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Topic: Foobar freezes PC during search (Read 4545 times) previous topic - next topic
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Foobar freezes PC during search

Hi guys!

I've used Foobar for a long time and love it, but I've been having this issue ever since I had to wipe my PC clean and install Windows 10. I have one playlist for all of my music (~50k tracks), and if I try to search through that playlist, Foobar will suddenly freeze the moment I type in a letter, and will bring my entire PC to a crawl. I can't do anything, and it takes many minutes just to move my cursor where I want it. From what I can see, it does this because it suddenly starts to look through my entire library for the first letter of the word I was typing, which naturally pulls up a lot of tracks.

The strange thing is that this never happened before, and it's incredibly frustrating when I'm locked out of my PC. Eventually it will finish and my PC will go back to normal. At one point, I managed to get task manager open and was surprised to see that Foobar was not hogging up an abnormal amount of ram/CPU.

I have no additional components and this does not happen with my small playlists. A reinstall did not help fix the problem.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated! I would like to continue using foobar.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #1
Hi...
i have the same problem for a few months. filterering in facets needs up to 5 seconds...Before 1-2 seconds...
I suspect since the beta versions 1.4

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #2
And for a large library I have this since... 2-3 years? Or maybe 4? I am talking about the less frustrating "5 seconds hang of foobar". No matter if I am on Win 10 or Win 7 and which HDD is used as OS source, how many RAM there is (4/8/12/16 GB) and how many CPU cores there are (2/4/6). Sorry guys, large database may require big resources to do a search. Especially if you possibly tried to play with LargeFieldsConfig.txt and force loading whole stuff as normal fields instead of keeping some of them as spam fields. Had any of you experimented with that file? If yes - try to revert it. If no - then I suppose this is just a side effect of your library size, like in my case.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #3
This problem tends to shut down my computer for about 30 minutes minimum, so it's not a slight hang-up. Sorry if I didn't make that very clear! I just know a person with a much bigger library than mine who has zero issues with foobar, and I didn't have this problem with the same library before my PC wipe.

I've never played with largefieldsconfig.txt either.

 

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #4
Certainly doesn't sound normal. If you could share your config I imagine it would be helpful in tracking the cause down. You can zip up the foobar2000 directory found under %appdata% and PM me a link. If it looks like a foobar2000 bug I'll share it with Peter.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #5
Certainly doesn't sound normal. If you could share your config I imagine it would be helpful in tracking the cause down. You can zip up the foobar2000 directory found under %appdata% and PM me a link. If it looks like a foobar2000 bug I'll share it with Peter.

Thank you! I've gone ahead and sent you the file.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #6
Thanks for the configuration dump.
Handling of this specific scenario has been improved in the newly released foobar2000 v1.4 beta 9. Specifically, I prevented slow sorting of search results from making foobar2000 application unresponsive.
However, I see no trace of a problem that would make your whole PC unresponsive - it was indeed annoying, but not beyond stalling foobar2000 itself.
It would also help to know what exact PC you have - CPU model and the amount of RAM in particular, so we can test this on something similar.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #7
Thanks for the configuration dump.
Handling of this specific scenario has been improved in the newly released foobar2000 v1.4 beta 9. Specifically, I prevented slow sorting of search results from making foobar2000 application unresponsive.
However, I see no trace of a problem that would make your whole PC unresponsive - it was indeed annoying, but not beyond stalling foobar2000 itself.
It would also help to know what exact PC you have - CPU model and the amount of RAM in particular, so we can test this on something similar.

Great! I'll be sure to download the update and give it a shot.

As for my PC, it has an Intel Core i7-3770  processor @3.4Ghz speed and 12GB of ram. It originally ran Windows 7, but after a clean wipe, I had to have it upgraded to Windows 10. I've had the issue ever since. I hope this is able to help!

Edit: Just loaded up all my music again. After it finished important the files (a lot faster than normal), every song on the playlist was highlighted. I clicked on one and my PC immediately slowed down, but for only ~10 minutes this time. On the bright side, the search changes are great! Now I can search for music without my PC acting up.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #8
The PC freeze you get only happens with foobar2000? No other program that plays audio for example shows symptoms? The search slowness was the only thing wrong with your configuration but foobar2000 consuming resources doesn't make the entire system slow. Unless you use some external means to make foobar2000 process run at realtime priority.

The slowdown happens with just single click of a track? No double click to actually play it? Single click just selects an element and should be instantaneous. Do you have some programs like MacType that alter font rendering?

Could you use Process Monitor to record system activity when you perform the action that makes the computer freeze? I'm not sure it can capture the cause but it might be worth a try. I'd be interested to take a look if you can share the compressed log via PM.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #9
No matter if I am on Win 10 or Win 7 and which HDD is used as OS source, how many RAM there is (4/8/12/16 GB) and how many CPU cores there are (2/4/6). Sorry guys, large database may require big resources to do a search.

I'm on the verge of building a new PC and I was just wondering which hardware component should I upgrade most in order to improve those freezes, which of course worsen as my library grows larger. Freezes occur not only when searching, but also on auto-playlist initialization (most of my playlists are auto-playlists) which slows down start up a lot, and when I move folders in the library.

So, from what you are saying there is no hardware component I can really work on in order to improve performance in such instances?


P.S.
I believe my config is also burdened by custom database virtual tags, which I rely pretty heavily on, but that's just an assumption.
I'm late

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #10
The PC freeze you get only happens with foobar2000? No other program that plays audio for example shows symptoms? The search slowness was the only thing wrong with your configuration but foobar2000 consuming resources doesn't make the entire system slow. Unless you use some external means to make foobar2000 process run at realtime priority.

The slowdown happens with just single click of a track? No double click to actually play it? Single click just selects an element and should be instantaneous. Do you have some programs like MacType that alter font rendering?

Could you use Process Monitor to record system activity when you perform the action that makes the computer freeze? I'm not sure it can capture the cause but it might be worth a try. I'd be interested to take a look if you can share the compressed log via PM.

I've sent you the log file via PM.  But I've only ever had this freeze/slow-down while using foobar2000, and I can reliably make it happen if I type in  one letter into the search bar, or if I add my entire music collection to foobar (it loads with every track highlighted), and then click on a track (single-click) to deselect. I don't have any other audio programs so I haven't tried it with anything else.

I don't have any type of program like MagType that would alter font rendering, as far as I know, nor have I made any changes to how foobar2000 is run! I hope this helps a little!

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #11
I have a Core i7 3770, with 32GB of RAM. Regardless of how much RAM you have, foobar2000 will only be using up to 3GB of it anyway.

You did not specify which GPU you have, or which storage medium your OS or your data live on. GPU would be essential to on-screen information updating, and storage would be essential for swapping and/or processing the files on disk.

With 12GB of RAM, you have an odd amount compared to usual configurations for dual channel, unless you have the outlying triple channel configuration of 3x4GB. It also doesn't include whatever other data would be resident in memory, should this selection changing involve lots of swapping or paging due to heavily encumbered memory.

The log should be helpful to whoever has it, though.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #12
To add a cherry on the top: in my case also it didn't matter if I used integrated HD 4200 with 128 MB of RAM, HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR, 750 Ti (I am not sure if it had 1 or 2 GB of GDDR) or now on 1080 Ti with 3GB of GDDR (if I am not wrong, I'm on mobile now and can't check what's inside my box). Large library = few sec. freeze after typing first 1-2 characters. Always. Simple as that. Using custom tags and altering LargeFieldsConfig.txt only makes it worse - this is exactly my experience with Phenom II 1100T, 8/12/16 GB of RAM, all above mentioned gfx cards and WD1002FAEX exchanged later with ST1000DM3 as OS drive. Music resides on WD30EADS and this for sure impacts autoplaylists initialization and scanning, as WD Green sucks badly in such scenarios. However rescanning occurs here very rarely. Other apps that bloat memory are Firefox x86, its plugin container etc., Thunderbird and Windows 7 background services. Doesn't sound like environment specifically impacting foobar's performance, just very usual PC usage. Even if I switch to Windows 10 and start Forza Horizon 3, foobar can play music in the background, Firefox can idle and everything works fine. Still on Win10 there is the same freeze when starting search in foobar (of course when Forza is not running even in the background :-)

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #13
I have a Core i7 3770, with 32GB of RAM. Regardless of how much RAM you have, foobar2000 will only be using up to 3GB of it anyway.

You did not specify which GPU you have, or which storage medium your OS or your data live on. GPU would be essential to on-screen information updating, and storage would be essential for swapping and/or processing the files on disk.

With 12GB of RAM, you have an odd amount compared to usual configurations for dual channel, unless you have the outlying triple channel configuration of 3x4GB. It also doesn't include whatever other data would be resident in memory, should this selection changing involve lots of swapping or paging due to heavily encumbered memory.

The log should be helpful to whoever has it, though.

If it helps any, my GPU is an AMD Radeon HD 7870. As for storage, my OS is on a 32gb solid state boot drive while the rest of my data is in a 2TB HDD. I've looked up my PC and found that this particular model has what looks like a four slot configuration of 2x2 and 4x2 for a total of 12GB ram. I'm not very hardware savvy, so I may be misinterpreting it.

I appreciate everyone's help!

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #14
The logs don't seem to show any cause other than confirm that for some reason foobar2000 consumed ~72% of your kernel time during the watched period.

You could try ruling out any third party software interference by testing after a clean boot. It's very simple to do with msconfig.exe, instructions can be found here.

Another option is to create a more detailed log with Windows Performance Toolkit.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #15
Similar bug here. Since forced update to beta 11 from other 1.4 beta version. It not happens during search, but generally when using program - properties of files load long, sometimes the program minimizes and miximises slower than before, opening context menus needs some time. That makes using program cumbersome. I installed beta only because some plugin needed it, but looks like Peter programmed beta in that way that it forced me to using bugged, newer version after some time... ;(
HD 7800 series/W10 x64 newest.
I can upload appdata's data to send via PM.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #16
^ Never had any of such problems with any betas so far.
Somewhere, there's someone dying in a foreign land
Meanwhile, the world is crying stupidity of man
Tell me why, tell me why

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #17
What you probably need to notice these issues is a 200-500GB library of music, with full lyrics and historical documents tagged into each file.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #18
Hey, it's not that big. And on v. 13 everything worked fine.

What I also noticed, startup of the program takes long time, and during this, also persist this freeze mentioned above.

I'd rather say that it poorly cooperates with dll and fb2k components. When I only added Graphic Equalizer to \components - GUI stutters enormously. Good that not sound... And dynamics compressor stopped to show its name on DSP list... Hmm... it just disapeared even on global list, and deleting GE not helps. Blank entry on activated DSPs :S Needed to download it manually. But blank entry remained (without "..." to adjust any settings). I just added DC again.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #19
It looks like that DC component even before disapearing hadn't worked. It all happened while I was setting normal EQ, and I hear now that DC introduced new change into sound, though it was in default state of settings before it disapeared (so there should be no change now).
So after adding new DSP (GE), previously not working DC just disapeared. But now GUI stutters even more often than before I think. Always when I click from properties into playlist and opposite. But now I don't even have GE components anymore. Only new DC (I'll check if it's the culprit).

What's going on with this program?

[couldn't edit anymore]

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #20
Beta 12 hadn't repaired my problem.
And even updater hung during installing (Foobar instance in small window stopped respond) - after registry entry in installer. I closed it, and everything went fine.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #21
I updated to beta 15 and my problem is resolved

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #22
Massacre. Final 1.4 update completely broken the player. foo_input_reverse and foo_wave_seekbar was responsible for failed attempt of updating, which resulted in broken launch. When I deleted them manually, I updated the app again, but needed to close it manualy in task manager during working of installer. Then it somehow started to work, but once, probably before, I needed even to run as admin only from direct location to make it work. Very strange.
Eventually I ended up with Visual C++ R6034 runtime error on every startup of the app, but everything works.
I found similar error related to old WInamp version not installed in the system, but it didn't resolve the problem.
And, sticking to topic, I still have freezes during using the app. I think it intesfied. On beta 15, later I found some occasional instabilities in this case. Maybe in later version(s) it intesfied further.
I'd really want to get the stable player back... Last good version for me was 1.3, but now few componets are updated to work with 1.4, and I will have some problems with reverting them to 1.4 along with settings, etc.
I will investigate further if it is not some particular component. Foobar in safe mode works fine.

Re: Foobar freezes PC during search

Reply #23
I found what coused problem of overall stuttering of the player interface.
Whenever my Winamp DSP plugin was open and not minimized, it caused the problem.