Why does the server need to re-scan before it will work?

[Pelon 162]

can i ask a related question, what is the need to reboot a "SERVER" or a machine you're running a server piece of software on, that requires such frequent reboots?

 

i run my MBS on a "desktop win7 pro x64 box" that is my "server" for mb3/sab/sb/couchpotato/metabrowser etc... so every bit (usually around 2wks or so) i do a shutdown of those various services, reboot the machine, bring it all back.. etc.. during this time for my large library (approx 34TB at this point) my initial scan is under 3-4mins

 

so in my head.. 3-4mins of my clients/family not being able to watch something in the span of (completely controllable be me) 2 weeks.. is OK...

 

can you elaborate on whats driving the need for your enviroment so we can possibly work to improve the situation in other ways or with other workarounds?

 

-MWS

I would say that if MB3 was a finished product (I don't know if it will ever get there), then we wouldn't need to restart the server. Now with the server changing often (depending on your update settings) and with new or updated plug-ins, I can understand the need to upgrade more often.

 

If you select a Release version and don't install any plug-ins, you should not need to upgrade/restart the server very often.

[gfgf 0]

Seeing as it happens for you even if you only just restart the MediaBrowserServer answers my question.

 

I can tell you that it happens when the server is started after a reboot, no-matter how long after the reboot.

 

Stopping and starting the service quickly does not cause the re-scan. Whether or not stopping the service, waiting 4 hours then starting it again cause the slow scan I don't know. It doesn't seem like it matters, the problem is already described well and verified by two other users. And it's a new problem that happened after one of the updates.

[Beardyname 195]

@@gfgf Could you try running it as a standard program ? Just for testing purpouses

 

Also, I don't really see a problem with the slow scan (I could be wrong here) but i think the "larger" error is that you don't have a library after startup.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Beardyname

[gfgf 0]

@@gfgf - do you have a Photos folder in MB3?

 

No, it's just a plain videos only set-up. Mostly on defaults.

 

@@gfgf Could you try running it as a standard program ? Just for testing purpouses

 

OK. Wait there.

[gfgf 0]

This has me really confused. Does it work in a similair fashion if you just restart the server ?

 

I'm not sure I understand the question. If the server starts without running a library scan then only the folders list is available to client apps. The major categories of TV and Movies will not be available.

[gfgf 0]

@@gfgf Could you try running it as a standard program ? Just for testing purpouses

 

Ok I did that and re-started with the service off and the tray icon on. It started up as though I hadn't changed anything. Now it's re-scanning the drive like some rubbish from 1996. I'm starting to hate this thing. Did they get new devs or something?

[Starkadius 219]

@@gfgf

I noticed this slowdown in scanning the library as well a while back. I believe it occured right after the DLNA feature was added to the server but I can't verify that. Personally I have no issue with this slowdown since I leave my server running 24/7 but I can understand if it is an issue for you.

[ecrispy 23]

Can I ask why is a scan needed on every startup? The filesystem has enough info to query if anything has changed (using FS monitoring events which I'm sure MB uses), so a scan should not be needed unless its for an integrity check. Is it more of a sanity feature? It seems the library itself doesn't get instantiated until a scan is started, which doesn't really seem necessary since all the data is already stored on disk.

[ebr 14960]

Can I ask why is a scan needed on every startup? The filesystem has enough info to query if anything has changed (using FS monitoring events which I'm sure MB uses), so a scan should not be needed unless its for an integrity check. Is it more of a sanity feature? It seems the library itself doesn't get instantiated until a scan is started, which doesn't really seem necessary since all the data is already stored on disk.

 

The file system could have changed while we weren't running.  The only way to know this is to look at it and compare what we have to what is there.  This process is really quite fast if nothing has changed.

 

Also, there is some information we need to gather/calculate and hold in memory so that we can provide it quickly to the clients when it is requested.

[ecrispy 23]

Ok. I thought there was a way to query MFT in NTFS for any file system changes since last run (or fsevents on OSX) without having to scan files, just curious.

[ebr 14960]

We need to be able to work across multiple heterogeneous file systems.

[gfgf 0]

Hello all. I solved thus by moving the cache to a RAM disk. Now the library scan takes 6 seconds and everything works correctly all the time.

 

I think the problem must have been related to the Cache Cleaning and Library Scan happening at the same time, rather than the library scan happening first. Anyway, solved in a really good way :-)

 

Disclaimer: All of the above may be wrong.

 

Sent from my RM-875_eu_euro1_211 using Tapatalk

[ebr 14960]

Hello all. I solved thus by moving the cache to a RAM disk. Now the library scan takes 6 seconds and everything works correctly all the time.

 

I think the problem must have been related to the Cache Cleaning and Library Scan happening at the same time, rather than the library scan happening first. Anyway, solved in a really good way :-)

 

Disclaimer: All of the above may be wrong.

 

Sent from my RM-875_eu_euro1_211 using Tapatalk

 

I hope you store your metadata with your media files or you are going to do a complete download from the web on every machine restart.  You also will have to re-probe all your videos for technical information.

 

Is the drive the cache was on previously really slow?

[Beardyname 195]

I hope you store your metadata with your media files or you are going to do a complete download from the web on every machine restart.  You also will have to re-probe all your videos for technical information.

 

Is the drive the cache was on previously really slow?

 

He could also use some sort of image that get's restored every time the computer gets back up again I know some of the RAM-disk software's allow that, But yeah RAM-disk has it's disadvantages!

[gfgf 0]

Alright this isn't solved, because without the start-up scan the server forgets all home videos. This occurs when the service is restarted and is unrelated to rebooting the hardware.

 

 

Sent from my RM-875_eu_euro1_211 using Tapatalk

[swhitmore 781]

With the latest changes to the dev server, my first scan after a restart was 8mins. Much better than the normal 30-40mins.

Edited May 11, 2014 by swhitmore

[gfgf 0]

I'm finding the server behaviour to be inconsistent. Check my last comment. At that time, things worked OK except for home videos. Now though, the server failed to work at ask until the start-up scan completes. This is the same as the original situation, except it's not so slow now. This scan shouldn't be necessary :/

I'll look into this again soon, maybe next time it's raining.

 

Sent from my RM-875_eu_euro1_211 using Tapatalk

[robbie2k 0]

Hi to all, I was a discrete happy user of MB3 with an old system (dual core athlon, old 500Gb hdd, windows 7 x86), so I built a new machine to accelerate the performance of MB3.
Now, with a Athlon 6core processor, new mobo, windows 8.1 x64 installed on a Samsung SSD, I'm having a lot of trouble.

 

At the beginning I found a lot of problems with the permissions (so I put administrator rights to the server application) and when I was addind the folders, that are on a Synology DiskStation, the Server Configuration App wasn't read correctly the server's folder paths, but after I cuntinued having problems at the machine start, both MB classic and MB theater wasn't responding for several minutes at the system start, probably due to a library scan, that strangely take much more time than on my old computer.

But now MB3 is totally unusable, I don't know if this is due to that I deleted the scheduled library scan events (thinking to do it manually when I add videos), but now nothing is work, the server's log is full of errors, and principally it can't reach the folders on the Synology Diskstation, folders that are normally reachable within the windows explorer.

Seems that between MB3 and W8.1 there is no feeling.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Hi to all, I was a discrete happy user of MB3 with an old system (dual core athlon, old 500Gb hdd, windows 7 x86), so I built a new machine to accelerate the performance of MB3.

Now, with a Athlon 6core processor, new mobo, windows 8.1 x64 installed on a Samsung SSD, I'm having a lot of trouble.

 

At the beginning I found a lot of problems with the permissions (so I put administrator rights to the server application) and when I was addind the folders, that are on a Synology DiskStation, the Server Configuration App wasn't read correctly the server's folder paths, but after I cuntinued having problems at the machine start, both MB classic and MB theater wasn't responding for several minutes at the system start, probably due to a library scan, that strangely take much more time than on my old computer.

 

But now MB3 is totally unusable, I don't know if this is due to that I deleted the scheduled library scan events (thinking to do it manually when I add videos), but now nothing is work, the server's log is full of errors, and principally it can't reach the folders on the Synology Diskstation, folders that are normally reachable within the windows explorer.

 

Seems that between MB3 and W8.1 there is no feeling.

 

You would most likely need to open your own topic on this and post the server logs and versions of the software you're using.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

I'm finding the server behaviour to be inconsistent. Check my last comment. At that time, things worked OK except for home videos. Now though, the server failed to work at ask until the start-up scan completes. This is the same as the original situation, except it's not so slow now. This scan shouldn't be necessary :/

I'll look into this again soon, maybe next time it's raining.

 

Sent from my RM-875_eu_euro1_211 using Tapatalk

 

How often are you restarting your server though? I restart mine with every developer release and the scan takes about 30 seconds and everything is up and running. When all the metadata and provider changes were made a few releases ago, the initial scan took about 30 minutes. Once that was complete all new and subsequent scans are quick and painless. While I don't have a large library (800 movies, 99 series, 2300 television episodes and roughly 4000 songs) it is a fair size.

[Beardyname 195]

Hi to all, I was a discrete happy user of MB3 with an old system (dual core athlon, old 500Gb hdd, windows 7 x86), so I built a new machine to accelerate the performance of MB3.

Now, with a Athlon 6core processor, new mobo, windows 8.1 x64 installed on a Samsung SSD, I'm having a lot of trouble.

 

At the beginning I found a lot of problems with the permissions (so I put administrator rights to the server application) and when I was addind the folders, that are on a Synology DiskStation, the Server Configuration App wasn't read correctly the server's folder paths, but after I cuntinued having problems at the machine start, both MB classic and MB theater wasn't responding for several minutes at the system start, probably due to a library scan, that strangely take much more time than on my old computer.

 

But now MB3 is totally unusable, I don't know if this is due to that I deleted the scheduled library scan events (thinking to do it manually when I add videos), but now nothing is work, the server's log is full of errors, and principally it can't reach the folders on the Synology Diskstation, folders that are normally reachable within the windows explorer.

 

Seems that between MB3 and W8.1 there is no feeling.

 

Yeah you have to start a new thread because now we have nothing to go on

[Luke 37274]

if you disable the startup scan via scheduled tasks, it will work just fine.

[robbie2k 0]

You would most likely need to open your own topic on this and post the server logs and versions of the software you're using.

 

Ok, I'll try to uninstall roughly every MB3 component with register deep clean, that I will reinstall it, and if the problem will persist I will post the log in a new topic, thank you for the answer

Edited May 28, 2014 by robbie2k

[ebr 14960]

Ok, I'll try to uninstall roughly every MB3 component with register deep clean, that I will reinstall it, and if the problem will persist I will post the log in a new topic, thank you for the answer

 

Other than uninstall information, we don't put anything in the registry.

[Zealot 0]

I just wanted to say that I have just had the same problem. Mine is a fairly new install (about 2 weeks), I only have three folders mapped (movies/TV/Music) all on a network share. I'm using version 3.0.5238.39498. It took up about 6 minutes to do an initial scan after I rebooted my machine. It normally takes less than a minute after I just restart the server.

 

As far as the severity of the problem it affects me a little bit because the server is currently on a high power machine that is turned on/off when I leave or return home. I hope that it gets fixed, but it really isn't some sort of software destroying problem.

 

Regards,

Simon

 

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