Live TV w/ TV Server has Memory Leak (1 Viewer)

[Noelix]

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.0.0 11-28-2006--18-52-Rev11956
TV Engine: 11-28-2006--01-12h--Rev119433
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: Windows XP (SP2)
CPU Type: AMD Athlon XP 2200+
HDD: 180GB Western Digital, 7200RPM
Memory: 768MB
Motherboard Chipset: KT600-8237
Video Card: Nvidia Geforce FX 5500 (256 MB)
Video Card Driver: 9.1.3.1
Sound Card: C-Media AC97 Audio Device
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver: 5.12.1.50
1. TV Card: Hauppauge PVR-500 MCE
1. TV Card Type: Analog
1. TV Card Driver: 2.0.43.24103
MPEG2 Video Codec: Intervideo
MPEG2 Audio Codec: Intervideo
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Cox Communications (Basic)
HTPC Case: Antec Overture II
Power Supply: Special 450W SmartPower 2.0 ATX12V v2.01 compliant
Remote: Microsoft MCE Remote, EU version
TV: Zenith CRT
TV - HTPC Connection: S-Video to RCA connection

You may have noticed my posts about livetv freezing up elsewhere on the forums. I have done all the tips and tricks things to help smooth video, and after doing them all, tv still freezes. I updated my video card drivers, everything. Here's what happens:

I go into My TV, tv guide, pick a channel, and begin watching. While previously before I did the tips and tricks, the video would just straight up freeze, now it slows down to a halt over a period of minutes. It gets choppier and choppier, until it finally freezes. MP is still responsive at this point, although very very sluggish. I managed to get back out to the main menu but when when I hit the "stop" button on the remote, something strange happens. The screen in the corner goes black, and then proceeds to flash on and off the screen for a few seconds at a time. MP is really sluggish at this point, so I'll draw up logs now.

In looking at task manager at this point, the cpu usage is only around 7 percent, but the memory usage is huge - 1.03GB, which is higher than the 768MB I have (meaning it went into virtual memory)! There is definitely a memory leak here. I've attached two screenshots of task manager. One when the blinking of the blank video in the corner on the main menu was going on, and one when I killed the MP process, you can see a huge dropoff in memory usage.

I went to open the log files and the error log was almost 68MB! I'll try and compress those log files and put them up on my site:

http://www.noelestep.net/error.zip
http://www.noelestep.net/MediaPortal.zip

 

[mdingemanse]

Hello Noelix,

I have the same problem, but when i deselected the win xp firewall suddenly i didnt have the mem leak.
But selecting the tv guide the memory leak was back.
Well restarting MP works and the the tv works fine too (without the firewall and tv guide).
Anyway i'm not going to use my tv anymore because ALL the mpeg2 codecs have poor image quality, but maybe thats because i have an analog tv card so the tv signal has to be deinterlaced.
Oh and the mpa codec dont work because i dont have sound

 

[tourettes]

Hi Noelix, could you check following use case and memory usage?

1. open setuptv
2. start timeshifting
3. start recording
4. start timeshifting on second channel

At least that causes a memory leak in tv engine for me. The leak seems to be approx 200Kb/s.

 

[tourettes]

Today Frodo fixed one memory leak. Please check if it helps you guys.

 

[mdingemanse]

MediaPortal 0.2.1.0 svn 07/12/2006
Skin: BlueTwo
winXP Pro SP2
nvidia drivers 93.xx whql
pinnacle pctv 110i
sound ac97

Well the memory leak is back. With firewall deactivated it takes a little longer to show but it will happen. The thing is with WinDVR 3 live tv works just fine.
The greatest difference is that MP needs a lot of cpu cycles to even show live tv.
Ok i got an analog cable tuner card but still the difference with WinDVR is big.
My proc is an AMD64 3000+ @ 2.6 ghz. When idle its running at 1.15 ghz. The point is with WinDVR 3 it keeps running at 1.15 ghz and maybe a bit more but with MP it needs 2.3 ghz minimal to run. Recording the live tv makes it worse. I cant even think of using timeshift !
So i think the problem is MyTV engine which i'm afraid is not coded very well. It doesnt appear to be efficient with amd64.

I really like MP. I use the rest of the functions a lot and thats smooth but i cant name it multimediasoftware because it fails to show live tv smoothly.

 

[tourettes]

mdingemanse, are you using the tv engine 3? If not then this is wrong sub forum / thread

 

[Noelix]

tourettes, just FYI, I'm back to using TV Engine 2 (the engine in the latest svn) so I can record and watch my shows properly. I'll test the TV server again in the near future, but maybe you can help answer some questions for me in the meantime:

Is there a changelog for the TV Server / TV Engine 3 / TV Engine 3 Plugin?
(I only see the svn changelog on the site)

Is it possible to backup/keep the epg when installing a newer version of the tv engine? (right now it has to repopulate every time; same goes for channel lists but that's easy enough to backup)

Thanks!

 

[chenks]

the EPG should be stored in the database... so as long as you don't clear it and don't re-scan channels (which you don't need to do when updating anyway), you should keep you EPG data intact.

 

[Noelix]

the EPG should be stored in the database... so as long as you don't clear it and don't re-scan channels (which you don't need to do when updating anyway), you should keep you EPG data intact.

So have you updated the TV Server and managed to keep your EPG and channels? When I've done it, the channel list gets cleared and so does the EPG.

 

[tourettes]

the EPG should be stored in the database... so as long as you don't clear it and don't re-scan channels (which you don't need to do when updating anyway), you should keep you EPG data intact.

So have you updated the TV Server and managed to keep your EPG and channels? When I've done it, the channel list gets cleared and so does the EPG.

Works for me. EPG stays intact when I uninstall the tv engine and then install the new version of it.