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AS is slow when using the queue

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BCloud

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Hi,

My software is very slow sometimes and I don't know why. I noticed that when I'm using the queue, as soon as the 1st download is launched it will be a pain to browse and click, each time it takes me 5 seconds to click. But sometimes the queue works perfectly without slowness. I tried to pause the queue and add items before launch but it's just a tip, sometimes I have to add something during the download and it's very long.
Do you know what can cause the slowness ? There is something I can do ?
 
BCloud said:
Hi,

My software is very slow sometimes and I don't know why. I noticed that when I'm using the queue, as soon as the 1st download is launched it will be a pain to browse and click, each time it takes me 5 seconds to click. But sometimes the queue works perfectly without slowness. I tried to pause the queue and add items before launch but it's just a tip, sometimes I have to add something during the download and it's very long.
Do you know what can cause the slowness ? There is something I can do ?
Click to expand...

I have not seen this myself but I do know that at the end of each download you will notice AS pause or become slow as it does whatever it does at the end of each download. But as soon as it done it should be back to normal and from my experience that process takes just a few seconds.

Now, with that said. I would imagine the usual things might help if you have not already done them. Restart AS or reboot your PC , that type of stuff.
 
Yes it's not only today, I have the problem since I have the software. I tried different things, but It's still not clear for me.
I save all my downloads on a network shares and I think it will be something related to this but I'm not sure, this morning I tried to save on my local disk and it was fast, then I download again on the network and it was very slow (it's not a problem of my network I already checked and all others stuff running fine with my network).
Now, I tried some 720p and saved on the network and it was fast, I tried one 1080p it's slow again after 10 seconds of download, I'm not sure of what cause this slowness.
For the moment, I suspect the saves of 1080p on network shares, but maybe I'm wrong.

EDIT : No, same thing for 720p after the 1080p, still slow.
 
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BCloud said:
Yes it's not only today, I have the problem since I have the software. I tried different things, but It's still not clear for me.
I save all my downloads on a network shares and I think it will be something related to this but I'm not sure, this morning I tried to save on my local disk and it was fast, then I download again on the network and it was very slow (it's not a problem of my network I already checked and all others stuff running fine with my network).
Now, I tried some 720p and saved on the network and it was fast, I tried one 1080p it's slow again after 10 seconds of download, I'm not sure of what cause this slowness.
For the moment, I suspect the saves of 1080p on network shares, but maybe I'm wrong.

EDIT : No, same thing for 720p after the 1080p, still slow.
Click to expand...
I wish I could help you but I can tell you this is not an AnyStream problem, that said anything I can do to help feel free to ask. It sounds like a throughput issue. What are your desktop or laptop specs? What do call slow? Is it minutes to download a movie or hours? Everyone's definition could be different. An AnyStream download of a 5 GB movie should not take longer than 5 minutes. Episodes 50 min) maybe 3 minutes at tops. Have you checked your download speeds in the settings?
 
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Like RF1 says no way this is an AS issue. This is going to be something related to that share without a doubt. Whether it's throughput directly or some sort of an issue between your local PC OS and that share you will have to try to diagnose.

If I had to guess what is going on is Windows is saving your download (or the parts of it) locally in some temp location and then constantly updating the share every so often. So it probably appears to be a 1 step process but I suspect it's 2 or more in reality. And that mechanism keeps your PC very busy especially at higher download speeds (I suspect you have a pretty beefy pipe) and with larger files at the same time.

My personal suggestion is to save locally and then copy off to your share after the fact. That is actually what I do.
 
Thanks for your answers.
It's happening a 2 different computers. My network shares are good because I can copy on it at 130MB/s. I'm note sure it's only on network, I don't know from what it comes.
What I call slow is : I'm downloading at 15MB/s and everything is ok, I can click and browse in AS and add titles to the queue as usual, and suddenly it becomes very slow, I have to wait between 5 and 10 seconds between each click, the speed drops to 1MB/s and it is difficult to minimize or maximize AS, beside this all the others programs opened on my computer are reacting as fast as usual, it is only AS. During this time, I tried to copy something on my network and the speed was at 130MB/s as usual. It's like the network buffer of AS is full with read/write on network.
I will try to download on my local drive the next days to be sure it's a network thing, but it's clearly a problem in AS, not on my computers. I have not enough space on my local drive, it's why I save directly to the network, but I will try.
 
Copying in your internal network and Internet browsing are two pairs of shoes.
From what I read there might be some sort of throttling in place, either from your provider or something on your computer/network.
And did you set AnyStream downloads to unlimited? Default after installing is limited to some rate.
 
I remembered reading something about this, I just found it. I think it's the same problem.
Generally I pause at the beginning.
https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/disable-automatic-downloading-when-adding-videos-in-a-batch.84036/
My CPU is a i5-9300.

Yes AS is set as unlimited. I know but if it was the network the problem I couldn't copy that fast while AS is slow, and I checked also Internet, while the download drops to 1Mbps I have no difficulty to browse in another browser and download other things. And even if the speed of my provider is slow, AS should not be so slow, the complete window of AS struggles : click in the AS browser, click on pause in the queue, cancel on the current download, minimize, maximize, even go to the settings, It's like I have a computer from 20 years ago.
Like I said I will try to download locally to be sure.
 
@BCloud

If you dig into my explanation post a bit I try to explain what I think is going on and if I am correct it explains every behavior you are seeing. And my explanation does not blame your bandwidth or network. I guess if there was a bottleneck it could be your CPU or your primary drive speed and of course if your primary drive is very low on space it would on exacerbate the issue.

In summary, I don't think this is an AS thing but a Windows thing. I think it's the process of downloading segments, assembling them and then updating your mapped drive location but at high speed which busies your PC.

EDIT - From what I have seen it is normal for your download speed in AS to sometimes slow to a crawl than speed up. I see that from time to time on mine as well.

EDIT 2- I tried to download directly to my shared drive. Now my setup is probably different than yours because while it is a shared drive it resides on a NAS and ultimately it's ISCSI. While downloading I noticed some "spasms" in AS but ultimately I could not really reproduce your issue on this end. However the file I snagged was somewhat small even though it was 1080.
 
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So you save to network shares ... Wifi or cable connection?
If the first, can you try to establish a cable connection and see if the issue persists?
 
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cartman0208 said:
So you save to network shares ... Wifi or cable connection?
If the first, can you try to establish a cable connection and see if the issue persists?
Click to expand...

I personally think it's more to do with the mechanics of saving to a mapped drive. Or "streaming" a file to a mapped drive which is closer to what is really going on. When doing such things you tend to bump into little bottlenecks in windows having to do with internal and external queues and whatnot. I think this might rear up on lowered powered machines (not low power but machines that are not high-end).

But I am no way convinced 100% I am right so I am sure the man will appreciate any help.
 
Yes thank you, I understood what you mean.
It's hard to explain and to find what is the problem, it doesn't happen all the time. Maybe it's a bottleneck on my network and "streaming" a file on it like you said (I'm on cable connection, my old laptop that have the same problem is in wifi). I'm not in a hurry it's not really the download speed the problem but when it happens I can't browse at all in AS, I have to try to pause the queue and wait until the current download is finished to add new titles or do other things in the software, all is stuck (but only AS, the other Windows applications are running fine). And I was wondering is there was a solution.
Like I said I'll try the local drive and/or USB drive to be sure for my next downloads. Thanks.
 
I tried to replicate this, so I changed the download folder to a network share.
And I have to admit, AnyStream then gets a bit "stuttery" and "slow-responsive" when downloading.
I guess your symptoms are some levels worse.
That instantly changes if i Set my download folder to a local drive. Browsing is very fast then.
I'm with DQ here, this might have to do mit AnyStream reading and writing from/to network at the same time.
This might be considered as a bug, but it's easily mitigated.
Another approach, if you are really low on local diskspace, would be like DQ's setup... iSCSI drives, but that depends on your network storage device.
 
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cartman0208 said:
I tried to replicate this, so I changed the download folder to a network share.
And I have to admit, AnyStream then gets a bit "stuttery" and "slow-responsive" when downloading.
I guess your symptoms are some levels worse.
That instantly changes if i Set my download folder to a local drive. Browsing is very fast then.
I'm with DQ here, this might have to do mit AnyStream reading and writing from/to network at the same time.
This might be considered as a bug, but it's easily mitigated.
Another approach, if you are really low on local diskspace, would be like DQ's setup... iSCSI drives, but that depends on your network storage device.
Click to expand...

This is a very specific issue and I just want us all the be on the same page. I don't think this is an AS issue at all. I believe this is a Windows issue. So my point being if you are downloading a file with a web browser that was similar in size and rate of download as AS to a shared drive you might experience something similar. I think the rub comes in when something is being downloaded that is large and coming down fast and it must be quickly assembled as it comes down in fragments and THEN it updates the save file on the shared drive. I think that 2 step process hits some windows internal buffer or queue limitations. This would especially be the case on an older machine.

Now, could we say AS might be able to mitigate this behavior somehow by a change on within the application? I think that is possible but I do believe inherently this is a windows thing.

In any case I think the solution is a local save and then copying to the share after that. Like I mentioned, I do that anyway personally speaking. But I usually test a file and then rename it so for me it's a natural 2 step process.
 
BCloud said:
My network shares are good because I can copy on it at 130MB/s. I'm note sure it's only on the network, I don't know from what it comes.
Click to expand...
For all intents and purposes, 130mbs is not slow by any means. ;)
 
RedFox 1 said:
For all intents and purposes, 130mbs is not slow by any means. ;)
Click to expand...
Careful ... please don't mix that up ...130mbps (Megabit per second) is kind of slow ... in terms of internal networks ... while 130MB/s (Megabyte per second) is somewhat fast...
 
cartman0208 said:
Careful ... please don't mix that up ...130mbps (Megabit per second) is kind of slow ... in terms of internal networks ... while 130MB/s (Megabyte per second) is somewhat fast...
Click to expand...
You are correct as usual Cartman0208, I stand corrected. Thank you. I know that if I am downloading something at 130MB/s a second it's pretty fast was what I thought he said and meant. I was referring to megabytes per second, my error.
Acronym Definition
Mbps Megabits Per Second
Mbps Million Bits Per Second
Mbps Megabytes Per Second
Mbps Mega Bits per Second
Mbps Managed Business Process Services (IBM Corp.)
Mbps Modified Bulk Pedigree Selection
Mbps Measurement-Based Priority Scheme
 
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I am fairly sure the figure he handed out was from Windows explorer which is normally in MBs. Now if you are in other places in Windows it might show mbs or kbps. MBs is normally the transfer rate and mbs is the interface speed.

However, clarifying that would be needed because 130mbs across SMB is basically broken. Which is ironic because 130MBs is a full gig more or less.
 
DQ said:
I am fairly sure the figure he handed out was from Windows explorer which is normally in MBs. Now if you are in other places in Windows it might show mbs or kbps. MBs is normally the transfer rate and mbs is the interface speed.

However, clarifying that would be needed because 130mbs across SMB is basically broken. Which is ironic because 130MBs is a full gig more or less.
Click to expand...
I should have been more specific in my terminology, in essence, I was agreeing with him, that it was fast.
 
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