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Author Topic: High CPU usage  (Read 4811 times)

AoXoMoXoA

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High CPU usage
« on: October 12, 2006, 11:48:41 am »

I am seeing extremely high CPU usage while MC12 is open but not playing (40 - 60%)
as well as while playing mp3 files in MC12 (40 - 80+%) compared to MC11 (4 - 6% playing).

I have Options set NOT to import in the background.


_________________________________________________
Media Center Registered 12.0.90 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows 2000 5.0 Service Pack 4 (Build 2195)
AMD Athlon 1726 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1015 MB, Free - 599 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81.4968 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2800 / Shell32.dll: 5.0.3900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive E:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive D: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W4012A   Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive E: LITE-ON  DVDRW SHM-165H6S   Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:

___________________________________________

Media Center Registered 11.1.200 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows 2000  Workstation 5.0 Service Pack 4 (Build 2195)
AMD Athlon 1725 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1015 MB, Free - 578 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81.4968 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2800 / Shell32.dll: 5.0.3900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D: PLEXTOR CD-R   PX-W4012A  Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive E:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive D: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W4012A   Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive E: LITE-ON  DVDRW SHM-165H6S   Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: No /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /
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JimH

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2006, 11:50:52 am »

Any third party plug-ins?

Second monitor?  There's another thread on this problem.

Thumbnail building will take up CPU until completed.
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glynor

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2006, 12:28:34 pm »

I've noticed that the Thumbnail building now actually shows up as a separate process in the Task Manager process tab.  Are you actually seeing the Media Center 12.exe process taking up that CPU time, or were your numbers just general CPU usage?

If you were just looking at the overall CPU usage, you might want to check the process tab for the Thumbnail-building processes.  I've found they can eat up significant CPU time, though they seem to be pretty well behaved about sharing resources if the computer is being used by other applications.
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2006, 12:35:33 pm »

I have removed all 3rd party plugins with no change, and was waiting in hopes that it was building thumbnails and would calm down. Now I am not as optomistic because,
I've noticed that the Thumbnail building now actually shows up as a separate process in the Task Manager process tab.  Are you actually seeing the Media Center 12.exe process taking up that CPU time, or were your numbers just general CPU usage?
I was looking specifically MC12.

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JimH

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2006, 12:47:34 pm »

Second monitor?
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2006, 12:52:00 pm »

Second monitor?
Nope, just one.
Would MC's logging function be of any help here?
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JimH

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2006, 12:55:57 pm »

Maybe.  Try mailing one to matt at jriver.
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2006, 12:59:55 pm »

I keep seeing thread running called Device Lanman Redirector, could this have anything to do with it?
My files are on a network drive.
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JimH

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2006, 01:09:09 pm »

That's not ours.

Try this thread, too:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.0

There's one there caused by a video driver.  Virus checkers can also cause problems.
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glynor

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2006, 01:46:48 pm »

I keep seeing thread running called Device Lanman Redirector, could this have anything to do with it?
My files are on a network drive.

The LANMan Redirector is the Windows "client" network file system driver.  It is the software part of Windows that allows your computer to access files located on remote network shares, so it is related to the files on your network drive.  The "counterpart" of this which serves the files is called LANMan Server.

You really shouldn't see this process take a lot of CPU time, unless you are actively transferring large files over the network (or if there are problems with your network).

A couple of questions:

1) You said your files are on the network drive.  Does this mean only the media files, or the library database files as well?  If so, you might be having this problem.  MC heavily accesses those database files and it performs much better if they are on a local drive.  Having the media files on a network drive is fine.

2) Is your network wired or wireless?

3) Have you scanned for Spyware and Viruses recently?  Spyware and Virus activity can cause lots of disk access (as they scan your hard drives and network drives for info to collect on you).

4) You may want to exclude your network drive from being watched by your Anti-Virus application.  This can cause similar problems, as every time you "touch" a file on the network drive, the AV program will try to scan the file first.  Look in the help file for how to exclude certain files and folders (in Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate there's an option to exclude Network Drives which works, but I don't know how to do it on other apps).

5) Is your network reliably transferring data?  Try pinging another device or computer on the network a bunch and make sure none of them are dropped or have freakishly high ping times.  To ping more than 4 times (the default) use this command at the Command Prompt:

Code: [Select]
ping -n 10000 <IP or Hostname>
(that'll ping 10,000 times)

Another thing good thing to do is to test copying files for corruption using Md5 sums to make sure they match.  Do this:

1. Create or grab a batch of files (some big and some small), put them all in a couple of folders somewhere on your local drive.
2. Generate MD5 hashes of the files.  A good program to use for this is MD5Summer if you want a free GUI app.  When you run it, it'll ask you what "root folder" you want to scan.  Simply pick the folder containing the files you want to scan, and then click "Create Sums".  Select all the files and click Add (or if there are sub-folders, click "Add recursively").
3. Save the MD5 sum file.  MD5Summer should do this automatically.
4. Transfer the files back and forth across the network all at once (it works best if you start multiple copy processes going all at once -- that's why I said "a couple of folders").
5. Once you're done copying, test the new copies with MD5Summer to make sure the hashes match (if you simply double click on the new copy of the Md5 file you created originally, MD5Summer should launch and test them all for you).
6. If they don't all pass, you've got issues.  That means your network is corrupting data.  This is often caused by hardware problems (bad network interface, bad cabling, overclocking, etc), but can also be software (bad drivers, viruses, spyware).
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2006, 03:27:12 pm »

In response to Glynor's post:

1- My Media files are on a network drive (and have been for years with no problems), but the Library files are LOCAL.

2- My network is WIRED

3- Spyware and Virus scans run routinely and just a few days ago on the Client (MC12 machine) and we are using a very recent clean reinstall of Win2K on the Server.

4- I have not had this issue previously and have made no changes to my AV software to cause this. Also this is occuring whenever MC12 is open, I am not actually actively doing anything with the files to trigger a scan.

5- My network is working normally in all other respects.

and most perplexing of all: I do not see any problems like this when I use MC11, but they reappear again upon running MC12   ?
if it was a hardware or network issue then would it not then be common to both MC versions as they are accessing the same files?
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Matt

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2006, 03:28:43 pm »

It's probably building thumbnails.  This is a once time thing.

Switch to "Start" and see if CPU usage settles.
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glynor

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2006, 03:42:09 pm »

if it was a hardware or network issue then would it not then be common to both MC versions as they are accessing the same files?

In general, it would.  I agree with Matt then, it's probably the thumbnail building.
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #13 on: October 12, 2006, 03:44:50 pm »

It's probably building thumbnails.  This is a once time thing.

Switch to "Start" and see if CPU usage settles.
Switching to START had no effect.
When I look at MC12 in TaskInfo, I can see the all the active threads listed in the MC12 file list panel and this Device\LanmanRedirector\ appears to be scanning my files. I will sit it out and see if it curtails, as it should if only thumbnail building.

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glynor

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #14 on: October 12, 2006, 04:42:32 pm »

Just in case, since MC does access the files differently in 12 than it did before (especially in regards to the thumbnailing), I might just check my suggestion #4.  There's really no need to double-scan the files (on the client machine and on the server) and if you do regular checks anyway, there's doubly no need.  Letting the AV app "auto protect" files over the network is just a bad idea for general performance reasons anyway...

A simple way to eliminate the possibility of AV software causing the issue is to disable it temporarily and see if the problem goes away.  As I indicated though, even if it isn't the cause of this problem, I'd recommend excluding them anyway because it could cause other performance issues in the future (or be slowing you down and you don't even realize it).
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AoXoMoXoA

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Re: High CPU usage
« Reply #15 on: October 12, 2006, 06:54:56 pm »

 ;D

The cause must have been the thumbnail creation as it has ceased.
Thanks for the help.
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