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[rolf_eigenheer]

I came to MediaCenter 20 years ago, when it's name was MediaJukebox 7. At this time several Media-Players were around. Every company which has sold portable media devices also provided some player and organizing tool. All of them looked funny, allowed skinning and other 'important' things like that. And all of them became exponentially slower the more songs were in the library.

Media Jukebox at this time was more database than stylish. It allowed me to find any of my songs out of tenthousends of songs. Since then my library growed and movies and images came to it. But along with a 10x bigger filecount, computing power increased by factor 20. And sorting tags and filenames in a database shouldn't be more complicated wether they point to a small song or 30GB movie.

But instead of a speed increase over the years, I see myself waiting more and more. It seems that GUI interactions  (sorting, filtering, display) are blocked by filesystem accesses all the time. Probably, many users won't recognize that because their files are located on a fast system partition which is active all the time.
But a library with images and thousands of movies requires several disks. During watching a movie, all other drives will go to sleep. After the movie, I want browse for something different. Browsing the Lib then is a pain. MC freezes for many seconds, the screen is blurry, windows asks for terminating the app ... This happens several times when I change to other views which include other files on different drives. It takes minutes and feels like hours...

Sure, playing must wait, when a drive is sleeping. And it is no problem when the movie or the song starts 15 seconds later. But it is a problem that I cannot browse the library without waiting serveral times several seconds.

DB actions (searching, filtering, sorting, displaying) should not be blocked by media file access. Except the one file which shall be played. Updating Tags, Thumbnails etc. can be done in a low priority thread.  Also waking up the drive which holds the next media file in the playlist can be done this way - 30 seconds before it needs to start.

Btw: I wouldn't write that much when I wouldn't love JRiver Mediacenter. Just wanna give my hope expression that it can find back to it's old response speed.

[Matt]

We pride ourselves in every version getting faster.

If you're files are on a drive that spins down a lot, maybe the spin up causes a bog?  Could you configure the drive to not spin down as often?

Just recently a user sent an 800,000+ track library and we tuned some more because of it and got yet another speed-up.

Thanks.

[blgentry]

I think you should tune your drives to not sleep at all.  Sleep is the enemy of consistency and performance.  At least try it.  See if that fixes your speed issue.  If it does, then you know exactly how to fix it.

Brian.

[JimH]

Adding multiple drives could also have introduced a power problem. 

Are the drives USB?  If so, make sure that you don't have USB 3.0 drives hooked up to USB 2.0 ports.

Then there are antivirus problems possible.

[rolf_eigenheer]

Thanks for the fast reponse!

I think drives go to sleep after a few Minutes. Playing a song from drive x lets drive y time enough to go to sleep. And even a delay of one hour would not prevent drives to go to sleep during a two hour movie.

All 7 drives (4 to 8TB each) are attached to a NAS which contains an additional RAID 6TB (net). The NAS runs stable. 

The NAS is part of my entertainment system, not thought to be part of the heating system ;-). Running all drives all the time would cause a thermal problem.

As said, it is no problem to wait until the drive containing the wanted file spins up. The problem is, to wait for one or several drives to start when I just want to seach a record in my database.

[BryanC]

Sounds like this could be antivirus issue.

See: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html

[JimH]

Is the MC database on a local drive (not on the NAS)?

[rolf_eigenheer]

Yes, the DB is on the System drive, which is a fast SSD.
 
Meanwhile I noticed some interesting detail. When the NAS is disconnected from the LAN, MC runs smooth and lightning fast. I can do searches, change views and display the thumbnails with no delay (< 1sec).  Then, when trying to open a file, the error message comes up. Exactly as expected.
It seems to me, that MC does some 'background' file operation in the GUI task whenever there is a chance to access the file. 

@Brian
The AV could influence the way a file is accessed. But my point is, there is no file to be accessed at this time.

[tij]

@Brian
The AV could influence the way a file is accessed. But my point is, there is no file to be accessed at this time.

there might be some background processes (auto import, thumb building, audio analyze)

[tij]

also spinning down disk after few minute seems excessive … spinning drives-up puts huge stress on drives … you do it often enough and letting them just spin will likely be better for health of your HDD

[JimH]

Meanwhile I noticed some interesting detail. When the NAS is disconnected from the LAN, MC runs smooth and lightning fast. I can do searches, change views and display the thumbnails with no delay (< 1sec).

That seems to point to a problem with the NAS.  That could be antivirus at work.  Or just some hardware problem. 

It is very unlikely to be a problem with MC.  MC doesn't do anything special with NAS or local drives.  That's all handled by the OS.

[rolf_eigenheer]

@tij  'there might be som background processes...'  Yes, this is what I do believe too. But how to turn it off ?

@jim There are several machines and many programs accessing this NAS. No other than MC has this problem. They all behave the same. When a file must be opened, it could take some seconds until the drive is up. But then, as long I do not force to program to open another file on another drive, there is NO BLOCKING during work.
Here behaves MC different. I do not want to open a file, I just change the view or wants to go into another group. For example: changing from 'crime' to 'war' in the movie view. I believe that, if in this selected group are files which are located on a sleeping drive, MC somehow tries to access them, maybe just testing if they exist. If this access is done in a blocking attempt in same or higer priority as the GUI, then this would result in blocking.

[tij]

@tij  'there might be som background processes...'  Yes, this is what I do believe too. But how to turn it off ?

@jim There are several machines and many programs accessing this NAS. No other than MC has this problem. They all behave the same. When a file must be opened, it could take some seconds until the drive is up. But then, as long I do not force to program to open another file on another drive, there is NO BLOCKING during work.
Here behaves MC different. I do not want to open a file, I just change the view or wants to go into another group. For example: changing from 'crime' to 'war' in the movie view. I believe that, if in this selected group are files which are located on a sleeping drive, MC somehow tries to access them, maybe just testing if they exist. If this access is done in a blocking attempt in same or higer priority as the GUI, then this would result in blocking.

might also depend on your view … MC caches covers in certain sizes … if your view has large covers, MC might be trying to access those covers on NAS (assuming you storing original covers along with movies)

[rolf_eigenheer]

Just to explain...

I was away for an hour. MC was open, but inactive. Then I opened the Video view which is organized in genres. When clicking a new genre, I hear drives spinning up. But not all, only a few of them. During 10 to 20 seconds MC is BLOCKED.  See attached screen shot. Changing to another genre starts other drives and BLOCKS MC again for many seconds. Since my movies are stored on 8 different drives, this can be VERY annoying.
Now since I sit in front of the NAS I can see/hear, that any change of view results in drive activities on the NAS. Drive activities which are handled from the GUI task  and therefore can block the user interface.

@tij: This drive access occurs also in audio views. And very interesting - when the NAS is disconnected I see the thumbnails exactly as before. But without delays when changing views!

[Awesome Donkey]

If your drives are going to sleep on the NAS (aka HDD hibernation) after a couple of minutes, I'd look into increasing that to around an hour instead (or you can disable it if you have hard drives specifically used for 24/7 NAS applications).

Of course, MC will appear "locked up" when the drives are spinning up, and that's considered normal. How long it appears this way depends on both the amount of time it takes to wake the HDD/NAS back up and the overall amount of time it takes over the network/LAN (depending on the speed of your network). This is especially true if you have multiple drives storing your media, with each one having to "wake up". I would *highly* recommend looking into consolidating all your media on one HDD if possible too, just to avoid that type of issue.

[tij]

Just to explain...

I was away for an hour. MC was open, but inactive. Then I opened the Video view which is organized in genres. When clicking a new genre, I hear drives spinning up. But not all, only a few of them. During 10 to 20 seconds MC is BLOCKED.  See attached screen shot. Changing to another genre starts other drives and BLOCKS MC again for many seconds. Since my movies are stored on 8 different drives, this can be VERY annoying.
Now since I sit in front of the NAS I can see/hear, that any change of view results in drive activities on the NAS. Drive activities which are handled from the GUI task  and therefore can block the user interface.

@tij: This drive access occurs also in audio views. And very interesting - when the NAS is disconnected I see the thumbnails exactly as before. But without delays when changing views!

audio view also contains covers/posters

what I notice … I sometimes update my posters outside MC (in Windows Explorer I delete old poster and replace it with new one … my posters are located on NAS) … when I open MC, the poster is updated automatically to new one without me telling MC to do so

therefore, I suspect MC does check cover/posters when you change view … if your posters are located on NAS, I suspect that's what causes your HDD to spin up

there is a difference between HDD spin-down and NAS disconnected … if NAS disconnected, then Windows tells MC so and MC goes on … but if NAS is available, OS will try to access it and that's takes time since your HDD are spun down

PS. are you keeping your posters/covers on NAS together with movies?

[rolf_eigenheer]

If your drives are going to sleep on the NAS (aka HDD hibernation) after a couple of minutes, I'd look into increasing that to around an hour instead (or you can disable it if you have hard drives specifically used for 24/7 NAS applications).

Of course, MC will appear "locked up" when the drives are spinning up, and that's considered normal. How long it appears this way depends on both the amount of time it takes to wake the HDD/NAS back up and the overall amount of time it takes over the network/LAN (depending on the speed of your network). This is especially true if you have multiple drives storing your media, with each one having to "wake up". I would *highly* recommend looking into consolidating all your media on one HDD if possible too, just to avoid that type of issue.

Consolidating ! Yes, I'd love to. But did not find a hdd that can hold 58 TB. Therefore not really an option. The other option discussed in this thread, longer delays befor spun down, will also not help when I start MC for the first time on a day. I still will be blocked several times until the last HDD is on.

If the GUI and Database works really perfect when the NAS is down, why should it try to access files before I know which one I want to play ?
Sure, background operations could be helpful to build thumbnails, and synchronize DB with files. But this should be background, meaning in an non blocking, independent, low priority task. If you say this is not possible, so I'd like to ask you, how to disable these background task completely. Once the DB is built, there is no need for automatism.

I could provide a video of the first two minutes using MC. Watch this once every day and try to imagine that you cannot go for a coffe until its over. No, you have to wait 10..15 seconds after changing the main view, after selecting a genre, then after selecting another and so on.... 

I really love MC. But this could be handled smarter.

[glynor]

But this could be handled smarter.

Unfortunately, what you're hitting is a limitation of Windows. Filesystem Access is UI blocking.

Let the drives sleep and open Windows Explorer (not MC) and browse to the same files on the share, and you'll see it hang in the same way. MC doesn't have a choice. If it tries to access the files in any way, Windows doesn't return control to MC's code until the drive spins up and returns data, or the network attempt to access it times out. The end.

Also, I admit that I skimmed this thread, but... Are you using those drives in JBOD mode? Eg: Not as an array, but just as individual disks? If so, that's a crazy way to try to store 60TB on a NAS. You'd be much, much better off running all the drives in a RAID-6 array (or at least RAID-5, though be wary of those with that many disks). Otherwise, the fact that individual drives are spinning up when accessed doesn't make any sense (the whole array should light up on first access).

And, make sure you don't have a bunch of misplaced or offline database entries in MC which are trying to spin up network volumes that don't exist. For whatever hangs you see with sleeping drives, it is 100x worse for any network drive that doesn't exist anymore (because Windows waits for the 200 second, or whatever it is, timeout). Make a Smartlist or View that shows files missing from disk, and make sure you don't have any nonsense in the Library.

And, lastly, the answer is simple: don't sleep the drives in the array.

If it is actually overheating when the drives are spinning but idle, then it'll sure-as-heck overheat when you're actually using the disks! The answer to that isn't to sleep the drives, it is to add better cooling. If it isn't actually overheating, and you're just worried about it, then you may very well be trying to fix an issue that doesn't exist, and suffering for it.

If you're trying to save money on energy, then you really have to do some deep investigation to determine what the cost vs benefit of sleeping the drives is vs just leaving them on. If you use your media most days, it will almost certainly be a difference of cents over months between an aggressive sleeping setup and just spinning them all the time. Spinning the drive up is most of the power used by a drive. Once it is at speed, keeping it rotating requires a fraction of the power (conservation of momentum). And, evidence for this is somewhat anecdotal, but spinning them up and down all the time must be harder on the drive bearings and motors than just leaving them spinning all the time. In enterprise array setups, the drive sleeping functions available in RAID systems are almost always used only for cold-storage or semi-cold storage systems. Anything that is going to be accessed a few times a day, you're looking at seriously diminishing returns.

So, if you really want to know, you need to get a power meter that can measure power at the plug on the NAS over time. Hook it up to the system as you have it now, and then use it normally for a couple weeks. Then, change it to always on, and record for another couple of weeks. Then look at the power differences. I'm all for saving the Earth (for sure) but you'll probably be surprised at how little difference there is.

And, instead, replace an incandescent bulb or a couple CFLs with LED bulbs instead and you'll be saving way more power.

[glynor]

I should also note, if you have arrays in your NAS that are truly cold-storage (backup volumes are a common use-case for this in home and SOHO setups), then by all means sleep them. If you're only going to access the stuff for short periods, infrequently, then sure.

But for regular everyday media storage, you're generally going to be sad.

However, you certainly don't have to keep everything online all the time! If you have some Media that is really "cold storage" (stuff you want to keep, and keep on the NAS, but will very rarely access and therefore want to sleep the drives, that's totally reasonable. But, to accomplish that without blocking MC's UI all the time, you're going to need to structure your disks and your Views in MC, so that those files are only included in the current View when you actually need to access them. You'll still incur the spinning up drives hang, but it'll only happen when you open your special "cold storage Views".

So, for example, I have a similar situation. My main Media Array in my server is a big RAID-6 array. But, I have too much stuff even with my somewhat obscene amount of storage capacity. So, I have a system where I cold-storage files when we're done watching them. I wait until I have a good set of files to move at once (we finish watching a season of a particular show, or a bunch of new movies I don't intend to watch again soon), and then move them with RMCF to external drives. My "offline" drives are 3.5" spinners in an external drive dock, which are stored in nice cases on a shelf. They're still imported into MC, as I said I moved them with RMCF, but they're only actually physically present when I need them (to re-watch the old episodes of a show before the new, long-awaited season starts again, generally).

For this to work, I have to exclude all of those files from my regular, everyday Media Views. Otherwise, MC will try to read them (or at least their metadata) to cache thumbnails and check for changes and whatnot, and it'll hang all the time when it can't find them (because they're not there). Even when they're attached, I do let those drives spin down and sleep, and so they're high latency on first access (just like you're experiencing).

So, instead, I have [Offline]=1 filtered out of all of my regular Media Views, except for on special "(including Offline)" versions of the Views in MC. me to access those files when I want (after I plug in the appropriate disk), but they're filtered out of my regular Views. [Offline] is a simple Calculated Field which looks at the [Filename] field and a few other bits and spits out 1 if they're in my cold storage set and 2 if they're part of my regular online media library set.

If you have the "old" stuff carefully segregated out on different physical storage devices, then setting up a similar View system on your end should be relatively straightforward. Make your own [Offline] flag and then exclude those files from your regular views.

But if it is all just jumbled together, then your only choice is to keep them all spinning all the time. Which is, honestly, probably fine.

[Hendrik]

Are you using those drives in JBOD mode? Eg: Not as an array, but just as individual disks? If so, that's a crazy way to try to store 60TB on a NAS. You'd be much, much better off running all the drives in a RAID-6 array (or at least RAID-5, though be wary of those with that many disks). Otherwise, the fact that individual drives are spinning up when accessed doesn't make any sense (the whole array should light up on first access).

You are so behind on modern RAID alternatives.
There is plenty of solutions that provide one or two disc redundancy (like a RAID6 would) without using striping, which allows only individual discs to run. As an extra bonus, it allows mixing discs of different sizes (as long as the parity discs are at  least as big as the biggest data disc), and even if more then 2 discs fail, only the actually failed discs are dead, and not the entire array - and finally, you can pull a disc out of the array and just access the files stored on it on another PC.

The only real advantage classic RAID with striping offers in comparison to these solutions referenced above is improved speed due to the striping. But for media storage thats not often required. And the other factors are really strong arguments, for me at least.

No idea if this is his setup, but the old-school RAID concepts are not the only solution for redundancy.

And as a final reminder: RAID is not backup. RAID is basically just a convenience to reduce downtime.

To the OP:
What glynor said initially is unfortunately mostly true, especially with network drives. If all we do is do a cheap query if a file exists, Windows can under certain circumstances block more of the application as really required. Not to say that this is always the case, and some file access on the UI thread might still be present somewhere, but we've been working on eliminating that as much as possible.

I also have a sizable library on a network NAS with many sleeping discs, and the only slowness i usually experience is when I start to play something on a sleeping disc. But since mine is not a hardware NAS, but my own contraption in an old PC, the experience might be quite different, I suppose.

[Awesome Donkey]

Consolidating ! Yes, I'd love to. But did not find a hdd that can hold 58 TB.

Oh wow. Yeah, it'll be a few more years (okay, maybe more than a few more) before 60 TB hard drives are a thing, unfortunately.

[glynor]

You are so behind on modern RAID alternatives.

Good point. I wasn't thinking of the software RAIDs built into the NAS boxes.

They're really slow though, not just a little slow. My RAID6 is faster than (for sequential reads and writes anyway) my 2.5" SATA SSDs.   

The main thing I like about my hardware RAIDs though isn't speed (because, as you said, I rarely need it, except when transcoding) but reliability and robustness. For my big media array, I like having options if the whole motherboard of the system explodes and I need to panic-move the array elsewhere. If I need to migrate my array to a different vendor's RAID card (even Intel) I can. If I want I can even migrate it to a thunderbolt enclosure on a Mac. And, I’m probably being paranoid but I still read about horror stories trying to get damaged arrays back online from many of those solutions.

But that's all fair. If you're using a scheme like that, and you don't want to spin all of them all the time (which, as I stated, is probably the best solution), then you'll probably have to split the volumes up into "cold" and "hot" arrays.

[glynor]

Oh yes, and it is worth agreeing explicitly with Hendrik on this: RAID (of any type) is not a backup.

(One other nice thing about my hardware RAID is that, since it is just a local drive on Windows, Backblaze happily backs up 30TB or so for me for $5/month. Having to restore it though would suck bad.)

[RoderickGI]

Interesting discussion. This caught my eye.

All 7 drives (4 to 8TB each) are attached to a NAS which contains an additional RAID 6TB (net).

So rolf_eigenheer, are you saying that you have a NAS that contains 6TB net, and then 7 drives externally attached to that NAS?

So Windows would see your 6TB NAS, and in addition 7 separate network drives?

How are those external drives attached? USB? USB 3 or 2? Are they all in one enclosure, or just separately attached with one cable each, or daisy-chained together?

If your configuration is as I have implied, that is about the worst-case situation for what you are trying to do. I would think carefully about a storage upgrade and complete re-configuration, as suggested by others above.

[tij]

I think we deviating from main topic … and drifting towards NAS setup

As I understand … rolf_eigenheer is wondering why does MC needs to access his NAS (where media is stored) while only browsing the library since library and thumbnails are located on local PC

My guess … MC is trying to access original poster images that are probably stored on NAS with movies (for example when you hover mouse over movie … info screen pops up with quite a large poster in it … which will require access to original poster image rather than smaller size cached one)

@rolf_eigenheer: as I mention before, if MC wants to access your NAS and OS reports that its not available then MC just moves on (very fast operation) … if OS see your NAS as available then it will try accessing what MC needs -> NAS then spin HDD up -> MC waits for this (long delay)

big question, @rolf_eigenheer, where do your original poster images are stored?

if its on NAS … try [Save Cover Art to External location specified in options] … before you do that … (1) backup your library … (2) make sure cover art location is on local PC

MC then will copy cover arts to local PC … and should not require access to NAS when just browsing

PS. while off topic, I agree with other comments on your NAS setup … use right tool to do the job

[rolf_eigenheer]

Thanks for the participation in this issue.
The thoughts about hdd power cycling are correct. I will need a much longer delay before standby. But some of my drives are not used for weeks. Then they can be seen as cold-storage. Another week I want to watch some rare movies - and this hdd is used daily. I do not know in advance.
While my important files (images audio) were stored in a RAID, the large movies are on different drives attached as JBOD on the NAS. Yes really not a high performance solution. But it exactly meets my needs. Most of the time this drives were not used - and needed, a 15 seconds delay is no problem.

I use my DB for inspiration. I browse through years and genres until i find something which hits my eyes. When holding the entries for different hdds in different views, these advantage goes lost. If if I knew what I want to see and from what drive, I could use explorer and vlc.

So I would like to rephrase the thread title to 'Which settings prevent MC from accessing the storage paths unless playback requires this?'
tij gives some hints what could influence this behaviour. Thanks! What other features need to be turned off ? Any feedback fro the developers is welcome.
Testing MC with the NAS detached does exatly what I want. It's fast, it shows any already imported thumbnail - it's perfect.

@tij: Actually my settings are \file location\cover art\Audio mode: In the same folder as the file. Is there another setting for video thumbs ? But anyway, I do not believe that this is the problem. If thumbs would be read from a view which holds up to tousand movies, then some more data would have to be transmitted. But network monitor only shows e few hundred bytes which are transmittet from/to NAS when switching the view. If MC would omit this small transfer, nothing would be missed and no drive needs to be spun up. Am I wrong ?
@JRiver staff: Could you have an eye on it ?

The thread with keyword 'SPEED' has > 700 views within few hours. There seems to be some broad interest.... I read in different threads of blocking GUI with blurried screen. There might be some more poeple with one or several cheap NAS which use MC to keep an overview over their distributed media files.

[JimH]

I think we deviating from main topic … and drifting towards NAS setup

I changed the subject to better describe the problem.

The thread with keyword 'SPEED' has > 700 views within few hours. There seems to be some broad interest.... I read in different threads of blocking GUI with blurried screen. There might be some more poeple with one or several cheap NAS which use MC to keep an overview over their distributed media files.

It's not our job to make bad hardware look good.

And a cheap NAS doesn't have to be a bad one.

Your setup is the problem here.  Please fix it before posting more about JRiver's problems.

[JimH]

Interesting discussion. This caught my eye.

So rolf_eigenheer, are you saying that you have a NAS that contains 6TB net, and then 7 drives externally attached to that NAS?

So Windows would see your 6TB NAS, and in addition 7 separate network drives?

How are those external drives attached? USB? USB 3 or 2? Are they all in one enclosure, or just separately attached with one cable each, or daisy-chained together?

Please answer the USB question.  USB 3.0 drives won't work well on USB 2.0 ports.

[rolf_eigenheer]

I changed the subject to better describe the problem.
It's not our job to make bad hardware look good.

And a cheap NAS doesn't have to be a bad one.

Your setup is the problem here.  Please fix it before posting more about JRiver's problems.

Hi Jim
The subject you gave this thread matches what has been discussed here. I wanted something else. I would like to operate MC in way that it will not access drives holding media data unless I want to play a file from there.
The hardware I use is not a bad one. It works as expected. It holds several TB of data in different drives. When not used (the most of the time) they sleep. They spin up within 10 to 15 seconds when needed.
So I do not want you to 'make bad hardware look good'. Just do not access the drive when there is no need for.

 

[JimH]

Are the drives plugged into USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ports?

What is the brand and model of the NAS?

Have you tried updating the NAS firmware?  When?

[blgentry]

I've noticed similar behavior with my MC setup.  I get an MC "freeze" while my OS spins up my sleeping hard drives.  This takes about 15 seconds.  I live with it, because it's a minor thing to me.  My external USB drives do not have a no sleep setting and Mac OS (I use a Mac for MC) does not have any controls for this either.  So I let the drives sleep when they want to.

I actually agree that it might be a good feature for MC to not send file system queries until there is a good reason to do so:  Running auto import, playing an actual file, or other file operations that are commanded by the user.  I'm not sure why MC is touching the drives (reading) when I browse through my library views without doing any of the above operations (playing files, etc).

But Rolf, you seem like you are unwilling to try anything that's been offered.  Have you *tried* setting your drives to not sleep?  That seems like the obvious solution and this problem bothers you enough to have posted quite a few times in this thread.   

Brian.

[tij]

Does your Auto-import run in background?

Can be turn off in Tools > Options > Libraries & Folders > Auto-Import > Run auto-import in background
 

[glynor]

Auto-import probably won't trigger the condition (or, it would be limited to the recurring "full scan" instances anyway) because it uses Filesystem Events to trigger, and so won't trigger until a drive is already awake from the change.

There are things you can do to improve performance and reduce reliance on the drives for simply browsing views:
1. Make sure your Thumbnails are all built, and stay built (turn it on for Auto-Import).
2. Disable Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image in lists. This can have a dramatic effect, because it causes MC to check for the existence of every file in your current view when it is displayed.

[hoyt]

2. Disable Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image in lists. This can have a dramatic effect, because it causes MC to check for the existence of every file in your current view when it is displayed.

Interesting point.  As I've posted in other threads, I am currently running my media from Google Drive.  At some points I noticed MC would seem to "randomly" ask for certain files from Google Drive.  This wasn't a big deal because it would download the FLAC in a few seconds, but I was always curious why it was asking for certain files.  I've just shut this off on all of my MC instances to see if this goes away. 

I agree with the general premise that rolf_eigenheer is raising.  It would be nice to have a "don't touch my media until I press play" button.  This is probably possible with a subset of preference changes and I'm eager to learn more about the options.  And I do get a good deal of MC GUI freezes (likely because of the same type of media location delays).  I basically ignore it and just wait. 

This has been an interesting thread to read and a lot of good information... Thanks!

[RoderickGI]

As the problem drive spin-up is occuring when a View is opened, I would agree that this setting is the most likely cause;

2. Disable Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image in lists. This can have a dramatic effect, because it causes MC to check for the existence of every file in your current view when it is displayed.

There are other possible settings. Auto Import particularly in your HDD configuration. But just try the above and see if the problem goes away Rolf.

[JimH]

... I am currently running my media from Google Drive.  At some points I noticed MC would seem to "randomly" ask for certain files from Google Drive. 

Could be background audio analysis or thumbnailing.  You can shut those off.

[blgentry]

2. Disable Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image in lists. This can have a dramatic effect, because it causes MC to check for the existence of every file in your current view when it is displayed.

This appears to make no difference.  I turned this option off, then clicked on my TV Panes view, which has media on a drive that was asleep.  I immediately got a beachball (Mac OS telling you that your app is busy and non-responsive).  Then 15 seconds later, the drive was ready and MC showed me the view.

Brian.

[RoderickGI]

'Losing thumbnails on database restore' also happens to me. There are about 400'000 thumbnails which survived update from MC24 to MC25. But after restoring the database all thumbs need to be rebuild. Several PC in my home have access to the same media files. From one single PC I do organize it all and backup the DB which then will be restored on any other pc. In earlier versions this worked fine and fast. Now, rebuilding the tumbs takes almost a day.

Another speed issue with your setup Rolf. That is probably pointing to some underlying problem with your installation environment. Some points though:

1. Thumbnails always have to be rebuilt for a major MC upgrade. i.e. MC24 to MC25. It should be fast though. Any thumbnails that appear to have "survived" the upgrade were just built at the normal, fast speed, when you opened a View that used them. Those that didn't appear to survive that upgrade are on your poor performing or perhaps even problem disks. Maybe they are failing? Check those HDDs for issues.
2. Thumbnails are not backed up in a MC Library Backup, so each PC you copy your Library to must rebuild its own set of thumbnails. If you refresh the Library on a PC with a new copy, you could even lose the link to thumbnails, so that they need to be rebuilt again. But I'm not sure of that, and it shouldn't happen every time.

Also, can you confirm that you are using multiple PCs each with their own copy of a master MC Library, and all accessing the one set of media files. That is, you are not using the MC Client/Server configuration?

While lots of people do this, it isn't the intended configuration. It could be contributing to your other problems, as each Library checks and makes changes to media files independently. That could happen even if you do all your maintenance on one PC.

Clarification of your installation required Rolf.

[BigSpider]

As I see it, Rolf has a pretty poor set up but his point that MC is looking to the drives instead of it's internal database is quite valid, if MC looked only to it's internal and local database for the events he is describing then there wouldn't be a problem since he is quite happy about the spin up time once a file is selected.

[RoderickGI]

I agree BigSpider. But there seems to be a lot more going on in his installation, given his post in another thread, and specifically the issue I just highlighted in that quoted post above, in bold red.

If the "Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image in lists" setting doesn't improve the situation, then we can move on to other settings.

[rolf_eigenheer]

Another speed issue with your setup Rolf. That is probably pointing to some underlying problem with your installation environment. Some points though:

1. Thumbnails always have to be rebuilt for a major MC upgrade. i.e. MC24 to MC25. It should be fast though. Any thumbnails that appear to have "survived" the upgrade were just built at the normal, fast speed, when you opened a View that used them. Those that didn't appear to survive that upgrade are on your poor performing or perhaps even problem disks. Maybe they are failing? Check those HDDs for issues.
2. Thumbnails are not backed up in a MC Library Backup, so each PC you copy your Library to must rebuild its own set of thumbnails. If you refresh the Library on a PC with a new copy, you could even lose the link to thumbnails, so that they need to be rebuilt again. But I'm not sure of that, and it shouldn't happen every time.

Also, can you confirm that you are using multiple PCs each with their own copy of a master MC Library, and all accessing the one set of media files. That is, you are not using the MC Client/Server configuration?

While lots of people do this, it isn't the intended configuration. It could be contributing to your other problems, as each Library checks and makes changes to media files independently. That could happen even if you do all your maintenance on one PC.

Clarification of your installation required Rolf.

Hi Roderick
Yes! All my PCs have their own copy of the master DB. I know the media server. It is great. But as I turn off the engine when leaving the car, I try not to operate to many devices all the time. Running two PC for playing one song ? For the same reason I love it when a drive which is not needed goes to low power mode. Some of my disks are needed only one or two times a year.

I'm pretty sure that the handling of thumbnails on db restore has changed somehow.  There is another user which reported exactly the same.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120910.0.html
No matter how good or bad my hardware is. What I notice is, that after updating from 24 to 25 my thumbnails were shown very fast. After restoring the DB i could see appearing one after the other.

Maybe 'thumbnails' should be discussed in a separate thread. It's not a real problem - it's just one thing I noted.

[rolf_eigenheer]

Hi all

Thanks for all the valuable input.

Here were my MC settings.
-Run auto-import in background : off
-Display missing file image in lists : off
-background audio analysis : ? @jim where do I find these options  ?

This is my hardware:
-MC running on several win10 PC with a copy of the master DB (mostly only one pc running at the time)
-Synology DS414 with 4x2TB in a RAID5 array
-On every of the two USB3 connectors of the DS414 there is an ICYBOX 3640 (USB3) attached
-In every ICYBOX there are 4 independent USB Drives from 4 to 8TB

Call it 'poor' - at least, it is a very inexpensive way to reuse older drives. Many of them worked as system drives in different PCs. As cold-storage system they do a good job.  As long the were not started every time I browse the MC database and as long they are off most of the time, they could last for a while.

Following your inputs I changed the delay for sleep-mode to the longest possible value: 5h. This means, after a 2 hour movie, I can browse the DB without beeeing blocked. But as expected, it does not change the behavior when starting MC the first time a day. All drives are sleeping then. I will be blocked up to 8 times, 15 seconds each, until all my drives are up. On the other hand, my cold-standby drives now are rotating 5 hours a day without beeing used.


- Do we agree, that a 10..15 seconds delay on drive startup is normal behavior ? In that case we do not have to hunt for USB and/or Antivirus problems. Even if there were some problems - fixing them wouldn't influence the 'blocking' issue.

- Further, do we also agree, that entering a low power state is desired and correct behavior for a drive which probably will not be used for week or months ? Then we do not have to deal with firmware updates and tweaks to prevent drives from going to sleep.

Looking up a filename in a database not automatically accesses that file. Someone has to program that. So would it be possible to get an option that prevents MC from any file access until needed for Playback or manually startet import/sync ? While automated tasks are very helpful on the newest/active drive, it would be great to have the possibility to mark other drives as 'cold-standby'

[RoderickGI]

Well, with your desire to run the minimal number of devices, use the minimum power, and re-use old hard drives, I can't think of a solution that would be less onerous than just waiting for the drives to spin up. At least not without lots of testing, and I don't have an environment like yours to test on.

So I guess I will leave this to JRiver to comment or investigate further, or offer a solution.

Some things I thought about, but haven't investigated:

1. If your Views include anything that requires MC to check the files included, that would cause the drives to spin up. IsMissing() is an example of a function that would spin up the drives.
2. You could try starting MC in Read-Only mode. There is a command line switch for that. I'm not sure that would stop the problem anyway, but it would certainly stop updates to the Library, which would mean losing Bookmark, Number of Plays, and some other functionality. You could test that by copying the startup shortcut for MC and appending the /LibraryReadOnly parameter.
3. You could start MC by running a script instead of the standard shortcut, and have that script disconnect your NAS and IcyBox drives, so they weren't available to MC, which you say works fine. Then when you are ready to play something you could run another script to reconnect the drives. That second script could even be run from within Theatre View from the menu.
4. You could install monitoring software on one of the PCs and collect data on what MC is doing when you open a View. That may provide a clue as to what needs to be turned off in MC, if it is a setting.
5. If willing, you could replace your NAS and all drives with a Windows Server with all disks in it, and let it manage the drive spin up. The spin-up may not be much faster, but depending on configuration, it could be. Six 10 or 12 TB drives would hold what you have now, and could fit in a server. So instead of running the NAS all the time, you would run the Windows Server all the time, both with drives spun down. You could then use your existing NAS and IcyBox drive for real backups of your media files. Of course, that would be quite an investment and some work to do.
6. There are NASs that use write-through cache drives, that can use SSDs for the cache. I think some of the IcyBox models can even do that. There are also hybrid drives that cache data in memory and call it from there first, then look to the drive. If either of those held the drive file records in the SSD/Memory, then they may not spin up the drive when MC accesses them, for whatever it is doing. That option would require quite a bit of investigation and testing.
7. If you believe some new functionality has caused this to start happening, you could install earlier versions of MC and test if the issue still happens.
8. If you think that possibly some customisation you have done is causing the issue, you could create an empty Library, import some stuff from each drive, and test if it still happens.


Or I guess JRiver could provide a programmatic way to not access the drive until you hit Play. I suspect that would have potential consequences, but I haven't tried to work them all out.

[rolf_eigenheer]

Well, with your desire to run the minimal number of devices, use the minimum power, and re-use old hard drives, ....

Is this an unseemly desire ? Especially under the premise, that these 'old' drives still deliver much more bandwith than is required for watching todays highest resolution movies.

I do not ask for something complicated! I'm asking for not to do something. Not to access a media file when I'm just  browsing the database.  I'd be glad to assist the developers with logging filesystem activities (just tell me how to activate debug logging) or supplying my DB for analyzing the structure and settings.

[tij]

Also try turning off (need to restart MC for this to be apply)

Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Enable OSD

Options > Tree & View > List > Show track info tooltips

tooltips show high quality cover art that MC gets from original location (not from thumbnails … I disconnected NAS and tooltip has no more cover art … letting me to believe MC gets cover art for tooltip from original location … so if your cover art on NAS too, that might be reason MC wakes your HDD)

PS. its mighty strange though … if cannot get original cover art from NAS … MC should have displayed at least highest available thumbnail … instead nothing is shown)

PSS. this only causes HDD to spin up if your cover arts are located on NAS

[rolf_eigenheer]

Thanks tij, I'll try this. But it feels a bit like searching easter eggs under mummys and daddys gentle eyes.
Users which payed several hundred $ over the years are speculating, guessing and trying, while the ones which have written the requirements and the code are watching us.

@JRiver: What features require media access during DB lookup ? How can they be disabled ?

[tij]

Well ... to be fair ... programs are written by many ppl (some of them probably not working with JRiver anymore) ... speaking from my own experience, digging through other ppl code is not fun (digging through your own old code is not much better too)

[JimH]

Thanks tij, I'll try this. But it feels a bit like searching easter eggs under mummys and daddys gentle eyes.
Users which payed several hundred $ over the years are speculating, guessing and trying, while the ones which have written the requirements and the code are watching us.

@JRiver: What features require media access during DB lookup ? How can they be disabled ?

Please fix your NAS configuration.

[rolf_eigenheer]

- Do we agree, that a 10..15 seconds delay on drive startup is normal behavior ? In that case we do not have to hunt for USB and/or Antivirus problems. Even if there were some problems - fixing them wouldn't influence the 'blocking' issue.

- Further, do we also agree, that entering a low power state is desired and correct behavior for a drive which probably will not be used for week or months ? Then we do not have to deal with firmware updates and tweaks to prevent drives from going to sleep.

Looking up a filename in a database not automatically accesses that file. Someone has to program that. So would it be possible to get an option that prevents MC from any file access until needed for Playback or manually startet import/sync ? While automated tasks are very helpful on the newest/active drive, it would be great to have the possibility to mark other drives as 'cold-standby'

Good Morning Jim
Maybe you missed, what has been discussed meanwhile. Any 'solution' in hardware requires to keep all the drives containing one or more media file, rotating all the time. There are good reasons to have a database for all media files - even there is no need to access them frequently.  So I kindly ask you to come away from your 'hardware problem' centric view and answer the simple question: Is there a way to configure MC not to access files when there is no need for playback or explicit reindexing/thumbnailing.
Best regards
Rolf

[JimH]

Good Morning Jim
Maybe you missed, what has been discussed meanwhile. Any 'solution' in hardware requires to keep all the drives containing one or more media file, rotating all the time. There are good reasons to have a database for all media files - even there is no need to access them frequently.  So I kindly ask you to come away from your 'hardware problem' centric view and answer the simple question: Is there a way to configure MC not to access files when there is no need for playback or explicit reindexing/thumbnailing.
Best regards
Rolf

We're not going to make any changes, so please adjust your setup as required.  I'll close this thread later today.