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M
MRHDK
Participant
October 7, 2010
Question

Streams stop playing on FMS4

  • October 7, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 814 views

Hi,

We using a setup which is basically Origin --> Edge1 (Backend Edge Servers) --> Edge1-1 (User Edge Servers).

Users connect through Cisco ACE to Edge1-1 which then connects to Edge1 which in turn goes to the Origin in case nothing is cached anywhere. This works fine most of the time but sometimes the stream will freeze when playing (the player starts buffering and never stops doing so).

This is what I have tried so far:

  • Clear cache, which was nowhere near capacity.
  • Bypass the load balancer and connect directly to the User Edge Server, ie Edge1-1. (from internal network)

None of the above approaches solves the issue but if I try to play the same stream through the Backend Edge Server, ie Edge1 (again from internal network) the stream plays without any problems. So, it seems that the issue only occurs when connecting through Edge1-1.

Summarization: Logs shows nothing so I am a little blind troubleshooting. What could be causing this? I don't think the origin is the problem as the stream plays fine through the backend server. Bypassing loadbalancers on internal network and connecting directly to the servers does not solve the problem. The problem ONLY occurs when going to the User servers and from both internal and external network.

  • "User edge servers", ie Edge1-1 have 2 * CPU, 12 GB RAM, 320 GB SSD disk for cache, running Windows 2008 R2 64bit, FMIS 4 64bit
  • "Backend edge servers", ie Edge1 have 2 * CPU, 12 GB RAM, 500GB RAID6 made of 15K spindle disks, running Windows 2008 R2 64bit, FMIS 4 64bit

I hope I have described the problem well enough. If not, please let me know.

Regards,

Martin

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    M
    MRHDKAuthor
    Participant
    October 7, 2010

    Update:

    I have now tried clearing the cache once again by doing a recursive delete of all files from folders on the SSD disk (del /S /Q d:\cache\*.*.) -- whereas earlier I only deleted the files related to a problematic stream -- and this has actually sorted the issue it seems. I noticed that no new file segments were being created and that the index files were not being updated by the server when playing streams; not even jumping here and there made the server create new file segments in the cache. After the deletion much more fragments are created and the index files are being updated too.

    The question remains: Why was the cache corrupt and why was it corrupt on all of the User Edge Servers - and why couldn't the servers recover without me deleting everything? The Windows eventlog shows no errors and also shows no crashes or sudden restart of the servers. Is this a potential issue with FMIS4 64bit or am I missing something? Are weekly or maybe daily "clear cache" jobs a good idea?

    A run of chkdsk showed no errors by the way.

    Regards,

    Martin

    Asa_-_FMS
    Adobe Employee
    Asa_-_FMS
    Adobe Employee
    October 8, 2010

    Agreed that it looks like the items in your segment cache became corrupt - but for all of them to be corrupt at once seems unlikely.  Assuming that either it was a particular set of files that were corrupt or that there may be something wrong where more files couldn't be added to the cache on disk?

    Asa

    M
    MRHDKAuthor
    Participant
    October 11, 2010

    The cache on the disk was nowhere near capacity and they didn't all become corrupt at the same time. The problem was apparent with a certain clip at the time but it's not the same clip each time.

    I will do some further tinkering with the config -- have you heard about this issue before?

    I've seen a lot of files being placed in the "junk" folder in the cache. What is this folder for (well, junk...but..) and what causes files to be placed there? Over time the cache disk is slowly being filled because it doesn't look like files in that folder are being deleted.

    Regards,

    Martin

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