GDC server intermittent problem

[Steve Guttag]

So, I'm presuming it is the PSD (smallish box mounted somewhere around the projector, not in a pedestal). Based on Chris' report, the 2TB Cine Cache may be suspect. I've had issues with the PSD in general but it is probably worth setting that as your primary storage to see if the problems evaporate. The 2TB Cine Cache was really part of their streaming TMS system.

Knock on wood, thus far, no reports of issues on the 4TB Cine Cache systems that we have out there.

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm presuming it is the PSD (smallish box mounted somewhere around the projector, not in a pedestal).

That's correct.

I had a message from our tech yesterday that he has some communication from GDC to share but he's been busy on an install this week and we've been playing phone tag. I'll report back here when I hear from him.

[Mike Blakesley]

GDC first asked us to re-seat all the hard drives and the E-SATA cable on the external storage box. Then the next day they asked us to disconnect it altogether. So they must think this issue is being caused by that box. I'll update with any news. All our shows have been fine since unhooking the box, but the "problem" didn't happen very often anyway so there's nothing to do but wait, I guess.

[Steve Guttag]

Thanks for the update.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I would guess they are just letting it test to see if the problem recurs with only CineCache available. Would isolate which playback storage method is involved.

[Mike Blakesley]

Since we haven't been playing content from the box I'm kind of curious how that box could cause the issue, but I'm no tech!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Since we haven't been playing content from the box I'm kind of curious how that box could cause the issue, but I'm no tech!

You did have a HD or two fail back when I was servicing your place. They didn't both fail at the same time though. I suppose it's possible there could be bad sectors in more than one drive that might cause the raid to loose sync, or intermittent electronics failure in the box it self. Otherwise, the only problems I had with the raid boxes were single drive failures. Quite a few of the boxes I put in.also had four drives in.them.

[Mike Blakesley]

Well...it's been about six weeks since our problem last appeared, and it reared its ugly head again tonight, this time with the external storage unit out of the loop. So, it's back to the same drill.... sending the logs to GDC tonight.

At least it didn't happen Friday or Saturday when we had a full house for "How to Train Your Dragon." Only about 30 souls tonight had to endure the delay.

Which brings me to an irritating bit of info: When you go to reboot the server, it says that it takes about 4 minutes. In reality, it's closer to 8 minutes.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Well...it's been about six weeks since our problem last appeared, and it reared its ugly head again tonight, this time with the external storage unit out of the loop. So, it's back to the same drill.... sending the logs to GDC tonight.

At least it didn't happen Friday or Saturday when we had a full house for "How to Train Your Dragon." Only about 30 souls tonight had to endure the delay.

Which brings me to an irritating bit of info: When you go to reboot the server, it says that it takes about 4 minutes. In reality, it's closer to 8 minutes.

I wonder GDC's their next suggestion will be to take cinecache out of the loop and playback off your old array? (for another waiting period to see what happens).

[Mike Blakesley]

I just got the word, they are going to replace our server.

[Steve Guttag]

I suspect that will address the problem.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I wonder GDC's their next suggestion will be to take cinecache out of the loop and playback off your old array? (for another waiting period to see what happens).

Is it even possible to entirely disable the SSD caching?

But yeah, replacing the entire IMS should fix the issue for good, if it doesn't, then the issue is getting really weird. For now, it feels more like a failed "cache SSD".

[Chris Haller]

Well...it's been about six weeks since our problem last appeared, and it reared its ugly head again tonight, this time with the external storage unit out of the loop. So, it's back to the same drill.... sending the logs to GDC tonight.

At least it didn't happen Friday or Saturday when we had a full house for "How to Train Your Dragon." Only about 30 souls tonight had to endure the delay.

Which brings me to an irritating bit of info: When you go to reboot the server, it says that it takes about 4 minutes. In reality, it's closer to 8 minutes.

Yup. Each time any of my SR-1000s go down for whatever reason, I brace for the longest pause of all time. That "initializing SMS services" screen never ends. If I have to reboot it AND the projector I might as well grab a pillow.

I much prefer the single IMS-3000 that we have at one of my sites. Much faster to get on its feet, and better designed user interface.

[Steve Guttag]

I do believe one can disable the Cache storage and use external storage. It probably would have been worth giving it a try. Likely, GDC will have a new one in his hands tomorrow...which would make it all academic, at this point. Knock on wood, I'm still glitch free on my 4TB Cine-Cache systems. Then again, I'm still glitch-free on my Enterprise storage systems too. I've had poor results with the classic PSD...no experience with the current SSD based one. The current PSD is said to allow full transfer speeds while the show is going, like Cine-Cache.

As for boot ups, none are fast at it. The SR-1000 is definitely on the slow side but the IMS3000 isn't fast. The GDC box servers (SX-2001 and SX-2000AR) were pretty speedly on their boot ups with a 2 minute connection time to the security manager (with a 3-minute timeout...but if it got below 1:00...it was going to be a bad day).

As for UIs...I'd give the SR-1000 as good as any of the current ones. None of them are in the class of the Dolby "Show Manager" of the DSS servers. SR-1000's low marks are on the Dashboard that isn't as useful and too prominent but its Playback screen is better than the IMS3000, in my opinion (and a way better use of space). I'll ding the SR-1000 on the Edit screen for making the automation cues extra confusing and a downgrade from prior UIs.

[Frank Cox]

The SR1000 control screens are fixed size and too long to fit on a standard laptop screen. It's a square window (height==width) so the bottom of the screen is always off of the current screen unless you drag your mouse down to see it. And stuff is always scrolling down past the bottom of the screen so you have to do that.

If they made their window adapt to the current size of the web browser window, that would be a whole lot better.