excessive cpu usage when idle

[sroeder]

I'm curious if anyone out there is seeing excessive cpu usage while boxee is running idle? While watching a video the cpu usage is below 50% but sits at 100% when doing nothing. I'm wondering if there is some run away thread while sitting at the front page.

14531 scott 20 0 439m 115m 33m S 50 5.7 8:40.88 Boxee

I'm running on the standard hardy ubuntu release with an nvidia 8600.

Thanks in advance.

[agentlame]

could you check your logs, and see if anything stands out, that boxee is doing non-stop?

/tmp/[boxee-user]-xbmc.log

[davidmilligan]

I've noticed the same thing on mac os, I also have a macbook

[shaunevans]

I've had the same problem related to my USB audio (Soundblaster) ... seems the mixer_applet2 program for ALSA has a bug and can run up the CPU use when idle. If you kill it it prompts you to restart it and all goes back to normal. Apparently this is a known problem with Hardy (what I'm running).

[sroeder]

The only thing I see in the last of the log file was some missed hits and some connection errors.

scott@media:/tmp$ date
Wed Nov 5 07:51:00 CET 2008

scott@media:/tmp$ tail scott-boxee.log
22:52:38 T:2833734544 M: 62648320 ERROR: Unable to connect to www.thetvdb.com: 22
22:52:42 T:2833734544 M: 61554688 WARNING: CMetadataResolverVideo::GetMovieDetails, RESOLVER, no entries for key (season = 1, episode = 0) [path=/data/media/TV/Doctor Who/Season 1/Doctor Who - S01E00 - A New Dimension.avi]
22:53:19 T:2842127248 M: 57524224 WARNING: CMetadataResolverVideo::GetMovieDetails, RESOLVER, no entries for key (season = 3, episode = 0) [path=/data/media/TV/Doctor Who/Season 3/Doctor.Who.2005.S03E00.Special.Voyage.Of.The.Damne d.WS.PDTV.XviD-AFFiNiTY.avi]
22:53:22 T:2833734544 M: 56496128 ERROR: Recv failed: 110
22:53:24 T:2842127248 M: 57380864 WARNING: CMetadataResolverVideo::GetMovieDetails, RESOLVER, no entries for key (season = 3, episode = 0) [path=/data/media/TV/Doctor Who/Season 3/Doctor.Who.2005.S03E00.Special.Voyage.Of.The.Damne d.WS.PDTV.XviD-AFFiNiTY.avi]
22:53:25 T:2833734544 M: 58769408 ERROR: InternalGetDetails: Unable to parse web site [http://www.impawards.com/1992/reservoir_dogs_ver1.html]
22:53:26 T:2842127248 M: 59904000 NOTICE: HTTP: connect failed: Invalid argument
22:53:26 T:2842127248 M: 59904000 ERROR: Unable to connect to www.thetvdb.com: 22
22:53:38 T:2842127248 M: 56090624 WARNING: CMetadataResolverVideo::GetMovieDetails, RESOLVER, no entries for key (season = 1, episode = 0) [path=/data/media/TV/Doctor Who/Season 1/Doctor Who - S01E00 - A New Dimension.avi]
22:53:43 T:2842127248 M: 57188352 WARNING: CMetadataResolverVideo::GetMovieDetails, RESOLVER, no entries for key (season = 1, episode = 0) [path=/data/media/TV/Doctor Who/Season 1/Doctor Who - S01E00 - A New Dimension.avi]

I'm not sure if it's relevant but strace shows a constant loop running the procedure sched_yield(). It then checks the date + pid and loops some more. It looks like it's missing some sleeps between iteration to slow it down.

[macdim]

It seems that all the XBMC derived projects exhibit this problem. It's almost unbearable if you're using a notebook because of fan noise. I'm sure it's fine on an iMac and maybe a Mini.

I really really hope someone can get to the bottom of this.

Here are a couple of links to a related XBMC project (Plex) that is having the same issue.

http://plexapp.lighthouseapp.com/projects/14382/tickets/19-high-cpu-usage-while-idle

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=222&st=0

Oh, and as it's my first post, I'd like to thank all who work on Boxee!!

[johninsj]

Yep, I'm seeing it too.

http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=1753

Makes it unusable. Seems to be hit or miss, as in my own install didn't suffer from it for a while, but since the last update I've not been able to use it at all on either my laptop or desktop linux boxes.

[lbustelo]

I'm running on a Mini and the Fan gets cranked at full speed. It is Boxee for sure since it stops after killing it.

[inercia]

I'm also suffering this. My Mac Mini fan is always running and making an annoying sound for a living room. Boxee takes a constant 30% of CPU. It's not much, but more than enough for doing nothing, and enough for keeping the Mac mini busy...

[sroeder]

Just a quick update if anyone is still suffering. I have re-installed recently with MintLinux 6 (Child of Ubuntu 8.10) and the problem disappeared. Boxee happily idles sub 20% instead of taking an entire core.

[marcel]

good to hear...