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+--- Thread: HOW-TO synchronize your XBMC Media Center between every room in the house: Lifehacker (/showthread.php?tid=80829)
- sbentin - 2011-06-26
This is the same exact thing I've been experiencing. After hours of testing and checking I discovered that the problem is the '\' character which is the windows File separator. For some reason MySql is not handling it very well and is not able to locate fields that have this field. Here is what I did that solved it for me:
All my media is on a shared disk. I removed the drive mapping I had to that share so it won't exist. Instead I replaced in my exported xml of the library (step 1) all my path which was 'M:\' to 'smb://[server_name_or_ip]/. I dropped the tables (xbmc_video and xbmc_music) and recreated them. Restarted xbmc, which populated these databases again and then imported the file. From that point and on everything works fine.
Be aware though that since you change the path to the files the fanart and thumbs don't match anymore. You will have to localize the thumbnail dir in one machine and you have to refresh your library (sometimes file by file) to get the images back. Afterwhich you can move the new thumbs dir to your share and recreate the links.
- Jete246 - 2011-06-26
@ sbentin:
Thank you so much, that indeed solved the problem!!! But I don't get it, how does that even make sense?!? I had tried adding a NFS share in the conventional Windows manner, i.e: \\192.168.1.5\test....but that didn't work, so I figured I'd start at the basic bottom with regular (non-shared) folders, thinking that would be the safest way to rule out any sharing/permissions issues.
Just to clarify, instead of adding a shared Windows folder as \\192.168.1.5\test, you need to add it as followed:
smb://192.168.1.5/test
Adding a regular Windows folder as c:\test doesn't seem to work. Why in hell you need to use the Samba sharing format is beyond me, but oh well...atleast I got it working now.
One thing though: The library now populates nicely to my other PC's, but the source folders do not. Is this normal behaviour? Do they need to be added manually, and won't that screw things up again as it'll rescrape the contents?
- sbentin - 2011-06-26
You don't need the source folders the library is enough. The only thing is that you need to make sure you update when you put something new. And if you add a new share you only need to add it on one machine (as long as it is with '/' and not '\') onee it's populated to the db it will show up on all other machines.
- Jete246 - 2011-06-26
Yeah, that makes sense.
Pretty sweet, I've got the mysql backend up and running and am syncing my thumbnails using symlinks. I didn't even know Windows supports symlinks now!
Again, thank you for saving me of further headaches!
- mrdally204 - 2011-06-27
Can anyone voice an opinion on the lag I am seeing in my implementation? See post 176 (:
EDIT: It appears to be the thumbnails sharing that is causing the slowdown, and a terrible one at that. My set up again:
XBMC main player/media and thumb server (hooked to my main TV)
Zotac ion build with 500gb laptop drive, Win 7
Videos are on external 1TB drive, loads quickly.
Thumbnails are in the default location for XBMC and set to share (appdata/roaming/...)
Remote PC
Windows 7, libraries are being fed to it via MySQL set up in this thread.
Thumbnails are symlinked to main XBMC player. ( I disabled symlink and went back to original thumbs and the speed was as fast as before MySQL was set up, so it is not MySQL causing the slow downs)
Anything you can think of that I can try to get these to load up faster. As I said its nearly 20 seconds before I can actually select a movie to play
- Jete246 - 2011-06-27
mrdally204 Wrote:Can anyone voice an opinion on the lag I am seeing in my implementation? See post 176 (:Could it be a name resolving issue? Have you set the symlink based on netbiosname or the host's ipaddress?
EDIT: It appears to be the thumbnails sharing that is causing the slowdown, and a terrible one at that. My set up again:
XBMC main player/media and thumb server (hooked to my main TV)
Zotac ion build with 500gb laptop drive, Win 7
Videos are on external 1TB drive, loads quickly.
Thumbnails are in the default location for XBMC and set to share (appdata/roaming/...)
Remote PC
Windows 7, libraries are being fed to it via MySQL set up in this thread.
Thumbnails are symlinked to main XBMC player. ( I disabled symlink and went back to original thumbs and the speed was as fast as before MySQL was set up, so it is not MySQL causing the slow downs)
Anything you can think of that I can try to get these to load up faster. As I said its nearly 20 seconds before I can actually select a movie to play
If you have already set the symlink based on ipaddress, perhaps, just for giggles, you could try using the hostname instead and see what happens. You could also try to set the primary dns to the ipaddress of the host which is hosting the thumbnails and see what that does.
- mrdally204 - 2011-06-28
I have tried all the suggestions you presented without any improvement. At first it was symlinked via ip address, I then switched to netbios name, saw no improvement. I then followed up with the primary DNS set to the ip of the server, again with nothing to show for it. I appreciate the suggestions and would love to hear a few more if you have some thoughts?
- hitman - 2011-06-28
I also experience this type of delay, but this is on an Ubuntu Linux (XBMC Live) install with a nfs mount point for the shared thumbnails.
Seems like this is related to the number of files in the thumbnails folder and the impact on performance this has on the underlying mount point.
- Jete246 - 2011-06-28
mrdally204 Wrote:I have tried all the suggestions you presented without any improvement. At first it was symlinked via ip address, I then switched to netbios name, saw no improvement. I then followed up with the primary DNS set to the ip of the server, again with nothing to show for it. I appreciate the suggestions and would love to hear a few more if you have some thoughts?
What happens if you follow the next scenario?
1. You start XBMC on the remote client and you experience the delay as you described.
2. You close XBMC
3. You start XBMC again.
Do you experience the same delay again?
When you disabled the symlink for your thumbs, did you manually copy over the thumbs to the remote client, or did you use the empty thumbs directory of the remote client? Otherwise I'd suggest copying over the thumbs from your main server and putting them on the local client and test again. Then we might be able to narrow it down a bit more.
Furthermore, what is the size and amount of files of the thumb directory?
Another thing you could try is using a fresh Windows profile on the remote client.
- mrdally204 - 2011-06-28
Scenario listed above, the speed stays the same after restarting xbmc.
When I disabled symlink, I simply renamed it to thumbs, and re-renamed my Thumbnails-old back. I had most/all my media scanned on both machines before I read about the server set up, so changing back the name used local dir instead of the symlink.
As far as the size of the Thumbnails folder
Seems like a large directory, but I really do not know what to compare the size to. How large should it be? I got ~200 movies, and more tv shows (:
- gyrene2083 - 2011-06-28
Just out of curiosity, wouldn't it just be easier and faster to use a 3rd party scraper ie, Ember, Media Companion 2, to have all your art work in the actual movie folder. So instead of having XBMC scraping for thumbnails on a distant server it would use the local one.
Granted it takes some time and I suppose if you have thousands of videos and tv shows the above suggestion would be terribly painful to do. But if your just starting out with a few hundred, get yourself some beer, a Saturday and just knock it out. I have over 450 movies and knocked it all out with Ember. Albeit by the end of the task I was a little sloshed so I had to recheck it on Sunday, LOL. But it worked great.
- Jete246 - 2011-06-28
mrdally204 Wrote:Scenario listed above, the speed stays the same after restarting xbmc.Hmmn, and if you use the local XBMC db, with the thumbs accessed via the symlink from the network, everything loads quickly?
When I disabled symlink, I simply renamed it to thumbs, and re-renamed my Thumbnails-old back. I had most/all my media scanned on both machines before I read about the server set up, so changing back the name used local dir instead of the symlink.
As far as the size of the Thumbnails folder
Seems like a large directory, but I really do not know what to compare the size to. How large should it be? I got ~200 movies, and more tv shows (:
I have only three suggestions left:
1. Enable debug logging in XBMC. You could look at what MySQL query is being executed and that might give you a little more insight. Perhaps try to execute that same query from the MySQL workbench tools and see how long it takes from there.
2. Trying a different skin might help? I saw in your video that you are using the Aeon skin. Perhaps you could try the Confluence skin and see if that helps?
3. Try to turn things around. Setup a MySQL server on your client machine and point XBMC on your 'server machine' to it. That might narrow things down a bit. Obviously in doing this, you'd have to be very careful not to screw up your current environment (backup library etc).
Sorry I can't be of further help. I myself am just starting out with XBMC etc, and am still in the process of setting up my own media environment. I'm no expert by any means, but sometimes a fresh look can provide new insights.
- RockDawg - 2011-06-28
gyrene2083 Wrote:Just out of curiosity, wouldn't it just be easier and faster to use a 3rd party scraper ie, Ember, Media Companion 2, to have all your art work in the actual movie folder. So instead of having XBMC scraping for thumbnails on a distant server it would use the local one.
The thumbnails directory is where XBMC looks for covers/thumbs for all the media it displays. When you scan content in to your library, XBMC either scrapes the artwork from the net or reads it from a file in your movie folder and then puts a copy in the thumbnails folder. From there on out it will retrieve the image from the thumbnails directory, not the file in your movie folder. To see this in action, change the image file in one of your movie folders that has already been scanned into XBMC's library. If you then open up XBMC and navigate to that movie, the old cover will still be displayed. That's because the original cover is still stored in the thumbnails folder. You would need to go into Movie Info and pick the new cover for it to show.
- mrdally204 - 2011-06-29
Jete,
Actually you have my info a bit backwards. I am still using the networked mysql database, but switched to local thumbs folder, and the speed was as if everything was local. It is when the symlink thumbs are being used is when the slow downs happen. The slowdown is also present after I watch a movie, when it tries to load back the thumbs and fan art.
Also, that is confluence in the video (:
I do appreciate the thoughts as I need to get this licked or am going to have to go back to the old way of doing things, which is not very nerdy at all!
- gyrene2083 - 2011-06-29
@RockDawg,
Thanks for clarifying that for me. I always wondered why I had a Russian Cover for Bolt, when I had initially deleted from my movie folder, and put a new one in the movie folder, XBMC always showed the old one. LOL Thanks for teaching this old Marine something new.