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[dragyn]

Starting a new thread per request.

I have a bunch of audio files and images loaded into the database. I noticed that MC will save 3 different copies of a thumbnail depending on the view size in one directory.

Well, when I start MC, I have no problems. It loads in about 3 secs which is good.  Right now, I have it set to start in Playing Now. I have it cleared. Mem usage starts at around 5MB. After about 5mins, just sitting there, it's now up to 27MB. Remember, I'm not doing anything, no plugins, no files displayed, etc. VM Size is at 30MB.

When I close MC, it takes forever. I'm talking at least 2-5mins. And again, this is just opening, then closing right away. CPU usage is at 01 to 03. Memory is at a constant. Lots of HD usage at this time. I can hear it.

I have a little over 81,000 thumbnails in that directory. I did a reformat thinking it was my system. Installed xp pro sp1, did all the updates, driver updates, ntfs, etc.

Anyone have a lot of thumbnails and experiencing this problem? How many thumbnails do you have and how long does it take to close?

Media Center Registered 9.0.137 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 805 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 196 MB, Free - 76 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929)wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive F:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive E: TEAC     CD-W54E            Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:4  MaxSpeed:4  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

Dave,
Did you see the message I posted tonight about XP SP1?  It isn't exactly the same symptom, but it's all I can think of right now.

Have you tried deleting the database and re-importing?

Skins?

Visualization?

Anything unusual about the setup?  Music on a networked drive, for instance?

81,000 files is a lot of any kind of file for a single directory.  I'm not sure at what point Windows begins to suffer.

Matt made a change about that time that had to do with thumbnails.  I don't think it keeps them any longer, but I could be wrong.

I have just about 5000 thumbnails.  Shut-down is instant.  I couldn't even time it.  I have two thumb-nails for each image, one set probably from earlier builds.

I have memory that is constant at about 5MB or less until I play.

I did notice that when I opened the MC\data\thumbnails directory, explorer's memory usage shot from 30MB to 60MB and disk activity started and continued until I closed the directory.  It was probably creating its own thumbnails.

Try renaming directories to see if you can pinpoint what is doing it.

[Griff]

Hello

Anyone have a lot of thumbnails and experiencing this problem

Yep (slowdown)

Did you see the message I posted tonight about XP SP1?

No, But bull.

Matt made a change about that time that had to do with thumbnails

Surely looks like it.

Have a great night
Griff

PS Hint: watch what happens with the thumnails.

Matt no reflection on you, your a good dude.
And thanks for doing a good job.

[dragyn]

I have skins enabled. No visualizations.  I do have most of my music files on a network using UNC. It was not doing this at that time.

I saw that message about sp1 but I installed sp1a so I don't know if anything was fixed about that. It's on the MS site. Startup is fast.

When using MC, I can open up "Images" and it displays the files just fine (fast). HD running normal (no noise). The library is new after I reformatted using 137.

I couldn't rename the thumbnail directory as it was in use (this was after I closed MC). I did a library backup, created a new library in a different directory, did the restore, closed MC, reopened. All the files were there but the thumbnails were not created (detail view). When I closed MC, it was instant. Did it a few times and it worked fast.  

The thing I don't get is when I was opening MC the first time, no thumbnails were displayed just like with the new library. I turned off skins to see if there was a difference and it's still doing it.

[michel]

After to install MC b137 I merged both audio and image libraries so it includes now 35000+ objets (audio and image type).

Now MC takes almost one minute to shutdown MC. There is a lot of disk activity and very little use of CPU.

Also MC takes a long time when it starts with a thumbnail view (but it is reasonably fast starting with a detail view).

I am running XP SP1 and my library is 38MB large. I was running XP SP1 already before "b137+libraries merge" operation without this problem though.

[dragyn]

As it looks so far, it's ppl with sp1.
Jim, are you using xp or xp sp1?

Is there other ppl out there not using xp and experience a slowdown?

How about FAT32 vs NTFS. Isn't there a size limit for a folder under FAT/FAT32?

[JimH]

I'm on SP 0.

Media Center Registered 9.0.137 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1  (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1792 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 288 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpclient.010817-1148) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000 (xpclient.010817-1148)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000 (xpclient.010817-1148) / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

Ripping /   Drive F:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive G:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: No /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   C:\WINDOWS\Media\ringout.wav

Burning /  Drive F: PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-103    Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:8  MaxSpeed:8  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Drive G: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W4012A   Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[dragyn]

Well I did some tinkering around and changed the permissions for the thumbnail folder.

I have 11,000 thumbnails and it takes about 1min to close. CPU usage is high...but there is NO hard drive noise. I don't know if this is a good idea or not. Startup is fast as normal. Other programs run fine.

I noticed in the task manager that the write bytes are very low now. Before it was like 50MB at a time. Now it's under a MB.

I guess I'll have to live with it until someone knows what it is it's doing...

[Matt]

Dragyn, do this:

1) start MC and move to "Start" in the tree
2) close MC -- timing how long it takes

3) start MC and move to "Start" in the tree
4) use an external program (Explorer) to erase all the files in the MC\Thumbnail folder
5) close MC -- timing how long it takes

How does 2 compare to 5?  If there's a big speed difference, the problem is the thumbnail cleanup.  If not, it's something else.

Thanks Dragyn.

[michel]

If there's a big speed difference, the problem is the thumbnail cleanup.

In my case 'erase thumbnails on exit' is unchecked so which cleanup you mean ?

81,000 files is a lot of any kind of files for a single directory.  I'm not sure at what point Windows begins to suffer.

This large number of files results of the MC' design, it is not a thing that a user can control. So what do you suggest in case the problem come from that ?

[JimH]

This large number of files results of the MC' design, it is not a thing that a user can control. So what do you suggest in case the problem come from that ?

Patience would be good.

[michel]

Patience to wait MC close or patience to wait a fix ?



Anyway, as I said, it is not a big problem for me.

[Matt]

Patience to wait MC close or patience to wait a fix?

That depends on if we can fix it

Next build will use a smarter thumbnail system that'll use way less memory with no performance hit.

It still uses the same cleanup method that it is now though. (to remove thumbs from non-imported / explorer files)  This should only be slow if you are viewing a lot of un-imported files.

Let us know once the next build is out...

[dragyn]

7secs
4secs

That's having 2,000 thumnails in the directory. Something happened and well...it's a long story.

I did notice a speed up before I started timing stuff. I can make the thumbnails over again and retime if ya want..or wait until the next build.

[dragyn]

Using build 140.

Went to Start, Closed MC. 37secs. hard drive noise, cpu low.
Started MC (at Start), Renamed Thumbnails to Thumbnails2. Created new Thumbnails directory. 7secs.

I noticed that build 140 does a lot better job at the memory management. VM size in previous builds would go over 400+MB when creating a lot of thumbnails. Now it's at a constant 70MB

[dragyn]

update..

I'm using NTFS and the file indexing service was turned on (default). I turned that off and moved my library out of "program files". Doing these 2 things greatly improved the speed on shutdown.

Also note, when I say shutdown. I'm not talking about the MC window. That always closed immediatly. I'm talking about the MC process which is still running.

Everything is lookin good over here.

[Matt]

Good find Dragyn.

Next build will start making thumbnails that are excluded for NTFS indexing.

Thanks!