any other options at this point, but the fact that the other comp i mentioned earlier today which i setup was working perfectly makes me think that it is either a) a hardware specific issue with my setup or b) a driver conflict.

[tmiranda]

I feel your pain. I've been getting lots of spinning circles lately myself and I suspect it's got something to do with the comskip playback plugin and the number of recorded files.

I have two recording directories, each with about 2,000 files in them. I noticed that after deleting a bunch of old shows the performance improved. Just yesterday I uninstalled the comskip playback plugin (but left the CommercialDetector plugin installed) and so far the UI has been pretty responsive.

There is also a possibility that using .txt files to store the comskip info (instead of .edl files) may have something to do with it. A few weeks ago I started using .txt instead of .edl files as part of an experiment and I think (but I'm not certain) the slowdowns started then.

I'm still trying to narrow it down myself which is why I mention all this. How does your system compare to what I've outlined?

[PiX64]

Interesting... I have 3 recording directors with about 300gb if shows...

[tmiranda]

How many files are in those 3 directories? (Total file count, even if they are not Sage-related.)

[PiX64]

Ill check as soon as i can. But wahts weird is even with NO recording directories and old wiz.bin i was seeing this behaviour.

[tmiranda]

I just submitted a bug report on this. After removing all plugins the UI still slows to a crawl by the end of the day.

[larryf]

I have a similar config, but not seeing any slowdown here....

What version of Java do you have? I keep getting a 'nag' to update to Java 6 - 22, but I have been avoiding the upgrade (hate to stop sage, firefox, etc and possibly a reboot).

Win 7 X64 Enterprise
Avast Antivirus
Many plugins, including Comskip, Jetty, recording extender
edl files generated by comskip via Dirmon2
4 recording directories, approx 700G total mostly HD
same wiz.bin from many upgrades
Hd100 Hd200, Java heap set to 519
Quad core CPU, 4G memory

The only issue I have is the channel logos are slow to display the first time, but I believe everyone sees that.

Larry

[KKnox]

Pix64 ,

What type of extenders do you have? If you said it, I didn't see it. I've also noticed a UI slowdown on my MVP after upgrading from XP/Sage 6 to Win 7/Sage 7. I also have several plugins installed including commercial skip and commercial detector. The UI is slowest when viewing Archived Recordings.

Kevin

[PiX64]

They are all HD200's

The slow down is even with a fresh wiz.bin and NONE of my three recording directories set up.

~Pix64

[PiX64]

tmiranda -

each of my 3 recording directories has roughly 400 files on the drive. They are formatted in 64KB cluster side though...should i change that back to the default 4?

~Pix64

[PiX64]

Larry -

I am running java 6 update 22, but as i mentioned in an earlier post, I did a fresh install on a completely seperate machine, and no problems what so ever not one...everything worked like a champ..

~Pix64

[PiX64]

windows 7 is installed on a 50GB partition....that wouldn't have anything to do with it could it?

I know i read somewhere about WHS needing a certain size partition....

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by PiX64

each of my 3 recording directories has roughly 400 files on the drive. They are formatted in 64KB cluster side though...should i change that back to the default 4?

Mine are 64KB clusters as well.

This AM I upgraded to the latest Java (6.22) to see if that makes a difference.

[PiX64]

I did exactly what i said i was going to do.

reinstalled win 7 64 utlimate fresh.
reinstalled sage
setup HDHR
ran sage -- no hitches in the UI on Extender....I get one every once in a while, but that would happen before as well.

I am going to completely update windows right now, test again, then slowly start adding things back in

wiz.bin
recording dir.
media center import directories
playon
squeezebox
hvr1600
hvr2250
ati usb card.
etc.

testing along the way and see how it goes. Ill let ya know.

~Pix64