[kmanpilkers]

Hi all,

I've been meaning for some time to change my library setup to use MySQL rather than a local Kodi library as I have multiple devices running Kodi and liked the idea of just one library. I took the plunge tonight and I now have MySQL library working successfully, but unfortunately I've taken a massive performance hit in terms of navigating the library.

Kodi and MySQL are both running from the same home theatre PC (on top of Windows 8.1). I set the MySQL instance to run in "Server" mode so it will use a moderate amount of memory. Essentially everything remains unchanged in Kodi, I'm just now using MySQL for the library.

However, initially loading all of the artwork thumbnails and other info is painfully slow compared to how it used to be, and navigating through the video library is also extremely laggy. Whereas before there was no noticeable delay on navigating the library, now it can take a second or two to move left/right/up/down and then another second or two to display the correct movie title and artwork etc. despite the fact that MySQL and Kodi are both running from the same machine. When actually playing back a video, there is no delay or lag at all and playback seems to be performing exactly as before, so it's fairly clear the issue is with the fact that the library is now in MySQL.

Having a look through the forums, there are a few reports that it takes a performance hit in certain version of Kodi. What I want to know is, is this very common, and is it worth me persisting and trying tweaks to find a fix, or is the problem genuinely just never going to go away until I switch back to a local library? I don't want the central library that badly that I'm willing to suffer this kind of performance as it's now very frustrating to use.

Cheers,

Kev

[Gothicawakening]

Having the SQL server on the home theatre PC is probably not ideal, it would be best of on an different PC, even something cheap like a RaspberryPI or an old PC you have laying around that you can put Linux on would do.

I find that when I re-install firmware and thus KODI, for the first 10-15 minutes everything is quite slow as the thumbnails are re-cached (although you can get around that using the Backup addon).

Maybe let it be for a while until every thumbnail has been cached, it might get faster after that.

[zebraitis]

I have to agree with Gothicawakening here...

I have MySQL running on a win10 box that I have as my home server and uTorrent client. That server has all my shared drives and content.

My main XBMC box connected to the entertainment system is lightning fast in scan/updates, even though it's going through the content of six drives / 20 TB of data.

So, 1) Home server, 2) one primary box to scan for data and provide info into the home server / MySQL, and 3) export your artwork and info to the shared drives.

[zerocool_ie]

Also, the higher spec your home server is, the faster library browsing you're going to see.

I use roughly the same setup as zebraitis except that my data is on a NAS.

My home server is actually my old HTPC (Win 8.1, Atom 1.6GHz processor, 3GB RAM, SSD drive) and I've noticed recently that the processor is the bottleneck when it comes to library performance under MySQL.

[flhthemi]

I run mysql on a BI320 Zotac, 64gb SSD, Win 10 and 8gb RAM with Kodi 16.1 on the same box. Not seeing any performance hits on it that are as bad as described and I've found it to be very reliable. Maybe the SSD is why mine is snappy enough.

All my media is stored on a 3TB WD MyBookLive. It's not a very fast NAS but all is well.

[kmanpilkers]

Thanks for all replies so far. I've had a friend tell me he's running MySQL from exactly the same box as Kodi too without issues so I know it can be done. My hardware is 5 years old but has been upgraded, but it worked perfectly well before switching to MySQL. Hardware is a 32GB SSD with 4GB RAM, data is on a 2TB Dlink DNS320 NAS

Pretty sure there are no hardware bottle necks. To be certain I'm going to do a clean install of Kodi because it was recently upgraded too. Want to rule out issues with the upgrade.

I'll keep the Kodi log file in case it's useful.

[kmanpilkers]

OK, a clean reinstall of Jarvis v16 made no difference, but with a clean install of Isenguard 15.2, performance is back to normal even with library running in MySQL. Should point out that before removing Jarvis v16 I tried going back to the built in Kodi library and the same lag when navigating file lists still persisted. So there is something that my machine really doesn't like about the new version of Kodi. I was blaming MySQL but it turned out to be completely unrelated to this. As ever, you should only ever change one thing at a time. I happened to upgrade to Jarvis just after switching MySQL library so didn't have time to notice the problem was already there. If anyone else's hardware is affected by this can recommend sticking with 15.2 Isenguard for the time being.

[DJ_Izumi]

Combo HTPC/Server here that is running MySQL for itself and other Kodi machines. No library performance issues. i5 4590 with 8GB of RAM. Frankly, considering the CRUSHING loads that some MySQL DBs are under in other situations, Kodi is a piece of cake any most x86 Windows PCs have far, FAR more resources for a MySQL DB for Kodi unless you're going to have like an entire HOTEL running off your server or something.

[kmanpilkers]

Combo HTPC/Server here that is running MySQL for itself and other Kodi machines. No library performance issues. i5 4590 with 8GB of RAM. Frankly, considering the CRUSHING loads that some MySQL DBs are under in other situations, Kodi is a piece of cake any most x86 Windows PCs have far, FAR more resources for a MySQL DB for Kodi unless you're going to have like an entire HOTEL running off your server or something.

Yup.. I found the issue seemed to be purely related to v 16 of Kodi. Previous version not affected.

[trogggy]

What version of MySQL are you running?

[kmanpilkers]

MySQL 5.7

[Sionzris]

In another thread we have noticed that 5.7 has had problems with Kodi 16, so maybe try 5.5 (which was the solution in that case). But those were not related to performance it just flat out couldn't upgrade.
Maybe take a look here: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=262204

As an alternative you could try MariaDB which is supposed to be faster: https://downloads.mariadb.org/

Edit: Seems like 17 also works better with 5.5 (http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=262999&page=2)

Maybe someday there will be a mysql sub section in the forums, would make it way easier for everyone to find help that has already been given before

[Gothicawakening]

As an alternative you could try MariaDB which is supposed to be faster: https://downloads.mariadb.org/

I use MariaDB on Ubuntu and have never had any issues with it.

[gwilly7]

I too use MariaDb 5.5 and have no issues. I am using Windows 10.
Jarvis 16.1 rc1

[Sionzris]

I admit i use mariadb as well^^ working great