WMC not responsive for 10-20 minutes

[nikleb]

I have a new problem that probably first noticed about 2 months ago. My WMC is at times simply not responsive for about 10-20 minutes.
I can see heavy drive utilization during that time. The LED is constant on.
I simply don't know what is causing it or how to stop it.

I have WMC on Win7, Amazon plugin, MCL, and PowerDVD.

Any help or debugging tips are welcome.

[nikleb]

Some more diagnosing. I have two drives. One of the OS and programs, one for the recordings.
The issue is with the OS/program drive. I have no idea what WMC is doing with the C drive.

[DavidinCT]

Some more diagnosing. I have two drives. One of the OS and programs, one for the recordings.
The issue is with the OS/program drive. I have no idea what MCE is doing with the C drive.

Just off the top of my head with out looking at the system, sounds like a failing OS drive. The freezing will happen when a hard drive starts to fail.

Check your Windows Event log, in the "system" log, see if there is any "disk"" errors, also maybe get HWinfo program ( http://www.hwinfo.com/ ) this can tell if any SMART errors are showing. It's not common for WMC (never seen it myself) for WMC to be unresponsive for 10 min at a time. It's a small app when it comes down to it.

If it is showing your OS drive, grab yourself a SSD, you wont regret it... Also, if you have CABLECARD recordings, backing up the OS drive is critical if any are DRM protected.

If your OS drive fails and is un recoverable, when you have DRM protected cablecard recordings, they will no longer be playable.

[nikleb]

I have seen no errors. Also, I did actually conduct a disc check (Just with MS tool). Not sure if it takes advantage of SMART stats.
What is a reliable SSD product? I have currently a 300GB drive. 250GB probably would be sufficient

[choliscott]

Is it non responsive only when you do certain things or something simple like trying to display the channel guide causing issues?

[nikleb]

It seems that displaying the channel guide after doing something else is often but not always causing the issue.

[nikleb]

Could thee be any relationship to the issue after the guide switchover? I recall that my XBOX was not usable anymore. I believe a host file change on the HTPC fixed the xbox.
Just had an incident. Watched a blueray movie. After completion I switched to guide an the C drive is at 100% and the guide is not responsive.

[choliscott]

Are you saying your C drive is 100% full ? If it is, I would take a look to see what folder(s) has majority of space being used.

What is the configuration of the computer?

[nikleb]

Are you saying your C drive is 100% full ? If it is, I would take a look to see what folder(s) has majority of space being used.

What is the configuration of the computer?

No, 100% disk usage (file access) during the time when the guide is not responsive. the disk itself is only 35% full.

[DavidinCT]

I have seen no errors. Also, I did actually conduct a disc check (Just with MS tool). Not sure if it takes advantage of SMART stats.
What is a reliable SSD product? I have currently a 300GB drive. 250GB probably would be sufficient

Microsoft's check disk will not check for smart errors. Is this a HTPC (dedicated PC for media), or a combo Desktop/WMC server type thing ?

Are you doing your recordings on the C: drive, or on another drive ? When WMC is hanging like this, can you minimize it and bring up the task manager to see what is going on or is the whole computer frozen ?

Suggested if your doing a dedicated HTPC, A SSD for the OS and all recordings done on another drive. Recording TV/Watching live TV takes a lot of rewrites to the HD, and could limit the life of a SSD.

My HTPC has a 120gb, I dual boot with WIndows 7 and Windows 8.1 for WMC only (testing 8.1 to see if it's worth it, and one is a solid one)....With Windows 7 I had a 60gb drive and that was enough...

[nikleb]

I have seen no errors. Also, I did actually conduct a disc check (Just with MS tool). Not sure if it takes advantage of SMART stats.
What is a reliable SSD product? I have currently a 300GB drive. 250GB probably would be sufficient

Microsoft's check disk will not check for smart errors. Is this a HTPC (dedicated PC for media), or a combo Desktop/WMC server type thing ?

Are you doing your recordings on the C: drive, or on another drive ? When WMC is hanging like this, can you minimize it and bring up the task manager to see what is going on or is the whole computer frozen ?

Suggested if your doing a dedicated HTPC, A SSD for the OS and all recordings done on another drive. Recording TV/Watching live TV takes a lot of rewrites to the HD, and could limit the life of a SSD.

My HTPC has a 120gb, I dual boot with WIndows 7 and Windows 8.1 for WMC only (testing 8.1 to see if it's worth it, and one is a solid one)....With Windows 7 I had a 60gb drive and that was enough...

It is a dedicated HTPC.
My recordings are on a second drive, not C.
Yes, task manager shows high system and eshell (or similar) usage. However, not 100% CPU. Using resource monitor an looking at he C drive it shows 100% utilization. Recording drive is near 0%, depending on whether there is a recording going on.

The more I think of it happens mostly when I navigate to the guide.

[nikleb]

Meanwhile I also checked SMART with the WD tool. Checks out OK.

Could this have anything to do with it? The number of epg folders?
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =96&t=9725

[Space]

I have a similar problem with heavy hard disk access and the system becoming unresponsive, however it doesn't last more than a couple minutes. This only occurs when I access the EPG and only happens occasionally.

See this thread: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =96&t=9716

So far no one knows what causes it, but I don't believe anyone has experienced it before the Rovi cutover so that may have triggered it somehow.

[DSperber]

So far no one knows what causes it, but I don't believe anyone has experienced it before the Rovi cutover so that may have triggered it somehow.

I agree, that this was never the story prior to the Rovi cutover. And now it's common, especially on all of my Linksys DMA2100 extenders.

I can push the GUIDE button on the DMA2100 remote and wait for 30 seconds for the grid to appear. But even then I still don't have access to a usable navigation via remote arrow keys until the info and program JPG appears below the grid, which can take another 20 seconds. Only then can I actually navigate.

This didn't happen when Zap2it was in use. I can't imagine why the EPG provider should be a factor here, unless the whole WMC technology involved in producing the Guide grid was rebuilt for reason to support Rovi. It's clearly not performing as it used to.

[DaveInPa]

From the symptoms that I have on my HTPC, it seems to be a Rovi issue.

I never had it before the Rovi cutover. Also, I changed to Schedules Direct EPG data through an import of the guide and discontinued using Rovi through Microsoft and have not seen this issue since.

[DavidinCT]

Also, If your using a Nvidia video card, check the drivers (just thought about this), there is a known issue with newer drivers that cause lockups in WMC. If your running a Nivdia card and dealing with this issue, download 355.82, Uninstall the current version completely, reboot till it's back to a VGA compatable video card, then install this version. Post back if this helps.

Look over this thread...
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topi ... /?offset=2

[frostillicus]

I'm not sure how you diagnosed that it was the OS drive, but I second what DavidinCT said about sounding like a failing drive. I had a similar problem a while back with a failing Seagate drive. For me, I had Windows (therefore WMC) running on an SSD, but a Seagate spinning hard drive for recordings. WMC would lock up randomly and I could only get out of it by rebooting. It would then work for various amounts of time before freezing again. Eventually it failed entirely and WMC worked flawlessly ever since replacing the Seagate drive that WMC pointed to for recordings.

[gary94080]

I have been experiencing the same thing on three different computers and it may not be the drive.

it only seems to happen when the EPG is accessed. if you go directly to live tv or a recorded program it is fine. even with three programs being recorded and watching an existing recording.

here is my conspiracy theory: MS has either intentionally or unintentionally screwed up the EPG and is hoping that this will drive WMC user ship down so there won't be much of an outcry when they finally pull the plug.

[DavidinCT]

I have been experiencing the same thing on three different computers and it may not be the drive.

it only seems to happen when the EPG is accessed. if you go directly to live tv or a recorded program it is fine. even with three programs being recorded and watching an existing recording.

here is my conspiracy theory: MS has either intentionally or unintentionally screwed up the EPG and is hoping that this will drive WMC user ship down so there won't be much of an outcry when they finally pull the plug.

Conspiracy Theory is a understatement. There are thousands of users that DO not have this isssue. I run on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and even on Windows 10, none of my machines show this result. Even my clients I used to have (I still talk to time to time) who I instaleld custom media center systems through their home, As still deal with issues, I have not heard of a single person with this issue besides in this thread.

Are you also dealing with heavy drive utilization during this time on all machines ? I can see it take a few seconds to bring up the guide but, 10+ min ? No way, unless you have a failing drive, or trying to run on it on a single core Pentuim 4 CPU....

Would love to know what is going on...

[Space]

Maybe we should try to figure out what systems that are experiencing this problem have in common.

For instance, my system is still set up for zap2it for the terrestrial lineup (I use the cable lineup which converted to Rovi automatically). It never actually downloads anything for this lineup. I don't know if others experiencing this have the same thing. You can supposedly fix this by going through setup again, but I never did since things seemed to be working fine.