Long Clocks?

[PeteCress]

Many months ago, I started a thread "Long Clocks: Causation or just Correlation?", but I can't find it right now.... so here's a new one.

My SageTV server has started putting up very long clocks between screens, but they are not consistent. e.g. one time I can go from clicking "Watch Now" on a recorded tv show to seeing the show almost instantly yet another time it might take seeming entire minutes - so long that I wonder if I was aiming the remote properly when I clicked "OK".

Last time I went through this it seemed to have been multiple blind links in Wiz.bin. I had developed the bad habit of cleaning up TV show recordings via Windows Explorer - just selecting/deleting them.... leaving behind links to Nowhere in Wiz.bin. Running with seeker/disable_root_path_existence_check=true restored normal performance.

But I've tried that a couple times already and no luck.

The only change that was even remotely conincident with the problem's onset was migrating RecordedTV from a NAS box share back to a couple of 2-TB drives on the Sage box. But "remotely" is the operative word... I don't think there was an exact correlation.... OTOH, I did not document anything.

I'm looking at TaskMan, Process Explorer and Process Lasso's memory usage charts and, insofar as I can understand them, it seems like my memory is getting hit pretty hard - as in 3.35 GB of page file usage and 1.7 GB (out of 2 installed) physical memory.

But unless usage is bumping up against 100%, thee shouldn't be a problem - right?

Has anybody else been here?

Is there a way to confirm how many/few blind links there are in Wiz.bin?

[gplasky]

Having a 3.35 GB page file is not the same as Windows using all of that. If your page file is system managed then the page file size is usually 1.5 times the amount of physical RAM in your system. So with 2 GB of RAM your page file size is not out of the ordinary. And if 1.7 GB of your physcial ram is used it really shouldn't be hitting the page file unless your physical RAM usage goes over 2.


After building a new Sage server and moving hard drives between 2 or 3 differently named machines I also had to clean up many of the invalid paths which was the cause of my delays. I had to go into details and find which ones were invalid and just delete the recording-movie, music, etc. They may be a way to leverage BMT to clean it up but I haven't looked too deep into that.

Gerry

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Having a 3.35 GB page file is not the same as Windows using all of that. If your page file is system managed then the page file size is usually 1.5 times the amount of physical RAM in your system. So with 2 GB of RAM your page file size is not out of the ordinary. And if 1.7 GB of your physcial ram is used it really shouldn't be hitting the page file unless your physical RAM usage goes over 2.

That was my intuitive, non-fact-based feeling.

But I just shut down everything I could think of, fired up Sage on the server PC, and have been unable to provoke the problem - which was apparent on the server PC 20 minutes ago.

But that's the frustrating thing about intermittent problems..... I never know if the improvement is bco I did something.... or just a fluke.

I think I will keep my ear to the ground on this one - when things get flaky when watching, I'll check the server for memory usage in hopes of finding some correlation over time.

There's also the very real possibility that, in my ignorance, I am not properly reporting the memory usage per those three utilities.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by gplasky

After building a new Sage server and moving hard drives between 2 or 3 differently named machines I also had to clean up many of the invalid paths which was the cause of my delays. I had to go into details and find which ones were invalid and just delete the recording-movie, music, etc. They may be a way to leverage BMT to clean it up but I haven't looked too deep into that.

Gerry

Forgive the intrusion here, but where did you do this? In your properties file on the server? I've done quite a bit of juggling over the years and never checked for invalid paths. I did make sure that they were removed from the recording directories or import paths, though, via the GUI.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

...where did you do this? In your properties file on the server?

Yes.

Shut down SageTV - both app and service (if running).

Make a backup copy of Sage.properties just in case...

Edit Sage.Properties and change seeker/disable_root_path_existence_check=false to true.

Save the file.

Restart SageTV and let it cook for awhile.

You'll probably want to check the props file, but there sb no need to re-edit it bc Sage automagically flips the parm back to false.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Forgive the intrusion here, but where did you do this? In your properties file on the server? I've done quite a bit of juggling over the years and never checked for invalid paths. I did make sure that they were removed from the recording directories or import paths, though, via the GUI.

I went thru the Sage GUI and called up the details on each recording. (Same info is in BMT) I had recordings showing up twice (or 3 time) where the invalid server name was in the UNC path. Once I found which ones were wrong I just deleted the file from within Sage. This cleaned up everything.

Gerry

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I went thru the Sage GUI and called up the details on each recording. (Same info is in BMT) I had recordings showing up twice (or 3 time) where the invalid server name was in the UNC path. Once I found which ones were wrong I just deleted the file from within Sage. This cleaned up everything.

Gerry

Alright, so, in your case, it was clear that there were duplicates because you could actually see things being listed twice. I'm definitely not seeing that, so I think I'm alright there. I think I'll still try the "seeker" change PeteCress mentioned and see if there's any change.

Thanks guys!

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

...I just shut down everything I could think of, fired up Sage on the server PC, and have been unable to provoke the problem - which was apparent on the server PC 20 minutes ago.

But that's the frustrating thing about intermittent problems..... I never know if the improvement is bco I did something.... or just a fluke.

I think I will keep my ear to the ground on this one...

FWIW, I have stumbled on an app called "Process Lasso" - which was highly recommended by a couple of people who sound like they've forgotten more about WindowsXP than I will ever know.

It's claim to fame is that it dynamically manages the priority of all running apps/services/whatever per the user's spec. What I did was tell it to never touch Sage, and manage everything else. Somehow it senses when MIPS are getting tight and downgrades processes it sees as being part of the problem as it sees fit in order to restore a level playing field for everybody else.

It *seems* tb performing as advertised.

I'm not sure what it can do about RAM - which I suspect thb the problem - but it's display of what is going on is sooooooo nicely concise.... head and shoulders above Process Explorer and TaskMan... that it should be a lot easier to keep an eye on things.

OTOH, along with RAM seeming to have been maxed out, I was also getting some very heavy hits on the CPU - as in 100%.... so who knows?

Less than twenty bucks. First time the demo I'm running pops a nag screen, I'm going to buy it.

[Taddeusz]

What is your Java Heap for SageTV set at? Also, if RAM is a problem your specs speak for themselves. I wouldn't build a computer now with less than 4GB of RAM and running a C2Q with 2GB seems a bit stingy to me. Particularly since RAM is so cheap now.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

What is your Java Heap for SageTV set at? Also, if RAM is a problem your specs speak for themselves. I wouldn't build a computer now with less than 4GB of RAM and running a C2Q with 2GB seems a bit stingy to me. Particularly since RAM is so cheap now.

Oops... I had forgotten about memory. Thanks for the reminder. Before I made this my 24-7/Sage box, I had cannibalized 2 gigs from it for some other use and never thought about it again. Sounds like a no-brainer to pop 2 more gigs into it.

"C2Q" ?

Somewhere I think I read there is a way to make use of that extra half-gig that XP does not recognize by making XP use it as RAM disc.... gotta look into that one too.

I just bumped HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE |Frey Technologies | SageTV | JVMMaxHeapSizeMB up from 300h to the preseumed max: 400h - with the expectation of adding those extra 2 gigs soon.

FWIW, I seem to have gotten some improvement from putting Process Lasso in charge of managing the MIPS - although it's not 100% by any means.

There's another application that I suspect, though: a file-based backup utility that I've found running several times now when things got flaky. Dunno enough to say why, but it seems possible that somehow it's beating on whatever it is that manages I/O to where Sage is feeling the pinch. I will keep a netbook open and TeamViewer-ed into the Sage box from now on when watching TV in hopes of nailing it.

[Taddeusz]

C2Q = Core 2 Quad