[mythtv-users] mythfilldatabase stunning my system

[John Andrunas]

I have found that running the optimize db script prior to doing
mythfilldatabase dramatically improves the performance as well.  I was
having a similar issue and as soon as I started running the optimize db
script I never noticed it again.

On 11/27/06, Chris Rouch <chris.rouch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/26/06, Mike McKay <mike.mckay at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> > I am running mythTV backend and frontend on an Athlon XP2000+ (processor
> > clock 1.7 GHz) with 500 MB of memory and a Hauppage Nova-T, PCI, DVB-T
> > tuner.
> >
> > When watching TV, the frontend, backend, mySQL and X take around 20% of
> > the processor.
> >
> > When mythfilldatabase runs, however, it brings everything else to a
> > halt.  The system becomes extremely unresponsive and cannot play TV, or
> > anything else for that matter.  Mythfilldatabase seems to terminate
> > normally after running for upwards of an hour and often in excess of two
> > hours and during this time my system is unusable for anything else.
> >
> > On examination, I find that mythfilldatabase is taking 360MB of
> > *resident* (not virtual) memory out of the 440MB available to users.
> > Its processor utilisation is about 50% to 100% but I don't think this is
> > a cause for concern because it has a "nice" value of +10 set.  I'm
> > currently assuming that the resident memory usage is what's causing the
> > problem.
> >
> > I've read the relevant documentation looking for a solution or a way to
> > mitigate its behaviour but the only thing I've found so far is the
> > parameter --days which I've set to 14.  This seems to have had little
> > effect.  I use the UK's "Freeview" DVB-T service which provides 40 or so
> > channels but from the listings in the mythTV programme guide,
> > mythfilldatabase is downloading data for a large number of channel that
> > I cannot receive.  Setting things so that these are not loaded might
> > reduce the workload but I cannot see how to do this.
> >
> > These steps, however, are only ever going to reduce the size of the
> > problem to some extent but are unlikely to remove it.  My understanding
> > is that mythfilldatabase is downloading a quantity of text information,
> > munging it to some extent and loading it into the database.  I cannot
> > imagine how it comes to need 360MB of resident memory.  Is it really
> > supposed to behave like this?  It's not as if it's doing anything that's
> > computationally heavyweight for heavens sake !
> >
> > I'm considering adding more memory but the system has plenty of memory
> > to handle everything else that I ask of it and I'm put off by the
> > possibility that mythfilldatabase might just use all the additional
> > memory as well.  I'm also reluctant to add memory to deal with such
> > perverse behaviour.
> >
> > Can anyone suggest how to fix or alleviate this problem ?
>
> It sounds like you need to train your grabber (tv_grab_??) to only
> look for the channels you want. How to do that depends on the grabber.
>
> You could also run mythfilldatabase from cron at a time you don't
> expect to be doing anything else instead of having it run
> automatically.
>
> I'd also expect the duration to be roughly proportional to the number
> of days, so try reducing from 14 to e.g. 3 days.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
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-- 
John
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