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Author Topic: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files  (Read 1772 times)

Chris Shaw

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Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« on: April 17, 2004, 08:21:16 pm »

I use a 20Gb Lacie external firewire drive for backups, and I wanted to put some music on it for travelling. Using the Portable Drive plugin, MC recognised the drive but due to having around 50000 files in other folders, it's unusably slow. Every time I try to do something with it, it takes around 5 minutes before responding. There used to be an option not to scan subfolders on a Handheld but I can't find it any more. Does anyone have any suggestions?
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SteveG

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2004, 09:13:00 am »

Is this slowness after you have seen the message about building a database file one time? What version of MC 10 do you have?

Steve
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Chris Shaw

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2004, 09:52:21 am »

Yes. It takes about 5 minutes to build the database initially but then is still really slow. I'm running MC 10.0.115
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Chris Shaw

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2004, 08:44:58 pm »

I've tried this again with the latest build (117) and it's still really slow. Filemon reports that it's checking every folder on the drive before and after a transfer, even the ones that aren't under the MC root folder.
Although I don't like it, I can understand why it might check the whole drive afterwards, since the view always jumps to the actual root of the drive and it needs to list every file. But before a transfer, it should only need to look at files under the MC root folder, shouldn't it?
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SteveG

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2004, 09:24:08 am »

cjdshaw,

For now, it must check under all the folders to accomodate the file matching that is going on behind the scenes. This will be improved in the future.

Steve
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Chris Shaw

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2004, 01:06:14 pm »

Cool, thanks. I may repartition it in the meantime so that I can keep backups on a separate drive letter that MC won't see as handheld.
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hottuna

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Re:Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2005, 12:41:01 pm »

cjdshaw,

For now, it must check under all the folders to accomodate the file matching that is going on behind the scenes. This will be improved in the future.

Steve

I recently upgraded from Media Jukebox and I really like MC11, but when I connect my portable HD/player it takes over 30 minutes for all the files to be read/cataloged/whatever. I've seen a few posts from users experiencing similar issues, is there a solution planned in or is this a unique problem?

Media Center Registered 11.0.183 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1681 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 178 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D: DVD+R/RWDX082D            Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive D: DVD+R/RW DX082D             Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:8  MaxSpeed:32  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None
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SteveG

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2005, 05:43:06 pm »

hottuna,

The large time lag should only occur the first time you connect (assuming you have many files already on your device). Are you experiencing the delay even after you close and reconnect the device?

Steve
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hottuna

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2005, 07:51:53 pm »

yes, every time I connect the device I get the <initializing portable> message, prior to version 11.0.183 the message was <retrieving file info>.  This lasts over 30 minutes and eats up 98-99% cpu which of course slows the pc to a crawl.
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SteveG

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2005, 02:12:22 pm »

hottuna,

Can you look on your device for a file called 'database.mpl'? If you find it, could you email it to me or open it and see if it lists all the files on your device.  This file is the one MC generates and is what should be opened and read on reconnections of your device so that files do not get reanalyzed (which is what appears to be happening for you).

Thanks,

Steve
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hottuna

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2005, 09:14:27 pm »

Steve, the file exists and appears to contain all the files on the harddrive. It's 8.4 meg in size so emailing it could pose problems.  I tried deleting it and MC11 recreated it the next time I connected, still it take over 30 minutes to load the drive into in ot MC11.
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SteveG

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2005, 12:38:04 pm »

hottuna,

After you delete the file, MC should recreate it, but not after that. Try checking the date stamp on the file and then after the first creation of it, see if it is getting recreated. If so, the problem is that MC is not recognizing the file. If not, we have to keep digging to figure out why the delay.

Steve
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plopje

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2005, 04:56:59 pm »

Steve,

I really think you have to look into this.

A while ago I reported the same issue. See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=25576.0 in the handheld section. I have 1400 files and it takes about 1 minute on a Pentium 4 3.04 Ghz and a 80 Gb portable drive (USB 2.0) just to read the already built database. It seems to me that the 50000 files of cdjshaw makes MC unusable slow.
I don't understand why MC does not use a database on the handheld similar as its internal one, which shows it's contents instantly. Does the .mpl-file (XML) not provide some kind of indexing? I guess that would things speed up a little bit!

Synching with MC 9 is a lot quicker, because it just reads the files on the handheld on the fly. That worked like a charm to me!
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hottuna

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Re: Slow to browse portable drive with lots of files
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2005, 06:58:09 pm »

Steve, the date stamp on the file did not change and the problem persists.   

96% CPU
"Initializing Portable" message in MC
Not much activity on the drive
And I anticipate a 30+ minute wait
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