MediaPortal "Extender" Computer? (2 Viewers)

[Marcusb]

I have an almost exact same set up as you, with no problems at all.
The only real difference is that I have the UNC paths as the static IP of the server (permanently assigned via DHCP).
I figured it was just one less thing to cause issues.

Can't hurt to change that over in your setup and see if it improves the situation, but it probably wont...

 

[moab]

Well it sounds like your OS and network are fine.
Hardware looks fine too except for the GeForce 6200. I use an 8500 GT so is the 6200 an old one? Can that thing handle HD, presumably yes as you say VLC player works fine? Not sure if your content is HD or SD. What resolution are you playing at on the client. If you are playing SD on a display resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) then the upscaling processor load is heavy and can overload a weak graphics card and clog up the processor. I would expect it still to play and see artifacts.
At this point I would reset TV server. Then reboot client. Then reproduce the error and look at the log files.
You could compare a good log for what happens when it works playing on the server with the bad log of when if fails play on client.
I use all default settings with RC4 and it works for me with XP MCE 2005 Roll Up 2 SP3 and latest hot fixes. XP and XP MCE used to make a difference but I think the installer handles that now.

 

[LinkDJ]

Well it sounds like your OS and network are fine.
Hardware looks fine too except for the GeForce 6200. I use an 8500 GT so is the 6200 an old one? Can that thing handle HD, presumably yes as you say VLC player works fine? Not sure if your content is HD or SD. What resolution are you playing at on the client. If you are playing SD on a display resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) then the upscaling processor load is heavy and can overload a weak graphics card and clog up the processor. I would expect it still to play and see artifacts.
At this point I would reset TV server. Then reboot client. Then reproduce the error and look at the log files.
You could compare a good log for what happens when it works playing on the server with the bad log of when if fails play on client.
I use all default settings with RC4 and it works for me with XP MCE 2005 Roll Up 2 SP3 and latest hot fixes. XP and XP MCE used to make a difference but I think the installer handles that now.

I've done some more testing, and now I have a better idea of what's going on:

Whenever I select Videos from the main menu, or select a season in TV-Series (basically, anything that will list files/folders), MediaPortal hangs for about a minute and a half. Then it proceeds as normal and everything is fine. This does not happen again until I close MP and run it again.

I still have no idea why this is happening though. Maybe I need to try reinstalling?

The GeForce 6200 was just the cheapest thing I could get when I was building this box, and since it's about what the main HTPC has I figured it would be fine. The content I watch is all downloaded, it's rarely 720p, and if it is it's usually animated. And the computer is running at 720p resolution. But it looks great and doesn't stutter or anything, so the video card seems to be doing its job.

 

[moab]

Well it sounds like your OS and network are fine.
Hardware looks fine too except for the GeForce 6200. I use an 8500 GT so is the 6200 an old one? Can that thing handle HD, presumably yes as you say VLC player works fine? Not sure if your content is HD or SD. What resolution are you playing at on the client. If you are playing SD on a display resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) then the upscaling processor load is heavy and can overload a weak graphics card and clog up the processor. I would expect it still to play and see artifacts.
At this point I would reset TV server. Then reboot client. Then reproduce the error and look at the log files.
You could compare a good log for what happens when it works playing on the server with the bad log of when if fails play on client.
I use all default settings with RC4 and it works for me with XP MCE 2005 Roll Up 2 SP3 and latest hot fixes. XP and XP MCE used to make a difference but I think the installer handles that now.

I've done some more testing, and now I have a better idea of what's going on:

Whenever I select Videos from the main menu, or select a season in TV-Series (basically, anything that will list files/folders), MediaPortal hangs for about a minute and a half. Then it proceeds as normal and everything is fine. This does not happen again until I close MP and run it again.

I still have no idea why this is happening though. Maybe I need to try reinstalling?

The GeForce 6200 was just the cheapest thing I could get when I was building this box, and since it's about what the main HTPC has I figured it would be fine. The content I watch is all downloaded, it's rarely 720p, and if it is it's usually animated. And the computer is running at 720p resolution. But it looks great and doesn't stutter or anything, so the video card seems to be doing its job.

I would open task manager (taskmgr.exe), click performance.
Then drag the window to be about screen width.
Then open MP and reproduce your issue.
When completed after your 2 min lag switch back to task manager. Look at the processor traces.
Did the CPU Usage History max out during your issue?
If it did then you can re-do and watch the processes to determine which one is hogging the CPU.

 

[LinkDJ]

I would open task manager (taskmgr.exe), click performance.
Then drag the window to be about screen width.
Then open MP and reproduce your issue.
When completed after your 2 min lag switch back to task manager. Look at the processor traces.
Did the CPU Usage History max out during your issue?
If it did then you can re-do and watch the processes to determine which one is hogging the CPU.

You're not going to believe this...

The hard drive activity light was only flashing occasionally, and even the network utilization was extremely low (to the point that most of the time it didn't have a line on the graph).

With some more testing, I have figured out that if I open MediaPortal and leave it alone for ~5 minutes, then I can use it normally with no hangups.

Now, one of the times it hung and didn't come back it crashed and the MP Watchdog caught it, I looked through the log files and it looked like it was doing the MP TV-Series scan for files. It crashed that time because it couldn't reach the other HTPC (because of an unrelated issue), but I can't help but wonder if it's trying to do that file refresh every time I run MP and if that could be causing it...

 

[dapun]

Did some troubleshooting...

So I was having the same types of issue with network drives and MP setup.. so what I did with my Windows XP SP3 setup is the following... I removed the antivirus to make sure that wasn't causing the issue and then I went ahead and tested out my network shares outside media portal and all played great in both Media Player and Media Player Classic. so I was thinking its something specific .. so I went in and toggled most of my shares to removable in the MP Config, which did nothing so I put them back and stumbled upon firewall exceptions in the Windows Firewall and set MediaPortal as a exception this greatly helped my setup. Aside from that I also did the ping test as stated above which returned normal results as well adding my pc's to the host file and disabling my browser service. In turn I now have solid performance from my my PC. Sidenote: I also went into my LAN driver and looked at some properties and switched it from Optimized for CPU to Throughput. Don't know if this help but I thought I mention it. Its running a Nforce Driver for my Lan Card.

I love media portal..I always come here for help and figured I would help out when I can.

 

[moab]

I would open task manager (taskmgr.exe), click performance.
Then drag the window to be about screen width.
Then open MP and reproduce your issue.
When completed after your 2 min lag switch back to task manager. Look at the processor traces.
Did the CPU Usage History max out during your issue?
If it did then you can re-do and watch the processes to determine which one is hogging the CPU.

You're not going to believe this...

The hard drive activity light was only flashing occasionally, and even the network utilization was extremely low (to the point that most of the time it didn't have a line on the graph).

With some more testing, I have figured out that if I open MediaPortal and leave it alone for ~5 minutes, then I can use it normally with no hangups.

Now, one of the times it hung and didn't come back it crashed and the MP Watchdog caught it, I looked through the log files and it looked like it was doing the MP TV-Series scan for files. It crashed that time because it couldn't reach the other HTPC (because of an unrelated issue), but I can't help but wonder if it's trying to do that file refresh every time I run MP and if that could be causing it...

Just to clarify was this the trace from the client or the server?
If it is client then it looks like it was waiting for the server to respond.

 

[Count Filipp]

The hard drive activity light was only flashing occasionally, and even the network utilization was extremely low (to the point that most of the time it didn't have a line on the graph).

With some more testing, I have figured out that if I open MediaPortal and leave it alone for ~5 minutes, then I can use it normally with no hangups.

Now, one of the times it hung and didn't come back it crashed and the MP Watchdog caught it, I looked through the log files and it looked like it was doing the MP TV-Series scan for files. It crashed that time because it couldn't reach the other HTPC (because of an unrelated issue), but I can't help but wonder if it's trying to do that file refresh every time I run MP and if that could be causing it...

So, there may not be anything wrong with your mediaportal installation after all! You can try to have your bedroom HTPC look at a subset of your 4000+ tv series, my guess is that you won't have the delay. I use a file server for my HTPC as well and I too see a small delay after going to MP tv series from the main menu. I also see the hangup when the server is offline. It would be nice if MP caught these kind of server induced delays and provided a notification to the user.

 

[jimmynail]

I think I know this problem very well...............are all of your tv or media in the same folder ? i expect they are .......try splitting some into their own seperate folders and compare............voila.

 

[moab]

I have a delay of a few seconds when opening my movie folder of merely 60 movies.
I assume it is because it is downloading the cover art for some of the movies.
4000 files in one folder is a problem.
To add to the other posts; I recall Windows FAT32 likes folders (aka directories) with less than 256 files in them for optimum performance.