Memory usage of MB is really high

I can confirm memory usage is a bit nuts at the moment, leaving this bug report open as I fix it.

Essentially I need to add some smarts around image caching, currently (in trunk) once an image is loaded we keep it in memory, there no code that clears it.

Will look at adding this in the next few days.

Thanks for the response. Might it be a windows problem as well? According to the log file mediabrowser did not load any images while sitting in the home screen but still the memory usage went up about 1MB per second.

I am noticing this a lot more now(seems I never had the problem before someone pointed it out). You don’t have to scroll quickly to get it to crash, I tried jumping to a certain letter and it jumped to it, scrolled three movies over and it crashed, out of memory. Vista and everything else on the system was using .5 Gb, Mb was using 3.5Gb at the time of crash.

crash on my system was related to bad folder.jpg files.

i can now jump as much as i want without crashing. Though the memory problem still exists

This is probably not going to happen in phoenix, I need to know if people are still experiencing this in current builds to know if it must be fixed. The fix is very tricky and you need TONS of backdrops to be be impacted.

I have also encountered this issue recently. Thought I was having RAM problems, but just tracked it to Media Browser and an instance of ehexthost.exe. It brings my usage to 95% and my videos begin to skip. Task Manager shows 3 instances and only one of them consumes the memory. If I end the process usage returns to 35% and the video continues to play, but Media Browser closes. Now trying to find why I've only encountered this recently. FYI, Vista 32-bit.

Just feel like being helpful here, i dont have that much time to explain this thoughrough. The MB / ram buildup is mostlike in your cases due to shortcuts, reloops in folders / paths.

Short example:

D:\Media\TV

D:\Media\Movies

D:\Media\HD

D:\Media\Anime

Lets say thats out main 4 folder added to the config, if you then have just 1 shortcut in say for example TV folder, leading to TV.. you will get the infinite buildup on memory until memory leak / pagefile crash. (cpu will be caching the same files over and over again)

like this: D:\Media\TV\TV (shortcut) Hence the computer will think you have:

D:\Media\TV\TV\TV\TV.…TV\TV\ infinite LOOP.

In essence remove all shortcuts (*.ink) from your video folders, and this problem shouldnt persist.

Sorry for the very late reply.

Thanks deandre, but Unfortunately that did not resolve my problem, I did not have any shortcuts pointing back to their restpective base folders. I tried removing them anyway, but this didn’t help.

I have done a bit of investigation into this issue, and while i'm not very ‘code behavior’ savvy, I do have a bit of experience with application usage. This issue appears to have something to do with the amount of data Media Browser loads into memory and does not unload until closed, paticularly from the image cache.

I have found that the problem is only severe when navigating my movies, but is also apparent when navigating my shows. Please note that my HTPC has 2gb of RAM. When I open Media center from an idle desktop (40%) I go to about 50% of memory usage. After opening Media Browser I'm at roughly 55%. If I enter my TV shows secction and move around a bit, it'll climb to around 70% at maximum.

This is where I begin to see the problem, because as it climbs while navigating, it never drops, ever. Seems like Media Browser should be releasing some things from memory to make room for more current loads, thus preventing a buildup.

Now, when I go back to the home screen, (I'm using the EHS) memory usage still doesn’t lower (still 70%). When I enter the movies section and start navigating it climbs rapidly up to about 95%, where it will begin skipping around and acting clunky. It seems that at such high usage windows begins forcing things out of memory, because if I stop scrolling the usage will often drop a percent or two, until I scroll again. At this point sometimes playback is affected, namely HD mkv files. All navigating within Media Browser is sluggish. However, I must be luckier than some, as I've never had a crash like mentioned above.

I do believe this issue has something to do with the images being loaded from cache into memory, and the size of these images. First, because the amount of images to be loaded in the TV section is small compared to the movies, which is why I can only get up 70% in TV. Also, I believe the reason I have only recently began seeing this issue is because I have just updated all my movie covers to the 3D StarkCovers version, which has raised the file sizes between 1-2mb per cover. Using thumbstrip scaled to three rows on a widescreen is 36 viewable covers at a time. Then add scrolling, and you've got a bit of data flowing through. If Media Browser is attempting to load all this in memory, this is what could be causing the issue. As stated, the memory usage only returns to normal after I close Media Browser.

The only suggestions I can give towards resolution, and this is based on my speculation only. Possibly even out the ratio between what is loaded in memory by Media Browser and what it unloaded, to prevent buildup. Or, reduce the size of the images stored in the Media Browser cache. Right now I see (for movie covers) a small thumbnail copy, and a full size original copy.

Allright, that’s it. Hope all this helps, but let me know if you need any further info. I pray a resolution can be found, as this has certainly dropped my use of Media Browser lately, and it is of course my favorite application. Also, I have a feeling if this is released there will be a bit more users with the same problem.

Thanks for all your great work here at Media Browser!

I don’t think this occurs only where there is a TON of movies. My collection runs to about 200. Not many given some of the numbers people mention on the forums but I am noticing this significant slowness.

However, I am using Windows 7 (Build 7600). Could this be the issue?

It really is unusable at the moment so a fix would be very welcome.

Thanks for all your hard work.

Sy

it’s pretty much pot luck here when i open media browser as to whether I get a freeze on the ehs that lasts anywhere up to 30 seconds before I can enter a folder item. Sometimes this happens sometimes it doesn’t, can be quite annoying.

@hier, that is completely unrelated to this bug.

This bug is: SLOWLY after launch as you browse through your collection memory creeps up, it creeps up a lot faster if you browse through stuff that has backdrops.

Nothing to do with startup of media browser

As mentioned by deandre, if a folder in the MB structure happens to contain a shortcut to itself then exexthost.exe keeps gobling up memory until the system becomes unstable. Media Center might crash with “Media Centre extensibility host has stopped working.”

In Windows 7, but not in Vista, a folder can end up with a shortcut to itself if you do the following:

Left click and hold on the Folder Icon in the Windows Explorer address bar. Move the mouse slightly. Release the left button.

This is a bug in Windows 7; a tiny mouse move should not be recognized as a drag.

deandre offers a workaround but I think MB should also be fixed to detect the endless recursion.

Please try setting CacheAllImagesInMemory to false (in thunderblade and let me know what you think)

I see this until my cache and everything is loaded before then its real bad, like 70 80 percent. after that my cpu usage is still pretty high i guess. usually hovers in the 27 percent when scrolling. when sitting idle or playing media it goes back to normal. 3 extenders playing stuff now and im at 3 percent.

I would hate to see what would happen if all extenders were browsing the interface at the same time, or maybe extenders dont hit it as hard. I will let you know, luckily i have 360 in the same room as the pc also.

Well, I never looked at it during Firestorm. I sit about 25% idle, launching Thunderblade RC3 only ups my RAM usage 4%. After MB loads, I sit about 30% idle in MB.

• Core2Duo 2.5Ghz
• 6gig RAM
• Windows 7 64bit

Not sure if you guys have worked on this issue much, but I'm not seeing a problem.

Note: I did not set CACHEALLIMAGESINMEMORY to false

i have 8 gig of ram windows 7 x64 core 2 duo 2.4ghz. havent pulled down trunk in awhile. could a certain theme effect these more then another. im using chocolate.

I'm using Chocolate, I only see a 10% rise in RAM usage. (RC4)

Ok i did that sam with RC4, it does relieve some of the RAM but CPU gets hit way to hard and extenders seem to be slower.

Just want to mention, I've changed the setting to false and have seen a much better performance on my HTPC. I'd be in the lower end RAM spectrum so this is just the fix i was looking for. Thanks Sam.

Hi,

I am using MB on a mediacentre with the following spec:–

• 4 GB of ram
• Windows 7 x64
• AMD 64 x 2 Dual Core 5600+ 2.8 ghz
• MB version 2.2.3
• Diamond Theme (only plugin installed)

I am also experiencing the high memory usage by ehexthost process when using MB.

As soon as the MB app is stsrted I see the memory steadily increasing, which eventually makes the video stutter and the app crash.

Task manager shows that memory can expand upto 3GB+.

I have tried adjusting the config file setting CACHEALLIMAGESINMEMORY to false but this makes no difference.

I have also tried clearing the cache a few times but memory keeps running away when using MB.

Turned off internet access and EHS and followed other forum posts but no success.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks ;–)

Resolved the issue ! I found a shortcut hidden away amongst some of the file structure where my video / audio data resides, so the MB progam must have been going into an infinite loop.

Removed the shortcut and now the memory utilisation is below 300MB all the time.

Thanks for getting back to me Sam….

This has been much better for quite a while … closing