Win Frodo nighties: Increasing size of guisettings.xml
#1
Hello

I'm running a setup with dual profiles and I'm using the nighties (currently the one compiled on August 19th 2012).

I have been noticing this problem for about one week now, also in a version previous to the current one I have installed.
After a while when switching between profiles, the guisettings.xml files in both profiles are growing and growing. Currently my files are having sizes of 17 MB and 10 MB, making the system slower and slower.

When having a look into the guisettings files, there are sections about resolution repeating over and over, like the ones below.

Code:
<resolution>
            <description>720x480 @ 29.97 - Full Screen</description>
            <subtitles>463</subtitles>
            <pixelratio>1.000000</pixelratio>
            <overscan>
                <left>0</left>
                <top>0</top>
                <right>720</right>
                <bottom>480</bottom>
            </overscan>
        </resolution>
        <resolution>
            <description>720x480 @ 30.00 - Full Screen</description>
            <subtitles>463</subtitles>
            <pixelratio>1.000000</pixelratio>
            <overscan>
                <left>0</left>
                <top>0</top>
                <right>720</right>
                <bottom>480</bottom>
            </overscan>
        </resolution>
        <resolution>
            <description>720x480 @ 50.00 - Full Screen</description>
            <subtitles>463</subtitles>
            <pixelratio>1.000000</pixelratio>
            <overscan>
                <left>0</left>
                <top>0</top>
                <right>720</right>
                <bottom>480</bottom>
            </overscan>
        </resolution>
        <resolution>
            <description>720x480 @ 60.00 - Full Screen</description>
            <subtitles>463</subtitles>
            <pixelratio>1.000000</pixelratio>
            <overscan>
                <left>0</left>
                <top>0</top>
                <right>720</right>
                <bottom>480</bottom>
            </overscan>
        </resolution>

/Cactus
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#2
They're not repeats, and there's nothing really wrong with it.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#3
Sorry, but I definitly have to disagree with you or you have not understood the problem.

It's the increasing sizes of the guisettings.xml which is the real problem, since XBMC will need more and more time to startup, shutdown and switch between profiles. In the version from last week these procedures suddenly took more than two minutes. Normally it goes instantly on my system.

On a freshly installed system guisettings.xml has a size of about 19 kB. My current sizes of 17 MB and 10 MB in my two profiles are definitely not normal behaviours.
Unfortunately I didn't save the guisettings.xml from the Frodo build from last week, but as I remember it the files had grown to more than 100 MB.

My guess is that the increasing sizes makes the XML parsing more and more difficult for the system, and this is why I get the increasing response times.

With kind regards
/Cactus


Edit:
I just did a switch between my profiles to observe what was happening with the guisettings.xml files. When switching back to the master profile, the size of the file grew from 17 MB to 45 MB in one step.
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#4
So show the exact contents of the file, rather than just one section. My comment related only to the bit you posted. The real problem may well be elsewhere.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#5
(2012-08-22, 07:25)jmarshall Wrote: So show the exact contents of the file, rather than just one section. My comment related only to the bit you posted. The real problem may well be elsewhere.

Ok, I will do that tonight when I get home from work.

I noticed there were hundreds of <resolution> sections in the file. The ones I posted before were only to be regarded as an example.

Thanks.
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#6
The resolution-part is obviously very large, because XBMC lists EVERY single resolution your monitor supports. This can very well mean that you will have A LOT of entries (multiple for the same resolution, but with a different frequency for every entry). This of course is not related to the problem, just wanted to let you know what you're looking at.

But as jmarshall said, post the full XML (on pastebin.com for example) and a full debug log, preferably from a point where you switch profiles, because it seems to be related to that.
Need help? Check out my XBMC Frodo Guide. It contains full featured guides to Sickbeard and CouchPotato as well.

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#7
Sorry, didn't get home until 11 pm last night and now it's time to get back to work.
I'll post the settings and the logfile either tonight when I get back home or tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow.

Thanks.

/Cactus
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#8
Sorry for the delay, but I didn't have the time to dig deeper into this issue until now.

I was still using the nightly with datecode 20120818-966b5a6 (published on the 19th) when producing the logfiles and I haven't checked if this issue has been solved during the last days.


I will now try to describe all the issues I have experienced, whether they are relevant for this case or not.

I am running an XBMC setup with two profiles on a Windows system. Both profiles are running in true full screen mode.

Starting with the nightly with datecode 20120816, I suddenly noticed my system got slower and slower. It took a considerably longer time to start up, shut down and to switch between profiles. Besides, I have a brand new system only one month old which was relatively snappy until now.

I then decided to do a fresh install of the latest nightly. Exported the library to file and made preparations for the installation when I noticed the current guisettings.xml file was very large, more than 100 MB in size.

Did a fresh install of XBMC using the nightly with datecode 20120818-966b5a6, set up my two profiles again and imported the the databases. Noticed the guisettings file was only about 19 kB in size. Switched between the profiles a couple of times and kept an eye on guisettings, but did not notice anything strange. I don't believe the file grew in size at this point.

Left XBMC running on the computer. One or two days later I suddenly found XBMC minimized in a Windows window. Don't know if this is relevant, but after this event I suddenly noticed the guisettings file had started to grow again. As mentioned before, I do run XBMC in true full screen mode.

Restarted XBMC, switched between profiles and now suddenly guisettings.xml increased in size every time when changing profile.
The size had now increased to 44 MB. Another switch forth and back and the size increased to 115 MB. The attached logfile is from these last switches.

I did also notice a short drop of the size to 0 during startup, shutdown and when switching profiles, so XBMC seems to rewrite the file at these occasions.


Last evening I again found XBMC minimized in a Windows window. This time it had also lost the audio settings. I had to restart the program for my audio output device to become available again.


The log file can be found here: http://pastebin.com/rJkPH8t7

Since the guisettings.xml file now has grown to 115 MB, I had to zip it and put it on my Google Drive. It can be found here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_a4s8n...ExQSzJmU2M

Hopefully someone can look into this issue.

Kind regards
Cactus
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#9
Just to back up the above post, I've had exactly the same problem. I swap profiles all the time (got to keep the kids away from the grown up stuff Smile)

guisettings has grown and grown (30-40-50 meg file from its normal few hundred K size) till xbmc becomes totally unusable flipping between profiles on my old slow acer revo/win 7. Obviously taking that long to process the file.
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#10
(2012-09-03, 19:05)Mr B Wrote: Just to back up the above post, I've had exactly the same problem. I swap profiles all the time (got to keep the kids away from the grown up stuff Smile)

guisettings has grown and grown (30-40-50 meg file from its normal few hundred K size) till xbmc becomes totally unusable flipping between profiles on my old slow acer revo/win 7. Obviously taking that long to process the file.

An update on my behalf. I have installed a couple of more nightly builds and my system has been stable ever since.

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but I disabled all other programs that might try to get access to the hardware, including the video card, while XBMC is running:
The Acer Updater and the AMD/ATI CCC software/driver checker.

I noticed that Mr B above, who also had the same problem, is also using an Acer system. Mine is however a brand new Revo RL70.



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#11
same problem been wondering whats been slowing down my XBMC installs

at first I thought NFS .. nope

then MySQL .. nope

then I just noticed the 2 gb guisettings.xml

it takes about 1 day to grow 200 meg


I share the same .xbmc folder to all Pc's on the network with symlinking and have roaming profiles ( but the temp folder is kept local )

any how at least I have now solved my problem
and I can live with having the file over written with a working copy every day so its no real drama

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_gKq_E...mJTYXJ5bVE



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#12
Bumping this issue.

I just noticed my guisettings.xml have started to grow again in both profiles, after my system has been stable for weeks. Currently running the nightly for Windows from 2012-Sep-21 (with datecode 20120920).

There are however some changes to my setup:
  • I upgraded my hardware to a completely new computer two weeks ago. XBMC has been stable on this new hardware so far until now.
  • Earlier today I made changes to my video card settings using CCC. I don't know if this has triggered the increasing sizes of guisettings.xml.
I have saved the logfile if anybody is interested.

/Cactus
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#13
Same problem here since I updated to 2012-09-16. Using multiple profiles, took up to one minute to change profile using one core of the CPU at 100%. My main profile had a 350MB guisettings.xml. Restored from a backup and now it's 70KB. I've updated to 2012-09-25 and will keep an eye on the filesize.

As MasterCATZ said, just schedule a overwrite with a smaller file as a workaround until this is fixed.

Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1, i5-2400, 8Gb DDR3, Ati 6670 Catalyst 12.8, Yamaha RX-V671, HDMI for audio and video.
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#14
And could one of you take a peak into it and see what makes it that huge?
AppleTV4/iPhone/iPod/iPad: HowTo find debug logs and everything else which the devs like so much: click here
HowTo setup NFS for Kodi: NFS (wiki)
HowTo configure avahi (zeroconf): Avahi_Zeroconf (wiki)
READ THE IOS FAQ!: iOS FAQ (wiki)
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#15
Apparently, when using multiple profiles, XBMC may write again and again all display modes in guisettings.xml when profiles are changed, increasing the filesize exponentially. This causes to use all CPU power and huge amounts of memory on startup and profile changes.

I've seen Ati cards mentioned multiple times in the thread, maybe it's a factor, too. In my case, I'm using an Ati Radeon HD 6670 with 12.8 drivers in Windows 7 x64. Previously I was using 12.3 drivers and XBMC 2012-06-09 and the problem was not present.
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Frodo nighties: Increasing size of guisettings.xml0