Boxee Box getting stuck identifying files

[Digitalist]

I recently bought a boxee box and I'm having an issue where it is getting stuck identifying files.

Let me note the following about its configuration:

The media I am trying to add to the BB is on an NFS share, and the file folder structure is as follows:
Movies:
/Movies/Film Title/
Film Title.mkv
movie.nfo (<id> tag removed so BB does not ignore my nfo)
folder.jpg

TV Shows:
/TV Shows/Series Title/
tvshow.nfo (<id> tag removed so BB does not ignore my nfo files)
folder.jpg
/TV Shows/Series Title/Season #/
Series Name - SXXEXX - Episode Title.mkv
Series Name - SXXEXX - Episode Title.nfo
Series Name - SXXEXX - Episode Title.tbn

I used EMM to organize these files and create the metadata files with the settings suggested in the EMM thread on these forums and I resized all the folder.jpgs to the BB preferred 299 x 434 size.

So now here is the issue. When I have tried repeatedly to add /Movies/ and /TV Shows/ as sources, BB will get stuck about half way through the /TV Shows/ directory and continue "identifying" forever. Leaving it running for a day or two hasn't helped, nor has restarting the BB.

This problem has persisted even when I have removed all shares, removed thumbs, removed media data, and then attempted to re-add one sub-directory at a time (though I did get through adding substantially more content before the BB got stuck).

As it sits right now my BB has been on for 12+ hours after being restarted last night and shows 100%(~40%) CPU usage with no progress on media being added to the library.

Any suggestions on how to address this issue?

[RoyalEF]

There are bugs.

The "identifying" will often stay there forever with a big source. A restart will update the state correctly. It is more accurate to pay attention to the two statuses at the bottom of File Sources: SCANNING & IDENTIFYING. Sit on that screen for a minute and if they don't show anything, then it is finished. What I have found is adding things to the database when you have a big collection is a bottleneck. One that can take hours and reboots to finish. From syslog I see lots of database locks. I think something happens and progress gets stuck. A restart of the boxee and it resumes the task of adding to the DB--which appears to be the third step (Scanning, Identifying, DB Add). A day after the Scan/ID was done I was missing 700 movies. A reboot and they started adding. Boxee hung, reboot, adding continue. It took about 3 reboots before all 1,100 were added to the DB after I wiped it out. This hasn't happened when I'm doing remove/re-add sources...only when I wiped the media info from the db and added fresh. I won't do that again. I think the large volume of record insertions in the db is probably where that issue is.

One thing people have suggested is that Boxee chokes on certain filess. Now, with every scan I see that boxee processes files in reverse alphabetical order. So if it truly is stopping "half-way" you should be able to predict where alphabetically it is and examine those files and see if there is an unusual file or a corrupt one.

I suggest you create a TEST folder outside the normal movies/tv folder structure. Move a suspiscious show/movie folder to the test and see if it hangs by itself. I do this to test files and NFOs and then move the correct ones into the big share. This lets me remove/add a small test share over and over without disturbing the big sources that have completed.

Switching to all NFO and local TBN means the speed of your SMB server comes into play. My NAS becomes less responsive during the overnight due to nightly backups. Boxee is slower at grabbing info from the NAS when my backups are churning. I try not to run source scans during backups.

[war59312]

Similar problem here when I was using firmware 1.5. Assuming you are?

I went back to firmware 1.2.2.20482 (http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.ph...031#post206031) and no such problems (http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=35225)!

[Digitalist]

Correct, I was using firmware 1.5. I have tried downgrading to 1.2.2 and it did not correct the issue.

I have a little more data to add as to what specifically is going on:

First off, I'm using NFS not SMB for the network shares.

Secondly I have determined that Boxee Box is choking on a couple of specific files.

One series I'm trying to add is an anime series called Steins;Gate. For some reason I cannot determine, Boxee Box chokes on the 13th episode. I tested removing that episode (and its associated nfo and tbn file) and was able to add the rest of the series (episodes 1-24, minus ep 13 of course) no problem.

The episodes are all in the same format (m4v) encoded the same way, and I have manually inspected the .nfo file and .tbn file to ensure neither are corrupt.

I am absolutely baffled as to how boxee could have no problem with 23 other episodes of this series in the same file format, encoded identically, with identically structured .nfo and .tbn files, and yet choke *every time* on episode 13? There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this?

[mbryanr]

Run Boxee in debug mode, reboot, re-scan that file, and download the log. You should be able to find an error or additional info from the log

http://support.boxee.tv/entries/329278

[Digitalist]

Well, before even getting the issue I started this thread about, I found that Boxee was instantly restarting when I tried to watch some episodes of a TV series that appeared to be correctly added.

I started a support request about it and the logs are attached to it: http://boxee.zendesk.com/requests/49800

So basically everything is broken

[darcilicious]

I started a support request about it and the logs are attached to it: http://boxee.zendesk.com/requests/49800

Just as an FYI, only you and Boxee staff can see your support tickets.