Freeze

[TuffScout]

Is it possible that SAB can freeze my computer for some seconds. It happens random.
I noticed it checking my bank, when my pc completely freezes. F5 in SAB won't refresh my screen.

[shypike]

Do you have an SSD drive?

[TuffScout]

Nope, no drive attached. just 2 Samsung SATA 133 spinpoints.

I know this bug was also in APEX DC++ some years ago (maybe useless info).

[shypike]

I cannot recall ever having seen this.
SABnzbd does keep the CPU and disk quite busy but not with the effect you describe.
The Web UI of SABnzbd itself can become unresponsive, but not other parts of the system
(or even the browser).
Make sure that you have an article cache in Config->General, this will reduce disk activity.

The reason I ask about the SSD is that these devices sometimes cannot keep up
with the amount of disk write activity. SABnzbd without an article cache write lots of relatively
small files. This can saturate the write channel of an SSD, resulting in a temporary (and mostly harmless)
apparent system freeze.

[TuffScout]

I don't think it's SAB related, sometimes it happens now without SAB open. And it does not run on the background.
I think it win7 related somehow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[MoonDogg]

I am experiencing the same thing. I am a long time Usenet user, but short time SAB user. If SAB is currently in the process of downloading, and I am trying to watch a video, either locally on my HTPC, or streaming it across the network to my workstation, the video will periodically freeze, and the sound stutter. This can happen for 15 to 60 seconds, though I've not actually timed it. Also, while this is happening, I lose network connectivity, as determined by pinging the HTPC from my workstation. As soon as pings come back, the video either resumes (watching locally), or kicks me back to the menu (remote via Boxee).

I have for many years had another Usenet client running, downloading, verifying pars, unraring, etc., all in the background while watching videos and never have seen this behavior. At first I thought one of my disks might be going bad (3 disk RAID 5), because of errors in the event log regarding timeouts writing to system files. Here is an example:

Event ID 508 Source ESENT
Windows (4908) Windows: A request to write to the file "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\MSS.log" at offset 484864 (0x0000000000076600) for 190464 (0x0002e800) bytes succeeded, but took an abnormally long time (101 seconds) to be serviced by the OS. This problem is likely due to faulty hardware. Please contact your hardware vendor for further assistance diagnosing the problem.

After testing the drives fully, and coming up with nothing, I decided to try pausing SAB. To my surprise, I stopped experiencing the issue. When I re-enable it, I do.

My HTPC is not super high end, but certainly fast enough to handling downloading, checking, and unraring files while playing video. Like I said, I've been doing it for years. Something odd is happening with SAB.

How do you recommend I go about debugging / troubleshooting?

Thanks,

MD

[shypike]

Have you tried giving SABnzbd a lower priority?
Also it may be useful to set the "extra par2 parameters" on Config->Switches to -t0 (minus tee zero)
By default par2 runs in multi-core mode, which will consume the full CPU capacity.

[MoonDogg]

I have not tried reducing the priority of the sabnzbd process. I will try that after playing with MultiCore Par2. I had it set to -t0 already. I will try -t- and see how it goes first.

Thanks