[confirm] Access to network shares is really slow (1 Viewer)

[trenty27]

Hi All,

I've been a Mediaportal user for years and I thank all the developers for this awesome product. The issue I am reporting is not new to RC4, I've been having it for many releases now.

I have a NAS server where music and video are stored. A Mediaportal box accesses to it via wifi.
When I access a network share in the NAS with 610 folders in it using Windows Explorer or a competitor media center program (XBMC), the content is shown instantly. When I access to it with Mediaportal, it takes a really long time (30-40 seconds).

The logs are attached.

Hope this helps to root cause the issue.

And again, thanks for the hard work you put into Mediaportal.

 

[jameson_uk]

Use the music and video databases and after initial import it should be very quick

 

[trenty27]

Use the music and video databases and after initial import it should be very quick

Thanks for the suggestion but unfortunately I tried that and I see no difference (which seems weird to me, so I'll try again, maybe I made some mistake)

But even if this would work, my question is, why would I need to perform this action, which takes an hour or so to complete, when the OS or other programs can access to the share content in a second?

I am also wondering if I am the only one seeing this issue.

 

[jameson_uk]

Use the music and video databases and after initial import it should be very quick

Thanks for the suggestion but unfortunately I tried that and I see no difference (which seems weird to me, so I'll try again, maybe I made some mistake)

But even if this would work, my question is, why would I need to perform this action, which takes an hour or so to complete, when the OS or other programs can access to the share content in a second?

I am also wondering if I am the only one seeing this issue.

If I browse my music collection by shares then it is a little slow but not too bad. If you browse by database you are only looking at local data which has pointers to the files on the network and is much much faster (not to mention a lot more powerful)

In shares view the chance are you are having to scan for files then (in music anyway) look at the tags of each file, figrue out things like tack length etc and then pick out album art and only then display all this info. In database views this info is already gathered for you so you cut out a lot of processing. I have something like 7,000 music files on my server and a full database scan only takes me 10 minutes. What are you saying takes 1 hour?

Also do you have your files structured into folders? IIRC if you have all your files in one folder this will slow things down a lot.

Can you describe exacrtly what you are doing and where it is going slow.

 

[trenty27]

Ok then, after I built the database I tried to access the share as usual, so I probably didn't "browse by database".

My collection is about 4x the number of files you have, organized in folders like this /author/album/track*. The root directory contains about 600 subdirs. So if MP has to access every single file to gather the tags (over wifi), it can take some time to build the db.

But I am still puzzled by the fact that to access the 'audio' root dir i.e. to show a list of 600 folder names, MP takes 40 seconds while doing the same operation in a Windows Explorer is pretty much instantaneous.

 

[trenty27]

Hi,

So, besides the workaround of using libraries, can this be accounted as a bug given the fact that windows explorer access to network shares is fast instead? Is there anyone else experiencing the same?

 

[trenty27]

Comments, anyone?

 

[rkelly]

AW: Access to network shares is really slow

Hi trenty27,

So, besides the workaround of using libraries, can this be accounted as a bug given the fact that windows explorer access to network shares is fast instead? Is there anyone else experiencing the same?

It´s not a bug, it´s a feature... ;-)
OK, I would say, that is not a bug, but a "problem" in structure, because its developed to use it in a different mode.

I Think, inside of MP, the load/import structure will work complety different to to Windows Explorer., The Explorer is designed to displays all necesarry information a fast as possible, and in the default view, explorer don´t read the things inside of every file. Only inside file on network shares - I don´t know.

BUT: The right way to display the information (and I think, the way, the dev´s want to run) is, to read all infos from the database (which can be automaticly updated, when a new file is found in folder) and set only a pointer the the file(system), which is must faster - hopely...(I coulnd´t find any option in MP/configuration, where I can say "Read from DB", I am blind (or stupid?) PLEASE HELP!

I "only" have ~1600 file on a win7 share over a 100Mbit switched network (not really: MP: 100Mbit nic-switch-85Mbit dLAN Network (Ethernet over power cable)-100Mbit nic-Share); open the folder im MP takes ~25 seconds
That takes very long, but I understand, that, when MP must collect information from every file, that takes time.

And: I am a little bit lazy (only a little...); all my files resist in 1 folder, no structure in artist, album etc
But I think, that, when I browse my music library in MP and the program only have to look inside the database, it must be really fast.

rkelly

 

[torbjorns]

Have you changed your OS to win 7 recently. I did and my old router didnt deal with that so good. I had very slow network transfer rates to my NAS. So the solution was to check for new firmware>> no success. New Router>> success. Now I got really good rates

 

[rkelly]

AW: Access to network shares is really slow

Have you changed your OS to win 7 recently.

No, I didn´t. Vista for MP, Win7 for share.
But, with serveral testtools, the connection between 2 pc´s are 7-8 mbytes/s, everytime, bi-directional.
So, I don´t thinks, it´s the router (anyway, there´s no firmware update avaliable...)

I think, the only thing I need is do tell MP to search/load data from database, not browsing the filesystem. But I don´t know, how I can configure this. I would open a regular topic in the forum.

OK; My opinion to the bug in MP is, what I´ve wrote in the last replys: It´s a fundamental design decision of the dev´s of MP that MP should use database data instead of (slow) direct file access. All players, that I know, build a database for/of it´s used files, because it´s easier to handle with ands it´s faster


@MP Devs/Tester: Please correct if I´m wrong.

rkelly