Server Boot takes a long time

[Lighthammer 80]

This is going back to an old issue with server taking forever to reboot, 35 minutes long to be precise. Oddly though, it seems to only start "loading" once the first user who has full access to the libraries tries to log in.

The majority of the problem seems to be lines such as this (included in the below server log):

 

2015-01-15 02:09:01.9239 Warn - BaseItem: Unable to find linked item at path D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Animation\Captain N - The Game Master [1989]\Season 1 [1989]\08 -  Mr. & Mrs. Mother Brain.mp4

2015-01-15 02:09:01.9239 Warn - BaseItem: Unable to find linked item at path D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Animation\Captain N - The Game Master [1989]\Season 1 [1989]\08 -  Mr. & Mrs. Mother Brain.mp4

2015-01-15 02:09:02.0176 Warn - BaseItem: Unable to find linked item at path D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Animation\Captain N - The Game Master [1989]\Season 1 [1989]\08 -  Mr. & Mrs. Mother Brain.mp4

The server will try to process the entry and seemingly try to add it to the server series list and then truncate/ignore it once it tries 3-5 times.

The odd thing is, once it seemingly doesn't find an episode, it's still playable on the server from Media Browser.

So I wonder if there's a configuration problem with this (nothing looks overtly wrong) or if this is a straight bug.

Moreover, I wonder why the server feels the need to check the ENTIRE library every reboot. I recall seeing an option to turn this off but I don't see it. I'm unsure if it's something that has been gone for a long time, I'm missing it or if I am remembering something incorrectly.

Thanks for any help with this issue!

server-63556883752.txt

[Happy2Play 8296]

Moreover, I wonder why the server feels the need to check the ENTIRE library every reboot. I recall seeing an option to turn this off but I don't see it. I'm unsure if it's something that has been gone for a long time, I'm missing it or if I am remembering something incorrectly.

Are you referring to the scheduled task to scan library at application startup?

 

[Lighthammer 80]

Thanks, I couldn't for the life of me remember exactly where the setting was, though I've tinkered with it.

I'm still concerned about the problem because this seemed resolved a few months ago.

[Lighthammer 80]

So if I just disable the task, any Series, Movie and Music media becomes unavailable upon reboot or until I rescan.

Totally not a fix!

[Happy2Play 8296]

So if I just disable the task, any Series, Movie and Music media becomes unavailable upon reboot or until I rescan.

Totally not a fix!

The only difference I see is it takes about 10-15 seconds before a my library is available if I remove "On Application Startup".

[Lighthammer 80]

Well, that's you, I suspect you probably have a much smaller library then me.

This problem is now starting to spin out of control.

Even with the "don't rescan at user action" trigger removed, it's taking nearly 45 minutes for the server to come up. The newest server version actually made things much worse.

I'm really unsure what to do. The server logs, as shown, is basically having problems with valid entries.

If I had to take a random guess at what the problem is, its because somewhere within the last two versions or three versions of the server software, the code that deals with the [ and ] brackets got modified.

[Lighthammer 80]

I've been parsing out the logs a bit and I do believe my problems at this point are very likely due to a major change in the backend.

 

As I stated earlier, I use [ and ] brackets a lot.

 

I often use this format for seasons: Season 01 [yyyy].

The entry that disturb me are the ones that are flagging these as "not a series" and then proceeds onward to "check" each episode 5x and then gives up. The odd thing is, as I said above, when it's done checking everything, they're still available for me to watch AFTER the server finally loads.

Again, to reiterate, if I am simply turn library scans off (somewhat painful to do because of having to deal with new media) each time the server reboots, nothing is available to me that is a movie, series or music album.

I'd suggest the problem might also be that the server no longer likes the nomenclature of using double digits for single digit numbers.

Considering similar problems like this has cropped up several times over the last year, I'd like to suggest that a fundamental "restore previous server version" feature be something to prioritize so that little problems like this don't require end users to wait for the developers to resolve the problem and kick out a new version, but rather simply revert to what worked last. As small as the server program itself is, I'd think that making a local restore function for 5 steps back or more shouldn't be too taxing on end users.

[ebr 14924]

Years in braces in season folder names is probably something that has never been tested and has never been explicitly supported so it very well may have something to do with it.

 

However, the first question I have is what is your structure such that every single episode appears to be a shortcut?

[Lighthammer 80]

First off as years in brackets, I converted over to that format back in August per a previous discussion you were involved in (I don't truthfully expect you to remember it since you no doubt read hundreds of posts a week), but its worked save for the glitch back in November that seems similar to this.

The thing that's wonky about this situation is, other than the use of brackets, it's a typical setup for seasons:

<Series> [yyyy]

---> Season ## [yyyy]

------> ## - <Episode Title>

 

It's nothing outside traditional naming conventions (save adding years), but just out of no where in the beginning of the month, it started having the problems you're seeing in the log.

The key point I'm concerned about is in the log I posted, many (seemingly all) series get an error "X is not a series".

[ebr 14924]

Like I said, I'm not sure anyone has ever tested anything other than the defined names we have documented for "Season xx" folders so that could be an issue.

 

But, I'm not sure it is.  What about the answer to my other question?  That is what is taking so much time - trying to resolve a link to every single episode it looks like...

[Lighthammer 80]

Well, considering I've discussed this topic before and I've been doing it that way for about 6 months, it's fair to say *I* have been testing mostly with success.

 

As far as your other question goes, I thought the formating would have answered that question too, but to be clear, no, it's not defined that way.

 

In the Library's section I have three entries TV Show Folder Types:

 

Entry 1: Series - Live Action 

Media Location: D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Live Action

Path Subed to: \\NAS-ASUS-ATOM\Shared Videos\Series - Live Action

 

Entry 2: Series - Anime

Media Location: D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Anime

Path Subed to: \\NAS-ASUS-ATOM\Shared Videos\Series - Anime

 

Entry 3: Series - Animation

Media Location: D:\Shares\Public\Shared Videos\Series - Animation

Path Subed to: \\NAS-ASUS-ATOM\Shared Videos\Series - Animation

The Network shares are confirmed to be correct and working.

Also, disabling the TV Shares folders creates almost immediate response in Media Browser being available on the PC, Web and Android app.

[ebr 14924]

All those messages of "unable to find linked item" are because the server thinks all those items are either shortcuts or part of a collection or something.

 

Do you have shortcuts or use shortcuts in the file system?

[Lighthammer 80]

No shortcuts or symlinks used.
 

The only thing that it could possibly be (related) is I have moved the libraries from one drive to another and changed the location in the libraries section instead of physically making new entries.

 

But I got the same gist as you did. Since nothing changed on my end since this problem started happening, that's why I thought it might be because somewhere in the code, you guys changed how the [ and ] brackets are used. 

When I encountered the problem from originally starting to 'flag' seasons like this back in August, you had mentioned you weren't even sure if that worked anymore or not AT THAT POINT. That's partly where my theory on the bracket changes comes into effect, because it seemed like this was already a low priority on keeping it working, even though you stated at that time 'it used to work, it still might' (and it ended up being the case that it did).

 

I'm gonna try deleting the entries in the library section and readding them. See if that does any good.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Lighthammer

[Lighthammer 80]

I just physically removed the library entries. I'll let the server go through a natural rescan and reboot over the night per it's normal specifications and try readding the libraries tomorrow morning. See where that leaves us at.

I should note that the server (that is the computer) physically reboots every night at 3A EDT through a Scheduled Event. I've been doing this for over a year now to ensure the system memory gets a full purge every 24 hours, otherwise, I've found system slowly starts to crash after 48 hours.

This isn't entirely because of Media Browser. The system is Intel ATOM ALSO running IIS for file service and cloud based utilities (to be clear, its not hosting any web site based content).

Edited January 20, 2015 by Lighthammer

[Lighthammer 80]

Ok, server rebooted fine, everything was supper speedy with the settings I described above.

I re-added all the series libraries and the same problem is occurring once again, though, its noteworthy that any user who doesn't have access to these libraries loads immediately (I noted this before, but reiterating).

The funny thing about this is I have three folders on the same drive that also have library links:

Videos - Family

Videos - Youtube

Videos - Documentaries

These are all using the 'Home Videos' category.

I also tried adding the problem libraries back as 'Home Videos' with no success.

I did a thorough check and it literally IS every series that is a problem. 

[Lighthammer 80]

Ok, I tracked down the problem and it's actually more severe then I thought it might be.

The problem is Media Browser does not recognize when media has been physically moved, the libraries changed and no more logical link to the original location. It still tries to scan for it's original location.

 

Here's the specific instance how I found this:
My Live actions directory is called 'Movies - Live Action'. Inside it, I have categories broken down such as Sci-Fi and Comedy. When I am determining where the movies final home will reside, I dump the movie in the 'Movie - Live Action' root while I look it up on IMDB and determine where its final home will be if I don't already know the movie well enough to make that call on my own.

In the MB log, it shows BOTH locations and the one that places it where it USED TO BE is flagged with a warning.

This same thing is occurring with series.

As I stated earlier, the location of the series used to be on another drive, but I have since moved and changed its location in the library section and changed it's Path Substitution links.

MB is not recognizing these physical changes and continues to hammer away looking for them but doesn't find them at the original location (thus why, Ebr, you stated "it looks like they're missing"). 

This also makes sense, because on the occasions I've seen these movies I mentioned I above, I compare them and remove the "ghost movie" that doesn't actually exist anymore.

To fix this problem, MB needs a robust way to identify deleted or moved objects.

About 6 weeks ago, there was a discussion with someone else on the forums who described a similar problem (though he was being very loud, obnoxious and saying "Fix it, fix it" without helping to diagnose the problem). He himself mentioned moving mass files around too.

Now for me, I haven't RECENTLY been moving large chunks of files into or out of the Library folders, but it seems to be either a cumulative problem or a problem caused by another change at some point.

The part that seems clear is the item at hand only seems to be checked if there's a reason to check it. For Instance, I tried moving Agent Carter (a small series I wouldn't have a major problem renaming for test purposes) to another folder and then made that the only series the system had to look for. The system in fact found it, did not push out the errors for any other series, but DID also have entries for errors with this series. I tried the same with a movie and found the same results.

I hope this gives you guys a big headstart on how to fix it. However, I'm sad to say, I think this is going to be a labor intensive fix.

[Lighthammer 80]

So, this is actually a lot more distressing and concerning:

 

- Uninstalled MB completely

- Killed the Windows User MB Server was installed under

- Installed MB under a brand new user

- Redid ALL shares

- Readded all the libraries (currently its chugging through it the whole mess)

 

However, I already hit a pretty major problem. Despite the comprehensive changes made, there are still a few warnings popping up in the log for entries that NEVER existed on this installation. 

I -- am -- umm --- amazed? I'm not sure if that's the right word!

[Lighthammer 80]

Has a "finalish" (provided no more info is needed from Luke or Ebr on this topic) I can report now that my library is completely Re-meta-tagged and there are no unknown items on the server as far as MB is concerned, there is virtually zero lag from the time of restart to the time the user with the most libraries gains access to the server.

However, on the whopping 30 meg log file generated by the most recent restart, there are still two warning messages throughout the log of items I've never defined anywhere on this instance of the server. Keep in mind, I completely uninstalled, deleted the Windows user account and reinstalled Media Browser under a completely new account (note: this doesn't mean I deleted an account and remade an account with the same name, I avoided this to avoid any possible complications). I find this very weird.

I still believe this problem is something that is going to cause problems with the server going forward big time. I hope it can be resolved.

As for all other things, I feel it's probably worthy to term this problem Server Meta Fragmentation or something to that effect to identify this particular problem going forward.