Topic: Is MC doing aything every 15-25 minutes when idle that makes movies stutter? (Read 4220 times)

Mastiff · « **on:** November 06, 2006, 02:24:32 pm »

When I watch movies with Zoom Player on my HTPC (I need the advanced aspect ratio stuff because of my CRT projector setup, and I have the same problem if I try using Theater Tek) I have to shut down MC, if not I get stutters every 15-25 minutes or so. I'm 100 % sure it's from MC, it's totally reproduceable. But what can it do? Is there some kind of an automatic backup of settings or something going on when MC's idle? This is something that has appeared during the last few months, and it took me a long time to find the reason (I did of course first suspect Zoom Player and other stuff), so I can't say what version this appeared with. Can it be related to my library growing? I have had a few rather intense ripping sessions and I have around 85 000 tracks now. Help would be appreciated! I may try to change to MC12, but I need to sort the stuff I have in the unsorted cathegory now, since a reversion back to 11.1 will make me loose any library changes (there is an uncompatibility between those versions, right?). Hope somebody's got a good suggestion, I need one...

Uwe · « **Reply #1 on:** November 07, 2006, 02:55:09 am »

In my case MC produces a hick-up when "saving database". This information appears in one of the last lines of the MC windows for about 10 seconds. In this time, every other task stops completly. This "saving database" comes periodically and may be shorter with a faster PC.

Uwe

Mastiff · « **Reply #2 on:** November 07, 2006, 03:08:57 am »

That was something like what I was suspecting, yes! I have seen that message myself. Maybe it could work to give MC a lower priority? Btw what kind of database is this? Is it the library? I just checked, and it takes around ten seconds to backup my rather large library on my computer (yes, it's very fast - a P4 3.2 @ 3.75 with water cooling, 1024 meg RAM and S-ATA drives). If this is an autosave of the library, I would prefer to be able to turn it off. I do saves manually after every change anyway.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** November 07, 2006, 06:57:12 am »

Is there a virus checker involved?

Mastiff · « **Reply #4 on:** November 07, 2006, 07:02:22 am »

No virus checker on that computer. I don't use it for surfing or any virus-attracting activities. And it's behind a Linux firewall, so I don't even have the Windows Firewall running.

glynor · « **Reply #5 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:03:17 pm »

Quote from: Uwe on November 07, 2006, 02:55:09 am

In my case MC produces a hick-up when "saving database". This information appears in one of the last lines of the MC windows for about 10 seconds. In this time, every other task stops completly. This "saving database" comes periodically and may be shorter with a faster PC.

I'd really guess that this is because you have your library on a slow drive (network or external). I used to have that identical problem until I moved the library database files over to my C drive, and shared them between machines using a script. Now I never see the "saving database" message last more than about 1/2 a second and it causes no performance impact.

Mastiff · « **Reply #6 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:05:27 pm »

But for me this is on a very fast computer and drive. And the library and the music is local.

glynor · « **Reply #7 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:11:19 pm »

Quote from: Mastiff on November 06, 2006, 02:24:32 pm

have to shut down MC, if not I get stutters every 15-25 minutes or so. I'm 100 % sure it's from MC, it's totally reproduceable. But what can it do? Is there some kind of an automatic backup of settings or something going on when MC's idle?

My guesses are either:

1) Automatic thumbnailing (which happens in the background)

2) Otto (the Auto-Importer), or possibly Podcast Auto-Downloading.

To test, try running a manual build of Thumbnails overnight (and then make sure not to import any new media) and then see if the hiccups still happen. If not, then it's probably the thumbnailing tasks. You could also test by pulling up Process Explorer and waiting for the hiccuping to happen. If you see JRThumb.exe running while it's stuttering, then I think you have your culprit.

For Otto, you can simply disable it (Tools --> Options --> Library & Folders). You can also disable Auto-Downloading of Podcasts by opening the Podcast tree item and clicking on the Downloaded Podcasts item and then clicking the Disable Auto-Download button on the right.

By-the-way JRiver, we really need an option under Tools --> Options --> Podcasts to disable the auto-downloading function (and have it persist between restarts). I have one copy of MC that I want to do all my Podcast downloading. On the others I want to be able to view and access the podcasts, but I don't want them to try to download them! They'll just end up fighting with eachother and downloading duplicates.

Mastiff · « **Reply #8 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:17:10 pm »

Otto's not in 11.1, as far as I know. This is the last 11.1. I don't use podcasts on that computer. The only one of these that are possible would be the thumbnails. It actually makes some sense since I have imported a bunch of new albums, as I said earlier in this thread. I gotta look at that. Thanks!

glynor · « **Reply #9 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:23:01 pm »

Quote from: Mastiff on November 07, 2006, 01:17:10 pm

Otto's not in 11.1, as far as I know. This is the last 11.1. I don't use podcasts on that computer. The only one of these that are possible would be the thumbnails. It actually makes some sense since I have imported a bunch of new albums, as I said earlier in this thread. I gotta look at that. Thanks!

I didn't realize you were talking about 11.1, sorry! I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure that MC11.1 comes with some Podcasts enabled by default (though they probably aren't set to auto-download).

It's probably thumbnailing. Another process you might see that eats up all kinds of CPU time is DCRAW.EXE (which does the thumbnailing and decoding of RAW camera type images). I'm not sure that MC11.1 used these same applications, but running the manual thumbnail build should tell you the answer (or watching the Media Center 11.exe process in Process Explorer for child processes).

Uwe · « **Reply #10 on:** November 07, 2006, 01:44:40 pm »

Quote from: glynor on November 07, 2006, 01:03:17 pm

I'd really guess that this is because you have your library on a slow drive (network or external). I used to have that identical problem until I moved the library database files over to my C drive, and shared them between machines using a script. Now I never see the "saving database" message last more than about 1/2 a second and it causes no performance impact.

My library and the music is local. But i have a slow computer with 630 MHz.

O.T.:It's hiccup from hic-caugh not hick-up like blow-up. Every day i learn one more word...

Thanks glynor!

glynor · « **Reply #11 on:** November 07, 2006, 02:00:03 pm »

Quote from: Uwe on November 07, 2006, 01:44:40 pm

My library and the music is local. But i have a slow computer with 630 MHz.

O.T.:It's hiccup from hic-caugh not hick-up like blow-up. Every day i learn one more word... Thanks glynor!

It could be that (slow machine overall), but have you checked to see if DMA is enabled for your drive? If it happened to get set to PIO mode (which Windows will do if it encounters certain errors, even if they're only transient from a power outage or something), it won't re-enable DMA unless you manually go in there and fix it.

I've had my TiVO recording drive get bumped to PIO mode and I couldn't figure out for the longest time why my recordings were stuttering and hiccuping all the time!

To check:

Review this Microsoft Help document on Enabling DMA Mode

To access the Device Manager

Mastiff · « **Reply #12 on:** November 08, 2006, 03:01:01 pm »

I have done the thumbnailbuilding, so I'll leave MC running tomorrow when we're gonna watch The Davinci Code, I think those close to three hours should give a lot of opportunities to hick, hack, or whatever!

Uwe · « **Reply #13 on:** November 10, 2006, 04:48:45 am »

Quote from: glynor on November 07, 2006, 02:00:03 pm

It could be that (slow machine overall), but have you checked to see if DMA is enabled for your drive? If it happened to get set to PIO mode (which Windows will do if it encounters certain errors, even if they're only transient from a power outage or something), it won't re-enable DMA unless you manually go in there and fix it.

I've had my TiVO recording drive get bumped to PIO mode and I couldn't figure out for the longest time why my recordings were stuttering and hiccuping all the time!

To check:

Review this Microsoft Help document on Enabling DMA Mode

To access the Device Manager

No, sorry DMA is enabled. The "saving database" delay is also very long when hearing Streams from the Internet. During this hiccup all the pressed keys and mouse-actions are stored, so that after the delay-time MC is very busy.

glynor · « **Reply #14 on:** November 10, 2006, 11:36:29 am »

Well... Something's definitely not right. It should not be doing that, and it does not for me on any of my systems.

Have you read these threads about general slowness at all? Perhaps they might help find the problem...

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=36975.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=36979.0

Mastiff · « **Reply #15 on:** November 12, 2006, 03:02:58 am »

Nope, it's not the thumbnails. I hadn't imported anything new since Thursday, when I did a full thumbnail build, but yesterday night I watched a movie with MC running, and I had the stutters anyway. So what can it be? Also, 11.1 seems slow while managing files. But that may be my large library. Even if I'm working on a view that only covers for instance metal/D and that has 600-700 files, if I delete an album with the files, it takes 10-15 seconds before MC will do anything again, it stays for a while on "Loading panes". The same happens if I for instance use "Fill track numbers for list order" or other stuff. I only have track numbers, artist, album and track name fields written to the files (wanted to do away with tags all together, but that turned out to change every track name in the library to track number + track name when a track was played.

I wonder if this problem is related to only having 512 meg RAM in that computer, but nothing else is running (no antivirus, no firewalls, no nothing), so does MC really need more than 512?

hit_ny · « **Reply #16 on:** November 12, 2006, 06:36:13 am »

Quote from: Mastiff on November 12, 2006, 03:02:58 am

Even if I'm working on a view that only covers for instance metal/D and that has 600-700 files, if I delete an album with the files, it takes 10-15 seconds before MC will do anything again, it stays for a while on "Loading panes".

This (i think) is related to MC trying to rebuild the viewscheme if you make a change to *just* 1 file. I'm not sure if this is avoidable or not, always thought why is it trying to re-calculate everything all over again (seems like it) for such a small change.

If you launch a viewscheme, it takes some time to get all the items, if you then pare it down by clicking something in the the 2nd or 3rd pane, thereby reducing the amount of items to display one thinks it would take less time to display a subset of the total but it appears to take just as long to get the result.

The only workaround i have to do this type of editing work is avoiding view schemes and just use a plain smartlist.

Mastiff · « **Reply #17 on:** November 12, 2006, 08:17:49 am »

Yeah, but I work this way: The pane in this view shows the filepath (so I have maybe 50 filepaths from the first to the last for that letter). And when I delete something, it doesn't jump to the top or antything, it just shows an empty pane. Then, when I click the next album, MC only has to show the 10-20 tracks in that album, not the full 500 tracks in the view. So I still think I shouldn't have to wait so long. And when I change anything, like album, artist, whatever, it doesn't move the files. I do that at the end. So it shouldn't wait so long just to rebuild those 10-20 tracks, should it?

Mastiff · « **Reply #18 on:** November 20, 2006, 01:56:01 am »

Problem solved with extreme measures: installing MC12.

glynor · « **Reply #19 on:** November 20, 2006, 05:10:36 pm »

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Is MC doing aything every 15-25 minutes when idle that makes movies stutter? (Read 4220 times)