Takes a while to see/generate playlist

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AFM-Radio
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Joined: 12 Dec 2018 10:23
Takes a while to see/generate playlist

Post by AFM-Radio »

Hi Bernd,

we use 2 versions of ProppFrexx in the studio. A version for automation, such as nonstop, news and commercials.
And we use a version for play-out in the studio. This is only used when making a live program and is on standby for the rest of the time.
If we want to generate a playlist on the play-out version, it can take a very long time, sometimes even minutes for a playlist is shown. And sometimes we're lucky and it goes faster. I only experience this on this propfrexx studio version. Our 'nonstop' version loads a playlist by blinking once.
The systems are set up the same. The only difference is that the nonstop version uses a remote library and the other the internal library of ProppFrexx.
Could this be a problem? About the size of the database? I've also checked if the hard drives don't go into sleep mode, but they don't.
I've also included a debug log of when we generate a playlist. There are also a few errors in it.
log 1.zip
(6.47 KiB) Downloaded 57 times
Thanks in advance.

Greetings Jesper
AFM
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radio42
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Re: Takes a while to see/generate playlist

Post by radio42 »

The performance can be decreased when using remote media libraries when certain Filters and Modes (esp. the LeastRecently…) are used, as the media entry statistics and well as the filters needs to be applied dynamically in that case, which causes quite some network traffic.

I can see, if I can improve the performance, but I am afraid this is nothing which is guaranteed or can be achieved quickly.
As such, I don’t see this as critical, as a playlist generation with complex rules and remote media libs can be slower and is it seen as a defect or critical.
AFM-Radio
Posts: 46
Joined: 12 Dec 2018 10:23
Re: Takes a while to see/generate playlist

Post by AFM-Radio »

But it's exactly the other way around. The remote library works perfectly and quickly. But it's about the internal library in ProppFrexx. And the music is loaded directly from the hard drive and not over a network.
The weird thing about it is that most of the time the same script takes a really long time to load and sometimes it's super fast again. As if something is being held up during it's process.
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radio42
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Re: Takes a while to see/generate playlist

Post by radio42 »

That indeed sounds a bit strange.
Please check this option in the general settings, section MetaData/WaveForm:
Suppress TAG Reading for Scripts
Certain script line modes (e.g. LeastRecentlyPlayed or LeastTimesPlayed) as well as if you are using the filter option within scripts, do require TAGs to be available to work correctly. This also means, that in case you are using media libs where the TAG data is unavailable all these missing TAGs must first be read in.
This might lead to very long script processing times and thus high CPU usage.
If you discover this scenario and you are sure, that your can ignore the missing TAGs resp. the resulting inaccuracy, you might enable this option to suppress any forced TAG reading while filtering or sorting media libraries.
Else it is recommended to leave this option disabled (default)!

When both systems use the same physical audio files and maybe also the folders, I am wondering, why you are not using on both systems remote media libs? Else the entry statistics (as well as the TAG data) are held independently. Once within the media library server and once directly within ProppFrexx ONAIR locally.
To me it sounds more, like it would make sense to use remote media libraries on both systems?
AFM-Radio
Posts: 46
Joined: 12 Dec 2018 10:23
Re: Takes a while to see/generate playlist

Post by AFM-Radio »

Have the option Suppress TAG Reading for Scripts checked.
After that, ProppFrexx was able to load a playlist very quickly.
But this was a coincidence, because I then unchecked the Suppress TAG Reading for Scripts option again and the playlists were also loaded very quickly. While nothing has changed in the script.
That means it can't be the tags. I generated a few playlists in a row and this went well.

This may be lucky because it often goes well for a while and then suddenly slowly again as I mentioned in an earlier post.
Maybe it's our hard drive that sometimes doesn't respond well. I'll take a look at that too. I've never had anything like this on previous systems.

We cannot use the remote library from our other system with the 'play-out' system because this is a Professional edition and does not include an option to add the remote library.
Also, both systems do not use the same folders and physical audio. So they are not in each other's way.

I'll keep an eye on it and if it takes that long again or if it causes problems, I'll try to make a video of it to show what I mean.

Thanks so far.

Greetings
jesper
AFM

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