MP2 Custom Installer (4 Viewers)

[breese]

In an effort to test the new MP2, SQLite, and custom install.
I wanted to install MP2 onto my Raid5 (F: ) because it is extramly faster then my SSD
I clicked on Custom for the MP2 installer yet, it installed parts of it on c: and other parts on F:
Along with the F:, It did not create a folder on f:
I had created f:/Application before hand, it installed the Application files directly in that folder along with creating the Defaults and Language folders.
I am attaching the installer log file.
Please let me know if there is any other infor you need and I am willing to give the right people access tru TeamViewer

Just found out the uninstaller does not remove the folders under c:\programdata
Another update
It also created a recording folder in my R:/MediaPortal folder and at no time did I tell the installer this drive or folder was there.

 

[Spragleknas]

@MJGraf ?

 

[MJGraf]

Yep, I'm here

it installed parts of it on c: and other parts on F:

I have to admit that I never used the installer before so I can't say anything about the installer and why it doesn't install everything where you told it. I guess @chefkoch can say more about that but I suppose, it would be helpful if you could tell what exactly was installed in which location.

The reason why I don't use the installer is that it is very easy to move MP2 around wherever you want it to be and that's what I usually do.
MP2 Client as well as MP2 Server have two "base directories" each.

• One is the directory in which all the executable files and dll files are located. This one is called "APPLICATION_ROOT". As a standard on a x64 system this should be a directory below "C:\Program Files (x86)\Team MediaPortal"
• The second is the directory in which all the data is stored (i.e. configuration files, the database file, etc.). That is called "COMMON_APPLICATION_DATA". The standard e.g. for MP2 Client is "C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Client"

Now moving MP2 Client application files to another directory is really as easy as just copying the APPLICATION_ROOT directory with all its content and subdirectories somewhere else (don't know if this is recommended, but for me it works...). Just start the MP2-client.exe from the new location and it works.
For MP2 Server it's a little bit more complicated because this is a windows service. That means you first have to stop the service. Then use "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\InstallUtil.exe" to unregister the service at its current location, then copy the APPLICATION_ROOT of MP2 Server to another place and finally use InstallUtil again to register the service at the new location. Then restart the server service and it should work.

Changing the COMMON_APPLICATION_DATA directory is easy for both, MP2 Client and Server. Both should have a directory called "Default" directly in their APPLICATION_ROOT folder. In this directory you find a file called paths.xml.
For me the path.xml of my MP2 Server looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<Paths>
<!-- Default paths can be overridden here -->
<Path value="<COMMON_APPLICATION_DATA>\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Server" name="DATA"/>
<Path value="<DATA>\Config" name="CONFIG"/>
<Path value="<DATA>\Log" name="LOG"/>
<Path value="<APPLICATION_ROOT>\Plugins" name="PLUGINS"/>
<Path value="<DATA>" name="DATABASE"/></Paths>

So if you want to put all the data somewhere else, just amend
<Path value="<COMMON_APPLICATION_DATA>\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Server" name="DATA"/>
to something like
<Path value="X:\MyNewDataPath" name="DATA"/>
Don't forget to stop MP2 Client and / or Server before that change and restart later. Make sure you copied any of the data you want to keep, before you change this because if MP2 starts up for the first time after you changed the paths and it doesn't find any data there, it will just generate new data with the standard values (i.e. a new and empty database file, etc.)

That's basically it...

But back to your initial assumption: If I was you, I would NOT put my database (i.e. the COMMON_APPLICATION_DATA directory) on your Raid5 because:

• the database requires in particular fast random access times. Your Raid5 has a random access time of 13.4ms, while your SSD has 0.2ms. So your SSD should be more than 60x faster for database use.
• Your Raid 5 is not even much faster for sequential read speed. The average read speed of your SSD is 179,1MB/sec for your Raid5 it's 215,9MB/sec. So not that much of a difference.
• The "burst speed" of 242,7MB/sec (SSD) vs. 3.190,3MB/sec (Raid 5) doesn't say really much. That's the maximum speed data can be transferred once it is already in the HardDisk/SSD/Raid-Controller cache. Assuming that your database will be larger than just a few MBs, the database file will not fit into the cache as a whole and so this figure is more or less irrelevant for your use case.

I would just use the Raid5 for your media files and put MP2 application files as well as MP2 data directory onto your SSD. This should give you the best performance.

Hope that helps - but nevertheless, we should check why the installer doesn't behave as it should....
Thanks for testing!
Michael

 

[chefkoch]

I clicked on Custom for the MP2 installer yet, it installed parts of it on c: and other parts on F:
Along with the F:, It did not create a folder on f:
I had created f:/Application before hand, it installed the Application files directly in that folder along with creating the Defaults and Language folders.
I am attaching the installer log file.
Please let me know if there is any other infor you need and I am willing to give the right people access tru TeamViewer

According to the log, I expect you only changed the installation folder for the ServiceMonitor to F:\Application, while you left the Client's and the Server's installationdir at ProgramFiles. Am I right?

Please check http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_..._Installing_MediaPortal_2/Custom_Installation
Which I created a few minutes ago.

Just found out the uninstaller does not remove the folders under c:\programdata

that is by design. The uninstaller should not remove any user settings. Of course there could be an option to optionally remove these, but this is not possible, yet.

It also created a recording folder in my R:/MediaPortal folder and at no time did I tell the installer this drive or folder was there.

This is not a recording folder, this is a dokan drive that is used for accessing (virtual) on the local machine, while these are physical on another one in the network.


@MJGraf
Could you copy some of the information from your post to the wiki page I linked to, please?

 

[breese]

Thanks for all the info, I will be looking into the custom install info.
Right now I have done a stock Client/Server install and configured it to share my f:\Music and f:\Movies
The system began scanning my music folder even while I was still configuring the Movies share. Is this by design? I was not promted to start a scan.

Also, C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Server has folders
Config, Database, Log, TheMovieDB, TvDB.
Database folder is empty even while the music scan (Installed stock DB) but is writting it to the MP2-Server folder as Datastore.sdf (or I assume because it is growing with the scan)

Speaking of scan's
The music scan is reading the directories backward.... Is this normal?
(Just like in the 70's, by reading them in reverse order are we looking for satan messages?? )
I am including a copy of the server log..

If there is anything you would like tested please let me know.
I think I am going to kill off the current scan and attempt to install the new sqlite DB

 

[MJGraf]

Yep, will do. Thanks Chef!

 

[MJGraf]

The system began scanning my music folder even while I was still configuring the Movies share. Is this by design? I was not promted to start a scan.

That's by design. The import just runs in the background. No need to start imports manually. Just tell it where your media files are located and forget about it. MP2 will take care of the rest.

The music scan is reading the directories backward.... Is this normal?

Yep, normal as well - although I don't really know why we chose this order. At least I did not think about satan messages

I think I am going to kill off the current scan and attempt to install the new sqlite DB

From what you told me about the size of your music collection, I would recommend to do so. The standard database will most likely hit its 2GB limit when you try to import your whole music collection...

If there is anything you would like tested please let me know.

It would be great if you could use the SQLiteDatabase and let all your music / movie etc. collections import. When the import is finished, just tell us how big your database file is and how long it took until everything was imported (and of course if there is a bug in the import - which I hope not....)

Thanks,
Michael

 

[breese]

Started scan about 5 minutes ago... (07:57:39)
New sql code is FAST!!
08:04:00 and database is at 203,908 already
More to come

While browsing around my machine during the scan, I found the following
Local Disk (S Dont know where this came from - cannot get properties
MediaPortal 2 resource access (T 0 bytes
MediaPortal 2 resource access (U 0 bytes
Should T and U match my drive F: where the data is?

Also, while scanning, MP2 server has 48 threads open
Client has 95 open

 

[MJGraf]

Should T and U match my drive F: where the data is?

Nope, these are "virtual drives" used by MP2 Server and MP2 Client. When you play a media item, it is mapped to one of these drives, when you stop playing the media item, it should disappear. We currently need this to be able to play then content of ISO, RAR, ZIP files as well as when you play a file of any kind located on a remote drive. So no need to care about these drives. They should disappear as soon as you exit the MP2 Client application and stop the MP2 Server service.

As to your S-drive: This may be left from a hard termination of a former MP2 Client or Server (e.g. by a crash or by just terminating the process via task manager). When you restart your computer, it should be gone...

 

[breese]

Thanks....
All has come to a stop. My server went away. Would not respond to any keyboard commands and had to hard power cycle. Will be looking into that and I do not think it is MP2 related. I will be uploading the logs of what it did manage to scan for your browsing pleasure.
The DB file was at 708,492

btw: is anyone else seeing a slowdown when typing on this forum?