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Author Topic: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)  (Read 836 times)

jack wallstreet

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My music is on a NAS (DS1618+) and mapped to a virtual drive that MC 28 uses.  Music plays fine generally, but switching between music folders (using the MC 28 explorer) on MC 28 can take seconds (up to 10) while almost instant on the computer itself using file explorer.  More importantly, I  get occasional  "file in use" errors when editing (usually goes away if I try to enter again, slowly) and major stuttering when quickly switching between songs (never happenned before - MC has always been lightening fast).  Does MC not like the library to be on a mapped drive?  Am I doing something stupid (would not be too unusual as I only recently switched to an NAS).  Suggestions please.  Was using the most recent MC 27 and now MC 28.0.39.  Don't think it makes any difference for this issue

Edit: I'll add that while music in a play list plays well, a right click to bring up the context menu on any file can take 5 or more seconds.  Again on windows file explorer the response is almost instantaneous.   
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John

macdonjh

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2021, 07:35:59 am »

I recently moved all my media files to a NAS as well.  I've been doing some reading here and in the MC wiki about all this stuff.  From what I've read, your media files can be anywhere you want them to be.

However, your Library file, the index file MC creates to be able to find your music and video files, should reside on the computer you're using.  MC will use that locally stored Library file to find and play your media files where ever you've stored them.
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jack wallstreet

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2021, 09:47:56 pm »

Update.  I really appreciate the various suggestions I got (couple of related posts).  I did a lot of experimenting and testing, but ultimately the NAS (for whatever reason) was way to slow for my MC needs.

1. The NAS works fine for video playing (except at the highest bit rate for 4k) - which it can't handle
2. The NAS works fine MC music playing (the database is of course on the computer)
3. The  NAS is way too slow for the type of editing/workflow that I do when I edit my database or do tagging.  Sometimes multi-second delay to bring up a right click menu.
4. I switched my music files to a fast hard drive connected via a USB 3 cable.  That helped a lot but I still had minor speed problems and an occasional failure (it said) to update the file with a tag (I would have to redo the tag edit.)
5. I have switched my music back to a hard drive connected to the motherboard.  I do too much editing to have speed problems.
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John

tij

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2021, 11:59:23 pm »

You using wifi?
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HTPC: Win11 Pro, MC: latest 31(64b), NV Driver: v425.31, CPU: i9-12900K, 32GB RAM, GeForce: 2080ti
Screen: LG 2016 E6
NAS: FreeNAS 11.1, SuperMicro SSG-5048R-E1CR36L, E5-1620v4, 64GB ECC RAM, 18xUltrastar He12-SAS3 drives, 2x240GB SSD (OS)

jctcom

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2021, 03:09:52 am »

I have been using a NAS for years.  Couple of things. 

1. I don't use "Mapped" drives.  But instead the UNC path.  this makes it more consistent and easy to remember if using multiple computers.
2. Does not play well with WiFi.  All my computers that are directly connected to database are wired.  not Wifi.  Wifi is fine for computer that is controlling the playback.  But not for the computer that is doing editing etc...

Have tried having the database on the NAS to allow editing etc.. from multiple computers but it does not seem to work well.

Hope that helps.

Carl.

jack wallstreet

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2021, 08:27:25 am »

You using wifi?

Everything is hard wired.  I was very surprised and disappointed that it didn't work well - it was fine for playing music and video but really bad for audio editing in MC
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John

tij

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #6 on: September 20, 2021, 09:36:01 am »

Everything is hard wired.  I was very surprised and disappointed that it didn't work well - it was fine for playing music and video but really bad for audio editing in MC

Possible Antivirus or Windows Defender is interfering ...  might not be noticable on local HDD ... but on NAS it might be significant

Make sure you put MC in antivirus/defender exceptions ... and exclude NAS from on access scans
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HTPC: Win11 Pro, MC: latest 31(64b), NV Driver: v425.31, CPU: i9-12900K, 32GB RAM, GeForce: 2080ti
Screen: LG 2016 E6
NAS: FreeNAS 11.1, SuperMicro SSG-5048R-E1CR36L, E5-1620v4, 64GB ECC RAM, 18xUltrastar He12-SAS3 drives, 2x240GB SSD (OS)

macdonjh

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2021, 08:44:12 pm »

Possible Antivirus or Windows Defender is interfering ...  might not be noticable on local HDD ... but on NAS it might be significant

Make sure you put MC in antivirus/defender exceptions ... and exclude NAS from on access scans

Thank you for that, I didn't think about that.  I'll have to look at the settings for Norton...  Would what you've suggested be a possibility if Norton isn't yet installed on my NAS, only my computer?  Seems like it would, since my computer accesses my NAS.
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tij

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2021, 12:48:43 am »

Thank you for that, I didn't think about that.  I'll have to look at the settings for Norton...  Would what you've suggested be a possibility if Norton isn't yet installed on my NAS, only my computer?  Seems like it would, since my computer accesses my NAS.

Viruses are getting sophisticated… to keep up, anti virus software monitors application activities in real time … that includes monitoring application IO … in other words, scanning files that applications access

MC accesses stuff at low level … so it looks very suspicious to anti viruses … so yes, antivirus can scan files when MC requests access to them even if it’s from NAS (which makes it worse as NAS is relatively slow compared to locally access stuff)

So for best performance … if you trust MC … configure Antivirus to exclude MC from being monitored … and exclude NAS mapped drives from being scanned on access
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HTPC: Win11 Pro, MC: latest 31(64b), NV Driver: v425.31, CPU: i9-12900K, 32GB RAM, GeForce: 2080ti
Screen: LG 2016 E6
NAS: FreeNAS 11.1, SuperMicro SSG-5048R-E1CR36L, E5-1620v4, 64GB ECC RAM, 18xUltrastar He12-SAS3 drives, 2x240GB SSD (OS)

jack wallstreet

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2021, 05:20:32 pm »


MC accesses stuff at low level … so it looks very suspicious to anti viruses … so yes, antivirus can scan files when MC requests access to them even if it’s from NAS (which makes it worse as NAS is relatively slow compared to locally access stuff)

I use Norton and couldn't find a way to temporarily turn it "off", so instead I "disabled" it completely from the Norton control panel.  The disabling had no effect on my edit speed.  As a result, I didn't bother to exclude MC and the NAS drives in Norton since the more severe "disabling" both the anti-virus and the firewall had no significant impact.  Was that an effective or an ineffective test, i.e., disabling?
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John

JimH

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Re: Mapped Music Drive From NAS - Very Slow and Weird MC errors (file in use)
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2021, 06:07:18 pm »

Antivirus must be uninstalled to be certain it's not the problem.  Disabling it isn't enough.
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