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[DV8]

Been using MC for years.
I just updated my disks on the network where my music library resides. (Gigabit enet)
Erased old library and set up MC12 to go to auto-import from the new locations.
Somewhere in the import session, MC12 crashed an 'Out of Memory' error and C++ Runtime error.
REbooted.
Restarted process making sure just to import basic stuff, no analysis, no covers, etc. Just run in background and update for external changes.
Crashed again with same error.

Deleted MC12 and downloaded new copy.
Rebooted.
Crashed. Twice.

I am stuck now. I have 2GB RAM in unit and nothing else running. I can't be out of memory.
What is going on.
I WANT MY MUSIC BACK  :-(

System info below......

Media Center 12.0.533 Registered -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Core 2 1993 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2096 MB, Free - 1718 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive E:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive D: _NEC     DVD_RW ND-3500AG   Addr: 0:0:0  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:


Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)

[KingSparta]

You Might Have A Few Bad Mp3's Or Other Media Files.

I Have Not Seen This Problem, But As The Import Goes On, MC Seems To Slow Down.

[JimH]

Narrow the problem down by importing a single file type or single directories.

MC has logging that may help.  It's configured under the Help menu.

It could also be a bad DirectShow filter.

Virus checkers sometimes do strange things.

Check the "Weird Problems" thread in my signature for other ideas.

Turn off Audio Analysis.

Turn off Cover Art lookup.

[DV8]

Narrow the problem down by importing a single file type or single directories.

MC has logging that may help.  It's configured under the Help menu.

It could also be a bad DirectShow filter.

Virus checkers sometimes do strange things.

Check the "Weird Problems" thread in my signature for other ideas.

Turn off Audio Analysis.

Turn off Cover Art lookup.

I am only importing MP3 file type (with maybe one folder.jpg or *.m3u playlist associated with that folder and CD)
No virus checker installed as this system is a dedicated home theater player and doesn't get emails.
Nothing else is running.
No audio analysis enabled
No cover art enabled

The start of the import works fine. It finds all the music just fine. It gets part way thru the process and crashes when actually importing. After all these fits and starts, it has made it about 60% thru the process and imported the mp3s into the library.

[JimH]

Is the media on a local drive?  Or a network drive or USB drive?

[DV8]

Is the media on a local drive?  Or a network drive or USB drive?

All media is on a media server connected via Gigabit LAN.
All mp3s are on two drives on that server that are mapped into the system running MC12.
The only thing that changed is that I updated the hard drives with larger ones as I was running out of space.
Same collection and architecture I had before this trouble started.
Only change is the physical hard drives.

[Matt]

Please post the tail of a log (Help > Logging...) after a crash.  It'll be the "Previous Log" if there's a crash.

I'm guessing there's a bad file or playlist.

Thanks.

[DV8]

Please post the tail of a log (Help > Logging...) after a crash.  It'll be the "Previous Log" if there's a crash.

I'm guessing there's a bad file or playlist.

Thanks.

The log file is huge. Maybe that's why it is crashing.....log file too big.
I actually can't even copy it the last bit of it here as this board won't let me post a message that big.

How can I get it to you?
you can PM me with an email address if you want.
PS - have have a big library but MC12 always handled the big jobs in the past.
I also seems to be crashing in a different place each time since it does get thru over half the files before crashing.

[JimH]

Did you try the "Weird Problems" thread?  We have seen problems in the past that were solved by updating hard drive firmware.

Maybe you could do a local drive test to see if it's related to the drives.

[Matt]

Please email the log to matt at jriver dot com.  You can use the "Email" link on the logging dialog.

Thanks.

[DV8]

I have sent the log file to you via www.transferbigfiles.com as the log file is too big to go thru email.

I restarted the import function last night and went to bed.
When I got up this morning I was very surprised to see:
1. it ran import without crashing
2. it imported approximately TWICE the number of music files I actually have so library confused.
3. in glancing thru the library, about half of the songs in the library are missing track name information.

Judging by the sequence column (when did that get in there BTW)Looks as though MC12 imported the whole collection without track names and then did it again with track names thereby doubling the library size. I did restart the import function several times after MC12 crashed so perhaps it go confused.

Strange days indeed.

[DV8]

Did you try the "Weird Problems" thread?  We have seen problems in the past that were solved by updating hard drive firmware.

Maybe you could do a local drive test to see if it's related to the drives.

Jim, where is the weird problem thread that you suggest?
The only change I made was to put new drives and controller in my media server so your comment on hard drive issues may be relevant. Not sure how exactly since they are brand new SATA drives on a brand new SATA controller, but who knows.

[JimH]

It's in my signature and in the FAQ on the MC12 board.

[DV8]

Still crashing after 12 attempts at loading my library.
Gets part way then......out of memory and C++ Runtime error.
Different point in import everytime and all files are identical to what I had before so I really doubt it is one file that is doing this.
Only time it didn't crash was when it imported all my files twice and thought it had doubled my library. Turns out it did import all files twice, once properly and once without track name or file location field in library.

The last time it crashed, as I went into Task Manager to restart it (only way to restart MC12, I went to processes and noticed that MC12 was consuming a consistent 50% of CPU and 1.1GB of RAM even after it was hung/crashed.
I sent log file of one of the crashes to Matt but it is the weekend so he may not be into digging thru log files on a Saturday night.

I also went into weird problems 'solved' section and found this post relating to importing over network drives that never did get 'solved'
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;topic=27912.65#msg209754

Quote from last post (never answered)
"If you have read this entire thread, it's apparent that this import problem is not on the tech support hot list"

Can we get this on the hot list? I have a brand new controller and hard drives so I doubt flashing firmware is the issue. I am willing to try to make this work since it was working only a few days ago.


I guess the guy went away fustrated that his network drive import problem never got solved.

[JimH]

I also went into weird problems 'solved' section and found this post relating to importing over network drives that never did get 'solved'
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;topic=27912.65#msg209754

I believe he did find a solution.  He said

I mirrored my database from third to second hd and imported all files (except the obvious non-audio junk) into a new library without freeze.  (about 50,000+)

[rjm]

I really doubt that the problem is MC.

If you have not done so already suggest you exercise your new drives.

A great way to do this is to do a binary comparison of your media over the network between your new and old drives. In addition to confirming your new drives and network are ok, it also confirms that your media copied ok. I have copied many TB between drives and have learned that Windows occasionally makes an error when copying files. Not very often, but often enough to make me cautious with important data.

If this suggestion is not feasible for you, then suggest you exercise your new drives with a utility like SpinRite which will uncover (and often fix) anything that is not right with your drives.

[Matt]

Hi DV8,

The log you posted was the "Current Log", not the "Previous Log" which would have shown a crash.

Please try the "Email Logs" button in the dialog.  It will compress both the current and previous logs. (Logs compress at least 10:1 with ZIP, RAR, etc.)

Otherwise, try sending a zipped version of the "Previous Log" after a crash.

Thanks.

[Matt]

Thanks for the log DV8.

I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm guessing it's some silly issue where Media Center keeps a list of things in memory that wouldn't normally be a problem but your large import job of 112,933 files + 36905 missing files is causing an issue.

The last file in the log was:
F:\B\Beverly Jo Scott\Beverly Jo Scott - 1993 - Mudcakes\Beverly Jo Scott - Mudcakes - 07 - One Shot Shy.mp3

It's possible that file has a bad tag that runs us out of memory.  You might try a fresh library and import just that one file (drag-n-drop).

Otherwise, try splitting the import up into smaller jobs by doing only a few folders at a time.

We'll take a close look at the code here and see if we can find any over-the-top memory usage.  100k+ files in one job shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks,
-Matt

[DV8]

Thanks for the log DV8.

I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm guessing it's some silly issue where Media Center keeps a list of things in memory that wouldn't normally be a problem but your large import job of 112,933 files + 36905 missing files is causing an issue.

The last file in the log was:
F:\B\Beverly Jo Scott\Beverly Jo Scott - 1993 - Mudcakes\Beverly Jo Scott - Mudcakes - 07 - One Shot Shy.mp3

It's possible that file has a bad tag that runs us out of memory.  You might try a fresh library and import just that one file (drag-n-drop).

Otherwise, try splitting the import up into smaller jobs by doing only a few folders at a time.

We'll take a close look at the code here and see if we can find any over-the-top memory usage.  100k+ files in one job shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks,
-Matt

Hi Matt and thanks for your comments.
I have finished running very low level routines from Seagate on both hard drives (Seagate 1 TB drives) in question and both passed without issues. I also did a CHKDSK just to be sure.
My disk controller is brand new and has no firmware updates available so I don't think the issues I am having are to do with disk drives or controllers.

I did as you asked and imported only the B folder of 13149 files. It found and imported all of them just fine including the
F:\B\Beverly Jo Scott\Beverly Jo Scott - 1993 - Mudcakes\Beverly Jo Scott - Mudcakes - 07 - One Shot Shy.mp3

which was the last one imported in my last crash.

I really don't think the issue is with any one file since:
1. they all imported just fine previously
2. MC12 is crashing at various times during the import. As far as I am aware, in over a dozen different attempts to import library, the last file imported before crash is a different file.
3. I successfully imported the "one shot shy" MP3 above in a trial import of 13149 files.

I have cleared library again and am attempting to import ONE hard drive this time.
So far it has found the proper number of 125181 files on that drive and is attempting to import them as I write this.
If it crashes (as I expect it to), I will resend log file to you.

How do we test whether your theory is correct of it being some silly issue in MC12 memory that is causing these crashes during import?

[rjm]

Matt will probably have a better idea, however you can open Windows Task Manager (ctl-alt-del), select the process tab, click on Mem Usage to sort by that column, and watch the memory usage of Media Center 12. If you see it continually increasing this may indicate a problem.

[Matt]

How do we test whether your theory is correct of it being some silly issue in MC12 memory that is causing these crashes during import?

I played some more with the code and see an issue where the list of filenames to import get stored with extra padding around the values.  For performance, strings often allocate more memory than they use.  However, if we're storing a list that may be 100,000+ items, we have to be more careful about this.

For now, import in smaller batches.  Also, on minimize, Media Center compacts its database to save memory.  You might try restoring and minimizing every few minutes during a huge import.

A future version of the player will do these things automatically to better cope with your situation. 

Let us know if you're able to work-around the problem, or if a special testing build is necessary.

Thanks.

[WinoOutWest]

I have a similar sized library and I recently also did a re-import when I moved to larger drives and found importing in (relatively) smaller batches much more reliable than one big.  I think I did 4 or 5 imports to get my TB+ library imported.  Its been solid (as usual for MC) since I re-imported that way.

Good Luck!

[DV8]

Matt will probably have a better idea, however you can open Windows Task Manager (ctl-alt-del), select the process tab, click on Mem Usage to sort by that column, and watch the memory usage of Media Center 12. If you see it continually increasing this may indicate a problem.

Watching the latest import try now in task manager. MC12 definately grows as it imports files. Interestingly, per Matt's comment, the memory usage shrinks dramatically on minimize. Following Matt's idea to minimize and restore every few minutes to see what happens. It seems to keep memory utilization in check. I remember after one crash when MC12 was hung up, I checked and found MC12 was using 1.1GB of RAM. As it stands now, importing file number 39,000 on the list and continuously minimizing and restoring window every few minutes, it is using about 110MB which seems much more reasonable. (at least compared to the 1.1GB)

I'll keep minimizing and restoring and see if that helps get one drive to import.

[hit_ny]

I have a similar sized library and I recently also did a re-import when I moved to larger drives and found importing in (relatively) smaller batches much more reliable than one big.  I think I did 4 or 5 imports to get my TB+ library imported.  Its been solid (as usual for MC) since I re-imported that way.

If you copy over, outside MC, from the old drives to the new and keep the same drive letters, there should be no need to do a mass import at all.

MC will be oblivious to the fact the drives have changed simply because the filepaths to the files remain the same. I've done this several times in the past. Even if the paths change by say a letter, a Find & Replace will get the job done within MC's library.

A mass import need only be done once.

[DV8]

H Matt,

I was importing one drive, clean library, trying your minimize and restore of MC12 trick which does reduce memory consumption. 125K files found, enentually crashed around the 92K mark.
I then did something different in that I just restarted the process without cleaning out library.
It went out and found the 125K files again and starting importing. I went to bed.
When I got up this morning, it claimed it had found and imported 210K files. It appears to have kept the original 92K file sit imported and then added the 'new' 125K files to total about 210K. The problem is that they two batches are exactly the same files and drive.
Somehow MC12 thinks they were different and I am assuming due to broken links.
I then manually went in and deleted all files that didn't have a filename reference from library.
Turns out that was about 92K files (the original broken import).
Restarted MC12
MC12 confirmed the 114698 files in library.
Restarted file import.
It didn't find any new ones.
I went and did a manual search of all MP3s in folder and it found 114712 mp3s so close enough.

I dislike manually deleting broken entries but it appears to have a workaround for the import of this drive now.
I will now attempt to add to library with another folder on another drive.
At this point I just want to get my music back.

[newsposter]

Have you run full diags on your system memory and motherboard?  Nothing is overclocked is it?  How big is your power supply and system specs, etc, etc.

[DV8]

Another failure tonight.
Very disheartening.
After days of doing this, over 20 attempted imports, massaging the import by minimizing and restoring MC12 continuously, breaking it into small folders, importing in small batches, chkdsk all drives, firmware on controllers, low level disk routines overnight, I actually got about 90% of the files into my library.
Then MC12 hung with the 'out of memory' error.
Even as it was hung, it was consuming over 50% of CPU continually, and slowly consuming more and more memory as it hung (I killed the process when it was about 350MB RAM consumption.
After reboot I looked at the library.
It LOOKS fine with most of the stuff still there but it is dead.
When the last batch of files failed to import, it not only just corrupted that particular batch, it corrupted the entire library by removing the filename link for EVERY file in the library. No link, no music, no happy guy.
I sent log file Matt but I don't think we are going to learn much new.
Beaten.
It took me days to get this far and now it is all gone.
Now what.

[DV8]

Have you run full diags on your system memory and motherboard?  Nothing is overclocked is it?  How big is your power supply and system specs, etc, etc.

Specs are in first post.
Nothing overclocked.
This was all working 10 days ago.
Only thing changed was install of larger hard drives on SERVER. Nothing changed on the machine hosting MC12.

[Matt]

Hi DV8,

Would you be willing to try a fresh import using the version of Media Center 13 that will be available soon?  We did some memory usage optimizations.  We'll do more if we have to.

Once we get it working, we'll roll the tested changes to Media Center 12.

Thanks a lot for your help.

[DV8]

Hi DV8,

Would you be willing to try a fresh import using the version of Media Center 13 that will be available soon?  We did some memory usage optimizations.  We'll do more if we have to.

Once we get it working, we'll roll the tested changes to Media Center 12.

Thanks a lot for your help.

I will test if you think it would help.
Can I run MC12 and MC13 on the same machine but not at same time?
Let me know what version to download of MC13.

[DV8]

I finally got all my files loaded into the library by breaking up the import into 50 sub folders and imported them one at a time and backing up library after each sub folder was imported.
It took over a week to import all the files but it seems to be fine and working properly now that I have hand massaged them in there.
Note that I don't consider this problem fixed but a onerous workaround.
I am still willing to help fix this issue if you have suggestions since I love to use MC and you guys are generally good about support and getting back.

As an aside I downloaded and installed MC13 beta onto a separate workstation and tried importing the full collection. It crashed after about 90K files with a memory read error. I posted on the MC13 forum for reference. It appears that importing large numbers of files into the library is still an issue in MC13.

[globetrotters1]

DV8,

I have now 140'000 tracks on one RAID6 volume and the first 25'000 tracks on another RAID6 volume and they import like a charm. I have also a 2GB memory and a dual CPU.

No crash, no MC12 memory usage of more than 10% (well, sometimes more but that I consider normal during CPU intensive processes), it runs just fine. But gets a bit slower with time and stops the import every 200-300 tracks for some seconds.

Only difference I see here is that my data is stored on hard disk volumes inside my media center system (which has a special 16-drive SATA controller) and not as you say on a network drive.

What I want to mention is something special. And something many people don't know. When I installed the Areca 16-drive SATA controller I had some troubles getting the setup to work. Until I found somewhere on the Internet a forum message saying 'had to switch off the motherboard SATA controllers in the BIOS to make it work'.

This solved my problem. Since then my system works like a charm and I get transfer rates in RAID6 of 350-500 MB/s (backing up the whole music collection). And nothing of unpredictable behaviour. It just works.

Probably you might also check this... who knows

Good luck
Martin

[DV8]

DV8,

I have now 140'000 tracks on one RAID6 volume and the first 25'000 tracks on another RAID6 volume and they import like a charm. I have also a 2GB memory and a dual CPU.

No crash, no MC12 memory usage of more than 10% (well, sometimes more but that I consider normal during CPU intensive processes), it runs just fine. But gets a bit slower with time and stops the import every 200-300 tracks for some seconds.

Only difference I see here is that my data is stored on hard disk volumes inside my media center system (which has a special 16-drive SATA controller) and not as you say on a network drive.

What I want to mention is something special. And something many people don't know. When I installed the Areca 16-drive SATA controller I had some troubles getting the setup to work. Until I found somewhere on the Internet a forum message saying 'had to switch off the motherboard SATA controllers in the BIOS to make it work'.

This solved my problem. Since then my system works like a charm and I get transfer rates in RAID6 of 350-500 MB/s (backing up the whole music collection). And nothing of unpredictable behaviour. It just works.

Probably you might also check this... who knows

Good luck
Martin

Interesting idea Martin but I need the SATA controller on the Mobo also so turning the mobo SATA controller off isn't an option. The system is very solid in every other way with the add-on 4 port SATA controller board but I don't really stress it much since it is just a media server. Most stress it gets is probably when I am importing music into MC12 on my HTPC. Were you're problems with the add in SATA controller related to performance or outright not working? While my SATA controller works, perhaps it is some sort of performance problem. Any idea how I could test it for performance to see if it is an issue?

[globetrotters1]

DV8,

I had random errors with the data coming from the connected drives (from the drives connected to the additional SATA controller). Had no clue why. Until I found somewhere a forum message on the Internet talking about such errors. A tech support guy wrote there that most of today's motherboards run into troubles with an additional SATA controller board installed. And that it is best to add a controller which is big enough for all drive needs and to just switch off the motherboard controllers. I decided to give it a try. Installed a Areca 16-drive SATA RAID6 controller, connected all drives to it (right now I run 12 drives on it), switched the M/B controllers off in the BIOS and the miracle happened - since then it works like a charm.

Doesn't mean that this might also solve your problem. Just wanted to say what happened to me. It's just a guess that you have a similar problem.

I don't know if you've read my forum thread with the MC12 crashes when adding a cover art picture to an existing album. After a lot of testing and fiddling around and with the kind support help of the JRiver guys I found out that the problem was the graphics adapter driver which came with the board. But no one would think that this might be the cause for such a problem. Would you?

Oh and something else, a bit history: first I used a Promise 4-port SATA controller, then a Promise 8-drive EX8350 and finally changed to Areca ARC-1260. With the Promise 4-port the M/B didn't even boot correctly, the 8-drive controller got hot and produced random errors and now I live in peace with the Areca. My motherboard is a ASUS Crosshair, dual AMD CPU, 4GB memory, audio and SATA controllers switched off, additional audio controller with KX driver for zone switching. And I use WinXP Pro Sp3. I plan to switch to a 4-core processor these days.

Hope that explains a bit more. But feel free to get in touch with me if you want to know more details.
Good luck,
Martin