LOR - Keep searching for that memory leak..

[RyanWPowers]

Well, here we go again. Another year of chasing down LOR S3 software bugs.

The good news? S3 V3.9 made things a LOT better, the bad news? LOR Monitor still crashes, but just not as frequently now.

Before the upgrade to the "fixed" 3.9, we would get a "LOR Monitor has stopped working" error about once every three shows. Now we get it about once every night.

There is clearly still a memory leak somewhere that hasn't been resolved.

In the meantime, does anybody have any suggestions as to how this can be worked around so I don't need to babysit the show every night of my life? Every show file are lights sequenced to video. (.wmv) We currently have "Use Compressed Sequences" on. There does not appear to be any regularity to when it crashes and when it runs.

Beyond frustrated,

Ryan

[Dennis Cherry]

I have not seen any of these issues this year with 3.8.0 or 3.9.0

Using XP SP3.

[Gilrock]

If it really is a memory leak...then couldn't you run it on a computer with more memory and reduce the frequency of the errors? I see a lot of messages about memory leaks but not one person mentions how much memory they have in their machines and whether they have actually used the resource manager under task manager to actually watch the memory usage grow. There are a lot of folks with insane numbers of channels and at some point you will push the limits of the PC. Now I have no idea what type of computer you are using so maybe your like me and have a super gaming machine and know there is no way it has anything to do with limitations of the computer.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Gilrock

[RyanWPowers]

Sure, in theory you could add more memory and probably reduce the amount of crashes. But that's *not the point*. I shouldn't have to. That's like having a hole in my pool and you telling me to just keep adding more water.

[dougd]

I am not saying there is not a problem, but I running over 80 sequences. Channel count is 4,500 channels. My largest sequence is 160 meg, I have quite a few over 100 meg. My show has been running flawlessly. When I read about the memory leak and the update that came out, I didn't even upgrade, didn't want to take a chance on creating a problem that wasn't there.

[Gilrock]

You asked for a workaround...adding more memory might get you through the night till they fix it. How much memory do you have by the way?

[WilliamS]

I am not saying there is not a problem, but I running over 80 sequences. Channel count is 4,500 channels. My largest sequence is 160 meg, I have quite a few over 100 meg. My show has been running flawlessly. When I read about the memory leak and the update that came out, I didn't even upgrade, didn't want to take a chance on creating a problem that wasn't there.

Im with Doug, I havent updated yet. I have 4 sequences running 3-4 hours a night. I havent had to restart the computer all season. My sequences range from 80meg-110meg. just under 3k channels.

[RyanWPowers]

The machine as 4GB of RAM. Plenty to playback a few 100MB video files. It's a brand new machine.

As for all those who haven't upgraded yet. What stable version of the software are you running? Do you use compressed sequences? Do you have the sequences preload before each show?

[dougd]

My show computer is on 3.7, I do have use compressed sequences checked. I will check on the preload option at lunch today, cant remember if its checked or not.

[Tim Fischer]

I'm having the same problem. I have no idea if it's really a "memory leak" or something else, but last night I lost video on the outside screen. Got errors with "Windows Media Player encountered an error playing this file" on many files - but thankfully the audio still worked. After the show shut down, I restarted the control panel and everything magically worked again. Makes it seem like the problems not on my end, especially with this many people reporting issues.

[dougd]

Not sure if the common denominator is using video or not. I am not using video files.

[Dennis Cherry]

It might be a memory problem or not.

Maybe the "memory leak" term might be wrong in this case.

Problems have come up in the past with some versions of windows that will work right and one window version may not. Remember the programmers have to make all Window versions work with the software.

Also you have to remember our computers are all not setup exactly the same, with all the other tasks we have added.

I have been in tech support in one of my past lives, and you would be amazed how many problems are resolved after long toubleshooting conversation, it alway turns out the user thinks you are next to him see the same thing.

Your fingers are our eyes in troubleshooting a problem, that is all we can see is what you typed.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Dennis Cherry

[dougd]

I don't think my show preloads the sequences. I am using Bobs MIIP software, he can maybe clarify.

[ItsMeBobO]

Doug I dont recall exactly. But I can tell you how you can check. Rememer the MiipShow.lss file is completely replaced by miip between each song. So manually setting the preload or any setting in the show editor will just get wiped out.

You can open miipshow.lss and click show options to see the setting for preload. It will be the same for all shows for all miip users. I am pretty sure it is going to be set to preload but need you to check since I am not at my home computer.

[ItsMeBobO]

Before the memory leak was addressed by 3.9 I was seeing the problem. Memory used was going up and up and my 8gig pc was bogging down but never locked up. I had to reboot every 2 or 3 days. The latest LOR version has been running since its first night with no reboots. I do not use video in my show, but I do have 1800 pixels and very large sequences.

[dougd]

When I open the MiipShow.lss file in the show editor and go to options, the button is check by "Sequences are loaded when they are needed" option.

[BillyT]

I've been running miip all season as well and haven't seen any of the issues described here. I did not update LOR when the 3.9 update came out (I am way too freaky about making changes once the show has started), but I have applied all the changes to miip as Bob as made them. The only problem I had I think had to do with Bob's server, not with my machine. I'm running a new box with Win7 64 and 4 Gb, a little over 2000 channels. Most of my sequences are > 100 Mb.

[RyanWPowers]

Okay - so for the past two days I've been doing some log digging and memory watching using the Windows Resource Monitor.

It turns out that it might not actually be a memory leak that's causing the problem. Because memory usage over time is negligible.

What *does* appear to be the problem, is that for no reason whatsoever, I'll get random windows media player errors:

"WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER ERROR (Error playing media file: Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file."

It's a different file each time, and there's no consistency. So, for instance - one part of the night it might be say, "FILE 1" that causes the error. But then the next time the show plays, "FILE 1" has no issue.

It's completely random with the time and which file causes the issues. That to me means that it's not the file itself. If it plays fine most of the time, but only "causes" an error once in a blue moon - something else is happening.

Again - these are VIDEO files causing this error, so I think this problem may be related to people with VIDEO files only.

So, let's say "FILE 1" is the file that it has a problem opening - what I've learned is that if there is no subsequent sequence in line for it to play next (i.e. FILE 1 is the only file its supposed to play, and it has trouble playing it) then LOR Monitor will crash.

If there are subsequent sequences that it is scheduled to play NEXT in that same show - it just skips the file that it can't play and moves on to the next file. When this happens, LOR Monitor does NOT crash.

Any guesses?

Ryan

Just to be clear, above when I say that I get Windows Media Player Errors - what I mean by that is that in the LOR Status LOG, that's what shows up.

[Tim Fischer]

Yes, those are the same errors I get, but only if I don't restart the show control panel every day.

Check out the other memory leak thread - I actually found some data that *does* make it seem like a memory/resource leak.

[LOR Staff]

I see a couple of recent changes Microsoft sent out that could be the root cause. A couple have to do with kernel mode drivers, and one with embedded direct show content.

The commonality here seems to be Media Player crashing out behind our backs. Since one of you reported that audio continued after video crashed, that really points me towards the Direct Show change. Depending on how your media is formed, the Video could be processed via Direct Show, while the audio is passed off to a different decoder. The video could then crash, but the audio continue.

While the knowledge base entries talk about this being exploitable via Office, the actual DLL's changed are accessed not just by office, but also by WMP.

For the REALLY brave (and that means you pretty much are a GOD when it comes to Windows), you may want to see if you can back out "MS12-082: DirectPlay Remote Code Execution (KB2770660)". http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35923 and see if that helps. I don't blame you if you don't want to try.