[Valdaun]

I have had an XBMC setup for many years now, going through many many iterations ... actually starting back on the XBox!

My current setup is a MySQL based library, media stored on an NFS share, with several Frodo clients: RPi, OpenElec, headless server on Linux, and now trying to get a Windows 7 client going.

For some reason, I am just getting utterly terrible performance on the Windows 7 machine, even though by far it is my most powerful computer on the whole LAN. Everything takes 30 to 60 seconds to do, like just navigating between sections, pressing 'i' on the keyboard to open the Info section of a movie, refreshing a thumbnail, starting up, shutting down, etc.

I've pasted a full log file of me launching XBMC, navigating to the Movies section, hi-lighting one movie, then shutting XBMC down. This super simple set of actions actually took 2 full minutes to do. The whole log file is here:

http://pastebin.com/kPQ5fkcZ

Here's a brief snippet showing specific actions I took and you can see how long it takes between results:

PHP Code:

# Initial launch of program
11:23:22 T:4740  NOTICE: Starting XBMC (12.2 Git:20130502-32b1a5e)
                         Platform: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, build 7601. Built on May  2 2013 (compiler 1600)

# XBMC finally loaded, I press Enter to go into Movies section
11:23:44 T:4740   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 1c, sym: 000d, unicode: 000d, modifier: 0
11:23:44 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::OnKey: return (f00d) pressed, action is Select
11:23:44 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::ExecuteXBMCAction : Translating ActivateWindow(Videos,movietitles,return)
11:23:44 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::ExecuteXBMCAction : To ActivateWindow(Videos,movietitles,return)

# After 40 seconds, looks like a query runs against MySQL to get the movie list
11:24:24 T:4740   DEBUG: CVideoDatabase::RunQuery took 346 ms for 479 items query: select * from movieview
11:24:24 T:4740   DEBUG: Saving fileitems [videodb://1/2/]
11:24:24 T:4740   DEBUG:   -- items: 479, sort method: 0, ascending: false

# A total of 60 full seconds after going into Movies section, I am able to press down arrow
# going to the first movie (21 Jump Street)
11:24:43 T:4740   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 50, sym: 0112, unicode: 0000, modifier: 0
11:24:43 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::OnKey: down (f081) pressed, action is Down
11:24:44 T:584   DEBUG: SECTION:LoadDLL(special://xbmcbin/system/libnfs.dll)
11:24:44 T:584   DEBUG: NFS: Context for 192.168.1.3/data-pool/shared not open - get a new context.
11:24:44 T:584   DEBUG: NFS: Connected to server 192.168.1.3 and export /data-pool/shared
11:24:44 T:584   DEBUG: NFS: chunks: r/w 1048576/32768
11:24:44 T:584   ERROR: NFS: Failed to stat(data-pool/shared/Movies/21 Jump Street (2012)/logo.png) 
                 stat call failed with "NFS: Lookup of //Movies failed with NFS3ERR_NOENT(-2)"
11:24:44 T:584   DEBUG: CTextureCacheJob::GetImageHash - 
                 unable to stat url nfs://192.168.1.3/data-pool/shared/Movies/21 Jump Street (2012)/logo.png

# I then press backspace to go back to main menu
11:24:44 T:4740   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 0e, sym: 0008, unicode: 0008, modifier: 0
11:24:44 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::OnKey: backspace (f008) pressed, action is Back

# A few seconds later, I exit the application
11:24:49 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::ExecuteXBMCAction : Translating Quit
11:24:49 T:4740   DEBUG: CApplication::ExecuteXBMCAction : To Quit
11:24:49 T:4740   DEBUG: CAnnouncementManager - Announcement: OnQuit from xbmc

# It takes 44 seconds from the time I click exit to the time it actually closes ....
11:25:33 T:4740   DEBUG: SECTION:UnloadAll(DLL: special://xbmcbin/system/libcec.dll)
11:25:33 T:4740   DEBUG: SECTION:UnloadAll(DLL: special://xbmcbin/system/libnfs.dll) 


I'm just at a total loss as to why this is running so poorly, so I'm hoping someone more familiar reading the debug logs might shed some light.

The NFS share is wide open for public, so no usernames/passwords or anything. For what it's worth, it's running on a Solaris based (OmniOS) server with a ZFS file system. The MySQL database is running on Ubuntu 11.10.

The OpenElec clients do not have this weird slowness, even though they are much less powerful computers.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

[Martijn]

how about starting here
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146911

[Valdaun]

Well, I have looked at that thread but as I don't actually have any audio issues (that I'm aware of, unless the logs indicated otherwise) and actually playing videos is fine once they eventually start, I didn't see it as relevant.

It's just every action I take getting up TO that point I see massive hangs. The debug status text even freezes during these hangs.

Once it's in a section like Movies I can move up and down the list and the artwork and everything is smooth and changes quickly. But if I then press 'i' for the info screen on a specific movie it will freeze a bit again. Or if I start playback it will freeze for a while and then eventually start and play smoothly the whole time.

I just can't pin it down. My OpenElec boxes pointing to the same MySQL database and NFS shares are super smooth, it's only this Windows client I was trying to get going so I could do tweaks and such without needing to be out where the TVs are.

[Valdaun]

I just wanted to update that I tried to fix this issue again today by starting over clean with 12.3 of XBMC and am still facing this same issue on this PC (which is still by far my fastest one on the LAN).

One thing I have done differently this time to help hi-light the issue is do a debug log without my advancedsettings.xml and then one with it. That is the only change made between the two logs.

For what it's worth, here is my advancedsettings.xml ... as you can see, it's quite minimal:

PHP Code:

<advancedsettings>
  <videodatabase>
    <type>mysql</type>
    <host>192.168.1.5</host>
    <port>3306</port>
    <user>xbmc</user>
    <pass>****</pass>
   <name>xbmc_video</name>
  </videodatabase>
  <musicdatabase>
    <type>mysql</type>
    <host>192.168.1.5</host>
    <port>3306</port>
    <user>xbmc</user>
    <pass>****</pass>
    <name>xbmc_music</name>
  </musicdatabase>
</advancedsettings> 


Recently I have also installed Windows 7 & XBMC 12.3 on another device, with the exact same advancedsettings.xml and it runs great. So it's not a serverside issue of any sort, but seems specific to this one PC. I just can't figure out what it could be!

In both of these logs, all I did is launch XBMC and then navigate to System and then exit.

Here is the first attempt, no advancedsettings (total run time of 8 seconds): No Databases Log

And the second attempt, with the above advancedsettings as only change (total run time of 67 seconds): With Video & Music Databases Log

If I actually attempt to USE XBMC at all, I get the tremendous delays as explained in the first post. (like 40 to 60 seconds to get to the movie section and play something, etc)

Does anyone out there have any suggestions where to look next? In my opinion the log files aren't able to tell anything other than prove there are huge chunks of time where nothing is happening. I'm not sure if there is a way to turn on more verbosity to see what is going on in those waiting periods? This PC is my main computer and I have zero network issues outside of XBMC. I routinely transfer huge files back and forth to the same server as where the media resides and always max out gigabit bandwidth at 100+ MB/s. So it's very specific to XBMC.

Thanks in advance for any assistance

[Valdaun]

Oh one thing I forgot to mention ... I have tried changing my NIC driver to 3 different versions, removing any software which sounded related to the NIC (like Cisco VPN client, etc), taking off all extra network services on the NIC (so only IPv4, Windows Network Client remained), etc. Nothing changed the symptoms in any way.

Finally, I have even tried completely disabling my Intel NIC and adding a USB WiFi adapter instead with no change ... log of that included just in case: WiFi NIC Log

[jmarshall]

Have you tried eliminating the mysql connection? i.e. try a local database on that machine - if not slow, you know where the issue lies.

[Valdaun]

Yes that's what I was getting at above. Without the mysql connection, it runs super fast and can browse the NFS shares quickly. It's only when I toss the advancedsettings.xml file in that it slows to a crawl.

The crazy thing is, I have 5+ other machines on the network that use the same setup daily and work flawlessly (a Raspberry Pi, 3 x OpenElec, and another Windows 7 x64 computer). All on Frodo 12.2 or 12.3. And even on the same physical hardware that is giving me trouble, if I boot up VirtualBox with OpenElec and Frodo 12.2 it works perfectly, too.

So it's specific to this one Windows 7 computer & XBMC with mysql but I have no clue where to look.

[Jogee]

I was going to suggest taking the PC to one of the other spots in your setup, just to eliminate a network or cabling problem. However, you note that things are fine on the same PC with another OS setup in a virtual box. Weird.

Maybe it's a software thing specific to that PC. You could try starting up Windows with a diagnostic or minimal selective startup from msconfig. This might help eliminate perhaps a firewall/antivirus or other software problem.

When in doubt, eliminate. Update drivers, BIOS, etc, if you haven't already.

[bmach]

I have the exact same issue. Seems it's still not solved with 13.1. I have a openElec client and windows 8 client working no probs. Windows 7 not working at all. So sluggish it's unusable.

Did you end up getting it working?

The crazy thing is, I have 5+ other machines on the network that use the same setup daily and work flawlessly (a Raspberry Pi, 3 x OpenElec, and another Windows 7 x64 computer). All on Frodo 12.2 or 12.3. And even on the same physical hardware that is giving me trouble, if I boot up VirtualBox with OpenElec and Frodo 12.2 it works perfectly, too.

So it's specific to this one Windows 7 computer & XBMC with mysql but I have no clue where to look.

[bmach]

Weird. I've spent hours trying just about everything then I thought I would restart my NAS that runs MySQL. Strangly enough it worked?! All the other clients worked before and after the restart but Windows 7 magically only started working after the restart.

It's also possible that I was somehow affected by XBMC add on outage but I doubt it. Owell.. Hope this helps someone else. My NAS is a Synology NAS.

http://xbmc.org/downloads-and-the-addon-...n-tuesday/
Posted By: Nathan Betzen on Oct 12, 2014 in Site News
Downloads and the Addon Repository will be down until Tuesday

This is just a quick note that you will be unable to download XBMC/Kodi from now until Tuesday and you will be unable to download addons during the same time. Our server company is physically moving servers from one location to another and we are dealing with related server issues.

[Valdaun]

I thought i had updated this thread (or a similar one somewhere) but it did end up being my Linux server back end that was the problem. I was on an ancient (but working fine) build of Ubuntu and I decided to just chance doing a full "apt-get upgrade" or whatever to bring it ALL the way up to current. I was totally scared it would all blow up in my face but surprisingly enough the upgrade did totally work and didn't break all my custom setup!

One of the software packages being updated ended up resolving the problem from Windows 7 and now everything is super quick from all kinds of clients! I'm not sure specifically which had the issue, probably specific version of MySQL server + Windows 7 I guess?