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[AlexS]

So this might be a bug.

STEPS

Add a music library to a local network server i.e.\\192.168.2.3\mymusic\cd
Index the library
Everything works fine.
Close Media Centre
Disconnect server.
Start JRiver

EXPECTED
JRiver starts normally

ACTUAL
JRiver takes ages to start and shutdown.

It might not be able to find the music folder but that's no excuse to hog up the whole interface say if I want to play an individual file on my desktop.

Or am I missing something?

Thanks...

[AoXoMoXoA]

Most of my library is often offline and I have seen slow reactions by MC also. Not sure if the size of my library has an impact on this or not.

[AlexS]

I think it's basically stalling media centre here, I would expect media centre to start and then attempt to find the media files. If searching for files/folders/network drives were to slow down media centre then it should be on a separate thread or process.

Thanks..

[JimH]

It's Windows.  Try connecting to any server that is offline and you will see the same thing.

[AlexS]

Sorry that is to be honest more of an excuse, it perfectly possible to continue this applications functionality without having to wait for a timeout as explained in my previous post. This is the sort of functionality I would expect in an app like this when dealing with library folders that may or may not be there, JRiver should be able to deal with it and not hang around for some timeout.

[glynor]

I'm not so sure this is as simple as you think.

I have a few thousand assets that are stored on offline disks that are NEVER (or very infrequently) attached when I use Media Center, but which are imported into the Library, and I have no performance issues at all like what you're discussing.

I'm confused by how you're using the term "Library", though.  MC won't start at all if it can't access the Library (the database).  This should be stored on a fast disk (preferably an SSD if possible) and should not be disconnected.  You probably mean the media files themselves (the network drive), but I'm not 100% sure.  What, exactly, are you disconnecting and how?

Also, a few questions/suggestions:

1. When you launch MC, what is your Startup Location?  If, when it launches, it is trying to display a view that shows all of the "broken links" performance will suffer (pretty dramatically) as it tries to figure out what files are there and not there.  If you change Startup Location to something simple like Start or Playing Now, does it go away?

2. Is Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image enabled or disabled?  Does it make a difference to disable it?  This may alleviate issue #1 greatly if you don't want to start up to Playing Now or whatever.

3. Is the Network Location included in Auto-Import?  If you disable Auto-Import and restart MC, does the issue vanish?

[JimH]

Open a search window from the Start button and type in a non-existent server name:

\\foobar

On my machine, Windows takes more than 10 seconds to say it doesn't exist.

[glynor]

That is absolutely true if he is using UNC paths, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about that, except not try to access them.  I think the issue is that MC is trying to access them when launching because his startup view shows a bunch of the files, so it is trying to do the Missing artwork fill.

[Hendrik]

There is a difference between discs which are not attached (to your local system), and network resources which are not available.
Non-present discs are a non-issue, since Windows of course knows which discs are there, or not.

Network resources are tricky, because it'll ask around in the network and have timeouts to allow the remote host to answer, and the like.
So its certainly possible to see such problems with network resources, but not with missing local discs.

In any case, its certainly not intentionally slow in such a use-case.
I'll put it on my list to check out if there is something obvious to change, or at least to find out how deep changes would need to go to decouple this more.

There are however cases where its truly Windows' fault, as sad as that sounds. But I'll investigate first.
As a warning though, there won't be any quick fixes.

[AoXoMoXoA]

2. Is Options > Tree & View > Advanced > Display missing file image enabled or disabled?  Does it make a difference to disable it?  This may alleviate issue #1 greatly if you don't want to start up to Playing Now or whatever.

Thank you once again Glynor, this made a marked difference in performance in my case.

(my offline drives are USB not network)

[glynor]

Thank you once again Glynor, this made a marked difference in performance in my case.

(my offline drives are USB not network)

My offline disks are SATA (using one of those SATA drive docks).  You don't even need to disable that option as long as you isolate the files that might be missing from your regular library views.

The issue is that when you open a view, if that option is enabled, it checks the status (available/missing) of every file that shows up in the view (even those not onscreen, scrolled down at the bottom).  If you open an "all files" view that has several thousand assets visible, but missing, which are mixed in with those that are available, the view will load VERY slowly with that option enabled.  It has to check each one.  This is even worse if the files are on a network drive for the reasons Hendrik explained.  The problem is that it is updating the UI thread, I suspect, because of the little X pictures, and the UI thread is always blocking on Windows.

I solve this by having special "All Video (including Offline)" views set up in my Library.  Stuff on external (only sometimes connected) disks are isolated to those views.  I still get a delay when opening one of those particular views, but my regular views that have no offline files (the online primary media volume) open as snappily as you'd expect.

I can post additional instructions on how I have this set up if you're interested.  I basically use a combination of a user-defined field [Archive Drive] that stores the "name" of the offline drive (making it easier to look up which drive contains which files), and a calculated field [Offline] that determines if the file is on one of those drives.

Then I exclude all files where [Offline] = 1 from all of my top-level Audio, Images, and Video views.

[AlexS]

Hi Glynor

The startup locations is -> Start.

Auto import is running but it is watching no folders.

"Library" meaning not library (opps!). I feel a bit stupid now
Probably best I give you a screenshot... Sorry!



Display missing file image is ticked, so I've unticked it for now and I think this may have resolved this issue! Thankyou.
Is this the right default setting  I wonder in future versions of JRiver?

Thanks!