S6 sequence slow to load

[ItsMeBobO]

It took about 10 minutes to load!   What is going on with that?

 

[PhilMassey]

That is very unusual. Disk times are normally quite quick off of SSD's. Render times not so much, but that is disk time. How big is the sequence.

[ItsMeBobO]

Hi Phil!   Its not the disk speed.   S6 was doing something.  Or maybe something on my PC was scanning that file while it loading.   Ive got `30 sequences which I have been opening and closing and never hit the VVVslow open before.

[PhilMassey]

I agree. I often see delays with rendering { orange spinny thing at top right} after loading,but disk loads are quite quick usually. overall load and render times have improved a LOT since last year. Complex sequences sometimes took several minutes to render.

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

Out of curiosity, is OneDrive or some other cloud service setup that includes the LOR folder?

 

Something like OneDrive’s File On Demand feature could cause it to take longer since it would have to grab it back down from the cloud.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e

[ItsMeBobO]

I dont use oneDrive even have it on my sequencing machine.  Came installed on my newer PCs.    I do have a backup service which runs every two hours.    But it is to a local NAS.  Never noticed a slowdown this significant before.  I will check what is running next time.  

[ItsMeBobO]

It happened again so I snapped Task Manager.   Its CP itself!   I dont know what its doing with 76%  across 8 CPUs       There isnt even a sequence open here since I killed that before this snap.

 

 

 

[Orville]

13 hours ago, ItsMeBobO said:

It happened again so I snapped Task Manager.   Its CP itself!   I dont know what its doing with 76%  across 8 CPUs       There isnt even a sequence open here since I killed that before this snap.

 

 

 

Wow, can't believe it's using that much CPU Resources, and then it also showing Power useage as "Very High", that seems way above normal for the CP in all respects.   

Sure doesn't seem like those figures/information should be anywhere near what they are!

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

15 hours ago, ItsMeBobO said:

dont know what its doing with 76%  across 8 CPUs

If you had a show running at that time and the playback files were not created, it will create those playback files. The creation of the playback files is CPU intensive, very much like when you open a sequence in the sequencer and its computing what is needed to preview.

You can obviously do this ahead of show time using the "prep show" button (double arrow) so that your show immediately plays on time. If its not done ahead of time, it can delay your startup a bit. This is essentially the same as running the sequence compressor in versions prior to S6.

If a sequence changes, its playback file will need to be regenerated. I believe a sequence change is only being detected by comparing file modified dates. All sequences in a show will get regenerated if the preview is changed in any way and I believe that is detected using the preview's revision number. Add/Remove/Modify an LOR network also seems to cause all sequences to be regenerated.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Jeremiah Ackermann
Added notes on when playback files need to be regenerated.

[Steven]

5 hours ago, Jeremiah Ackermann said:

All sequences in a show will get regenerated if the preview is changed in any way and I believe that is detected using the preview's revision number.

If your show uses multiple Previews (not recommended), then I would assume a change of only one Preview would cause only the sequences that use that Preview to get regenerated.

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

15 minutes ago, Steven said:

then I would assume a change of only one Preview would cause only the sequences that use that Preview to get regenerated.

Correct. I was technically wrong to say all sequences in the show. I was already thinking under that single preview assumption (minus the background sequences that could have others).

[randyf]

Interesting.

Does the player log reveal anything?

[ItsMeBobO]

This is only happening on my sequencing computer.   There is no show running and no networks or lights to control.  I never need any playback files on this one.   

 

On the SHOW computer I dont open sequencer.  When I copy changed loredit files there is detects them and rebuilds BUT ONLY if I close CP and open it again.    If I dont close it, it spins and says errors and then drill to verifier which says files need to be rebuilt.    Another mystery of what takes so long to not do something but just detect it. 

[RouthHurwitz]

On 12/5/2023 at 10:14 AM, Jeremiah Ackermann said:

On 12/5/2023 at 5:45 PM, ItsMeBobO said:

This is only happening on my sequencing computer.   There is no show running and no networks or lights to control.  I never need any playback files on this one.   

 

On the SHOW computer I dont open sequencer.  When I copy changed loredit files there is detects them and rebuilds BUT ONLY if I close CP and open it again.    If I dont close it, it spins and says errors and then drill to verifier which says files need to be rebuilt.    Another mystery of what takes so long to not do something but just detect it. 

If a sequence changes, its playback file will need to be regenerated. I believe a sequence change is only being detected by comparing file modified dates. All sequences in a show will get regenerated if the preview is changed in any way and I believe that is detected using the preview's revision number. Add/Remove/Modify an LOR network also seems to cause all sequences to be regenerated.

Maybe you are all set on this, but a couple things I have run across in my many days of trying always do it the wrong way.

 - Jeremiah is correct as any change in your sequence when you copy it over to you show computer will need to be regenerated and If you click on the update status in the upper right it will review your show without you needing to close and reopen CP.(pic attached)  Now in my picture you will see an error in my 2023 show.  That is because I pushed it and tried to regenerate the playback of the  'One song' I tweaked while the show was playing other sequences.(and didn't work unlike on S5 when you could individually generate a playback file and sneak it in the show) and take it from one who tweaks their preview and sequences almost daily I have found every way to break it all.

- Second I had multiple sequences last year on S5 that took four to five minutes to open in Sequencer.(we are 100% pixels so all motion effects)  I moved them over to S6 and all but two open much quicker this year.(min or less)  I wish we could see what makes these remaining sequences such HOGGS, because we are 100% motion effects across the show and it would be nice to know.  The two that are still slow I just click, don't touch  and wait.  Those sequences are about 20kb each and the rest are 12-15KB.  It is a difference, but not four minutes worth. (I went through and cleaned them up as well - No more archived props, excess motion effect rows with duplicate effects etc.)

 

I know this is not an answer, but more just a confirmation your not alone in your wait for "Certain sequences" to open and load up the CPU.

 

P.S. - Thank you for your software.  I used your Papa-LOR years ago for years to make my singing trees do their thing. Worked great!

[Jeremiah Ackermann]

As an aside, if the LOR folder is shared across multiple computers (including a cloud hosted drive backup), a number of issues can arise.

First is the shows/schedule data is shared, so each computer will attempt to run the show when you launch up control panel. This could partially be solved if the "player mode" was persisted per computer and not in LORFolder\CommonData\TraySettings.json so that each computer can control whether it is setup to run shows or not. Depending on your setup, this may not be a problem. But if you are using E131 and each computer is on the same network, it definitely would cause a problem.

Second is the playback files themselves in LORFolder\Playback. Normally this would be good, but if LOR networks are used (saved in Windows registry on each computer), conflicts can occur if the LOR networks are not defined exactly the same across multiple computers since the generation of the playback file depends on that setting. I believe @k6ccc has seen this and I am sure others have but may not have realized it.

Third is potential file contention, especially if multiple control panel instances are trying to create playback files at the same time. To a lesser degree, also trying to edit a sequence at the same time a show starts and verifies if playback files need to be created.


In many ways I wish the playback file was generated upon sequence save and embedded in the sequence file. That way a show or sequence override will immediately play (including copying it to a different show computer without shared drive) since it doesn't need to generate a file. However, that likely would remove the ability to make a preview adjustment and all sequences update with that change. Perhaps there is some middle ground that could be worked out.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Jeremiah Ackermann