HUGE log files / 2016.31 Skipping VERY badly during playback

[robskimeister]

Hi!

I'm having a couple of issues with some of the newer versions of Xlights.  I'll describe how I noticed the issues:

The first indication came while I was using 2016.27.  I got an error message when I tried to save a sequence.  It said there was no space available, but there should be PLENTY of space.  It turns out my hard drive was FULL!   

I found that the Xlights log file (xLights_l4cpp.log) in the Users/username/AppData/Roaming folder was over 62GB!     So I renamed it just in case I needed it & restarted Xlights.  The file was re-created.  I sequenced for about 5 minutes & the new file grew to over 500MB in that time!

I also found a "crash" zip file in the Users/username/AppData/Local/Temp folder named xLights_dbgrpt-99652-20160512T110125.  It contained xlights_networks.xml, xlights_rgbeffects.xml and an earlier version of the xLights_l4cpp.log file that was a whopping 35GB!      

Today I downloaded the newest version of Xlights, 2016.31.  It will barely run!  It repeatedly skips more than 1 second of the sequence at-a-time while playing.  When I click any of the icons on the toolbar during playback I get no response until the next "frame" is played.  It's like the program freezes for about a full second, briefly responds, and then repeats this process.  I did NOT have this performance issue with 2016.27, but I did have the large log files.  I'm not sure if these 2 issues are related or not.

I've attached a couple of pics of the log files in explorer showing the file size (they're obviously too large to upload).  I'm uploading the log file that was created by 2016.31 and my xlights_rgbeffects file.  Hopefully this will be enough to diagnose the issue. 
I can't upload due to this forum error:  The upload folder is full. Please try a smaller file and/or contact an administrator.

I'll try to upload later when there's space available.

FYI:  These are the 2 lines of code that seem to repeat over & over in the log files:

Code: [Select]

Message: Buffer detailed info: Buffer object 3 (bound to GL_VERTEX_ATTRIB_ARRAY_BUFFER_BINDING_ARB (0), and GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB, usage hint is GL_STATIC_DRAW) will use VIDEO memory as the source for buffer object operations.
2016-05-19 08:01:37,002 113796 log_opengl [INFO] Type : Other; Source : API; ID : 131185; Severity :
 Message: Buffer detailed info: Buffer object 4 (bound to GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB, usage hint is GL_STATIC_DRAW) will use VIDEO memory as the source for buffer object operations.
2016-05-19 08:01:37,005 113796 log_opengl [INFO] Type : Other; Source : API; ID : 131185; Severity :
This all occurred on an HP Zbook laptop with Intel core I7 CPU running Windows 8.1.

Please let me know if any additional information is needed.

Thanks!

[dkulp]

Right now, we have a ton of extra OpenGL logging enabled to try and get some more information  about any problems that are popping up.  If you everything is working fine, you can edit the xlights.windows.properties file (using Notepad is fine) and change the og4cpp.category.log_opengl=DEBUG line to be INFO instead.  That should fix the performance issue, but then we won't have as much information if something isn't working.

[Gilrock]

Are you trying to attach gigabyte sized files to the forum?  I noticed my log file was 3.3gig so I deleted it.  It just keeps growing but I think the guys made a change so it would start rolling over and not grow forever.

[robskimeister]

Are you trying to attach gigabyte sized files to the forum?  I noticed my log file was 3.3gig so I deleted it.  It just keeps growing but I think the guys made a change so it would start rolling over and not grow forever.

No, definitely not trying to upload those huge files.  I'm aware of the 7400kb limit.  The one I tried was 5,629kb.  It got to that size after opening xlights and messing around for only about 3 minutes!  So something is making it grow like crazy.  I figured someone could tell by the log entries what might be going on.

When do you think the developers added the change to make the log file roll over instead of growing?  I was using 2016.27 when I noticed the huge 62gb log file.  So it doesn't seem to be working in that version.  Was it added after 2016.27 perhaps?  ...or does it roll-over based on the date of the entries, and not file size?

[Gilrock]

https://github.com/smeighan/xLights/commits/master

You can always goto that link and browse what the developers are doing.  The comments for the checkins give a pretty good idea of what changes were done.  You can see the log size limit was changed to 1K for release v30, then 10K for release v31, and then 1MB for the next release. 

[robskimeister]

Right now, we have a ton of extra OpenGL logging enabled to try and get some more information  about any problems that are popping up.  If you everything is working fine, you can edit the xlights.windows.properties file (using Notepad is fine) and change the og4cpp.category.log_opengl=DEBUG line to be INFO instead.  That should fix the performance issue, but then we won't have as much information if something isn't working.

Thanks, Dan!  This seems to have fixed the performance issue.   

That leaves me wondering why there was a performance issue in the first place.  An I7 CPU should be able to write to a log file & play a sequence easily.  It must be writing a LOT to almost bring the CPU to a halt.  Should I be concerned?

[dkulp]

That leaves me wondering why there was a performance issue in the first place.  An I7 CPU should be able to write to a log file & play a sequence easily.  It must be writing a LOT to almost bring the CPU to a halt.  Should I be concerned?

Well, with debug on, we do some other things besides logging.   For one, we create a "Debug OpenGL context" instead of a normal one.   The debug context renders everything synchronous so that if there is an error, the result can be reported immediately and correlated to the action that caused the error.   That's the big performance impact.   If debug is off, we realize nothing would be logged anyway and we use the normal context which uses the async rendering.

[flyinverted]

If you want to know who's taking up the most space on the forum... 

[robskimeister]

If you want to know who's taking up the most space on the forum... 

Busted!   


 

[flyinverted]

I think we're good now regarding those files you've uploaded Robski...  ok to delete?

[keithsw1111]

 In v31 was a fix which should limit the log file size. Folder should contain no more than 4 files each no larger than 1mb. You can safely delete these files at any time.

[robskimeister]

I think we're good now regarding those files you've uploaded Robski...  ok to delete?

Yes they can be deleted.