Excessive memory usage in SageTV

[AMCooper63]

This is more of a comparison than anything. Anyone notice how much memory is being used by SageTV? I'm running V6.0.15 and I've noticed since V6 came out that I've been using a lot of memory for SageTV. My first clue was all the swapping that started everytime I attempted to open a web browser. I had 512MB of memory and when I checked, SageTV was using 400+MB of it. I bought 2GB of memory and my swapping problem has disappeared but SageTV will commonly be using anywhere from 300MB to 600MB of memory. A part that really kills me is that this transcoder that I'm sure I'll never use, is using nearly half of that memory. Anyone else seeing numbers this high?

[Motofreak75]

what version of Java are you using ? I had issues like this with Sage using VMR9 with any version of Java 1.5x. I fixed my memory issues by installing the default java version 1.4.11 and had no problems ever since. but 1.4.11 does make my MVP remote response very slow.

Even the very beta Java 1.6 works great too, but not that many plugins (that I have tried ) work correctly

[nielm]

Are you doing a lot of photo browsing? For me it stays at around 200Mb unless I start looking at photos (due to image caching), and then it goes up to 400Mb

Note that memory leaks can also be due to MPEG2/Xvid/DivX decoders, so it is important to find out what triggers the leak...

(Plug: my CPU/Mobo plugin has a memory usage montor with graphs)

[AMCooper63]

IT seems that the trigger for the memory build up is starting SageTV. At boot up it starts at about 128MB. Then over the course of the next few days it steadily grows to 600MB. I may have at some point during those days looked at my picture media. If music album covers affect this too, then I'm probably in big trouble. I have about 8,000 songs in addition to over 15,000 pictures.

As for Java, it just auto updates. I'm sure I'm on V1.5x.

[blade]

You should really turn off all auto updates (not just the java updates). It is pretty common for updates to break things.

Also Java 1.5 has a known memory leak, which is one reason Sage suggests sticking with v1.4. No idea if it's causing your particular problem, but I always assume Sage probably isn't tested as much with broken java versions as it is with the suggested one.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by blade

You should really turn off all auto updates (not just the java updates). It is pretty common for updates to break things.

That's overstating it a bit, I think. Sure, there's a (small) risk that any given update might break something. But for things like virus and spyware scanners, the risks of not updating far outweigh the risks of updating. You really want to keep that kind of stuff current, and automatic updates are a reasonable way to do so.

That said, it is a good idea to turn off Java updates until the leak issue is resolved.

[blade]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

That's overstating it a bit, I think. Sure, there's a (small) risk that any given update might break something. But for things like virus and spyware scanners, the risks of not updating far outweigh the risks of updating. You really want to keep that kind of stuff current, and automatic updates are a reasonable way to do so.

That said, it is a good idea to turn off Java updates until the leak issue is resolved.

There have been plenty of cases where windows updates, driver updates, etc... have broken things. Personally I'd rather manually update so if my machine suddenly stops working I know what has been changed instead of scratching my head wondering why it no longer works. Considering java is so important to Sage I would never leave auto update on for it even if the current leak is fixed. I don't want the next java problem to bring my install to its knees.

I agree if you feel the need to run virus or spyware scanners then leaving auto update on should be ok; however, many people don't run them at all on dedicated media servers and HTPCs.

[GKusnick]

I understand completely. I just didn't want anybody to misread your post and come away with the idea that turning off all automatic updates on all their machines is in all cases the right thing to do (even though I know that's not what you meant).

[blade]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I understand completely. I just didn't want anybody to misread your post and come away with the idea that turning off all automatic updates on all their machines is in all cases the right thing to do (even though I know that's not what you meant).

Yeah I should have been clear that I only meant the auto updates that might effect Sage.

[FidgetyRat]

For me my RAM usage was typically around 42% of 768MB. Once I enabled the placeshifter server and started using my MVP it rose to 78%

[blade]

The service is using 68K on my server and my client 130k during playback.

[nielm]

64Kbytes? Wow thats efficient

[FidgetyRat]

Originally Posted by blade

The service is using 68K on my server and my client 130k during playback.

I will have to check the actual process monitor to see that sort of usage. But all I know is MBM5 is reporting that my system uses 74% of my 768MB and all the machine is ever used for is sage.

Its possible the process monitor only reports currently active memory whereas the rest of us are seeing memory reserved but inactive? Who knows!

[blade]

Originally Posted by nielm

64Kbytes? Wow thats efficient

Oops meant 64,000K.

I just glanced at the task manager and wasn't thinking when I typed.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by FidgetyRat

Its possible the process monitor only reports currently active memory whereas the rest of us are seeing memory reserved but inactive? Who knows!

Windows Task Manager's Process tab (if you enable the columns) has 2 types of memory usage per process shown :

Mem Usage: current amount of RAM in use by a process
VM Size: Current size of virtual address space -- includes swapped out memory as well.


The first figure is generally irrelevant: the OS will swap memory into and out of RAM depending on the demand for memory by all processes...

The second figure can indicate memory leaks as every bit of memory allocated can increase this figure.

Note that on a system with tons of RAM, they will be more or less equal because nothing will be swapped out.

Windows Task Manager also has some mem stats in the Performance tab: Physical Memory Available (free RAM) and Commit Charge (Total Virtual Memory (RAM+Swap) used).

Looking at the total RAM usage for a machine is largely irrelevant, except that if it is constantly in the high 90's% will it indicate that something is using too much memory, and/or that your system may need more RAM!
(You will already notice this as apps will be slow, and you can hear the HDD thrashing as it is constantly swapping memory in and out)

(note in my CPU/mobo monitor plugin, the data comes from the same source as the process monitor, but I named Memory Usage as RAM used, and Commit Charge as System VM used)