Sluggish menus...am I the only one?

[tarbat]

Glyn,

Maybe it's worth trying a couple of experiments to identify the cause of this problem.  Maybe for a couple of days, unplug the antenna.  I realise that means you'll see no aircraft, but it may eliminate whether this problem is caused by high traffic volumes.

So, unplug the antenna for a couple of days, and see if the menus, etc. are still sluggish.

[GlynH]

Hi GlynH,

We don't read every single post on the forum so we didn't reply out of a reason.

S'funny...I thought you read all of mine! ;^)

With any amp, your going to be increasing noise at certain stage which may also counteract your getting more messages. Though once you start to recieve many aircraft you run the risk of messages being recieved the same time and hence this overlap will cause you to loose messages.

A simple Example (not with all the details and message type), 250 ADS-B aircraft each sending 2 messsages per second. Therefore 500 messages recieved in that second. That means it can cope with a message being sent every 1milisecond then 1milisecond gap etc. ADS-B doesn't know another aircraft is sending a message closeby and hence can broadcast at that same time.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the explanation...I have read it twice but it still hasn't sunk in so I will digest it when I get a little time as I have just walked through the door having done 18 hours and I have some work to do in preperation for tomorrow.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[GlynH]

Hi Chris,

Might give that a go...only problem is it might not be for just a couple of days. ANRB has been up since Saturday and I still have my menus at the moment.

I noticed it last time when it had been running for a week or so...

No aircraft for a week? I'll get withdrawl symptoms...;^)

Seriously though I would be prepared to unplug it for a week but I'm going to leave it running now until my menus cease to function again and see if it was repeatable in a similar timescale to last time.

Interestingly when I restarted ANRB it was using just 65MB RAM...I scribbled down 65K on my notepad but I must have meant 65MB as currently its using 299MB RAM

When my menus had locked up it was using 500MB RAM according to TaskManager so I'll keep an eye on that side of things also.

I have attached the text file that accompanied the shutdown error to see if it might give AN a steer on what is going on?

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

PS. By the time I got to the end of this post my memory usage had increased from the aforementioned 299MB to 303MB so it looks like it is on the way upI Is this normal?

[GlynH]

Well it didn't last a week this time :-(

Let me know if you need the memory dump files & accompanying text files AN...although the heap dump file is @310MB!

The Mini dump file is a more manageable 7.5MB if that helps...

Aah well...time for another reboot methinks...

-=Glyn=-

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[DaveG]

Glyn, just a long shot, but have you tried 3.13 rather than the 4.03 3D version?  Only to see if 3.13 clears the problem.

I had something similar when I installed 4.03, would fix the screen frozen for no reason and had to either try refreshing but turning process hardware off then on or restart RB.  Since going back to 3.13 no problem.  Although I did have to ensure a good clean uninstall between the two versions.

As I said, maybe worth a try just to see.

[GlynH]

I could give 3.13 a shot but I thought I saw somewhere that 4.03 is the version of choice that will be actively developed so I stopped using 3.13 a couple of months ago.

I only use 4.03 in 2D mode and have always had menu issues with all versions from 1.5 onwards!

Don't recall seeing many screen freezing problems though...

I guess I have a few things to try when I get the time! ;^)

Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-

[gleff]

I haven't had a chance to experiment further yet, but if there's a memory leak with the ANRB  software, you may be able to get around the issue by running a little application called minimem.  Firefox has an inherent memory leak issue, and minimem always keeps the memory footprint low for me.  This application should work with any program including ANRB in theory.

Check it out.  http://main.kerkia.com/Tools/Minimem/description.aspx

Obviously as a long term approach would be to have Airnav fix it in a future update (if it is a memory leak), but as a workaround this little app may resolve the issue.

[gleff]

Glyn,

Maybe it's worth trying a couple of experiments to identify the cause of this problem.  Maybe for a couple of days, unplug the antenna.  I realise that means you'll see no aircraft, but it may eliminate whether this problem is caused by high traffic volumes.

So, unplug the antenna for a couple of days, and see if the menus, etc. are still sluggish.

I can confirm this issue arises with low volumes of traffic.  I don't pick up that many aircraft in my location and it's faulted for me on many occasions. 

I'm going to leave it running until it fails for me.. and when it does, I'm going to check the memory usage, and then activate minimem (from my last post).  It should release some memory, and i'll see if I get the menu function back.   Stay tuned.  May be a day or two though ;)

[GlynH]

I'd be interested to see what you find.

Every time I start ANRB it initially uses a memory footpriint of 65MB.

Within minutes its up to 80MB or so.

Following my reboot last night I just checked and its now up to 211MB but the menus are still working.

Before the reboot last night it was showing a little over 300MB and they were still working but shortly after that the screen update froze which forced the reboot.

Some time after my menus stopped working the other day ANRB was showing @ 500MB memory usage but I plan to keep an eye on it and see if it is repeatable.

I might be barking up the wrong tree but that does seem excessive to me however in the absence of clarification from AN that might be how it's designed to function - the longer it runs the more memory it needs?

Strangely MyLog.db3 is now showing smaller than it was the other day at 99MB with 13388 aircraft logged since the end of February.

The whole program often takes an age to respond and is like wading through treacle - for example I just clicked MyLog and the screen stuck at 475 aircraft and stopped updating for nearly a minute while MyLog opened.

Close MyLog and open it again and it opens much faster and doesn't have any impact on the screen.

CPU usage does seem to go up with the increased memory usage - after a reboot it flicks between 7-20%

A few minutes ago before I clicked on the program screen it was showing 13-31 but now it is 35-53 although that is purely an unscientific observation...

I also upload a screenshot via FTP every 30 seconds or so and when this happens I get the busy/sleepy pointer for a good few seconds or indefinitely if I am navigating a menu.

It returns to the normal pointer when I move away from the menu...not sure if you use ftp or if you have seen this behaviour?

Makes navigating the menu feel akward when this happens...

Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-

[tarbat]

I might be barking up the wrong tree but that does seem excessive to me however in the absence of clarification from AN that might be how it's designed to function - the longer it runs the more memory it needs?

Not in my experience.  Memory usage here remains pretty constant over many days of running.

Strangely MyLog.db3 is now showing smaller than it was the other day at 99MB with 13388 aircraft logged since the end of February.

I wonder if there could be a database update problem here.  What file system is the hard drive where the database is formatted as?  In my experience, disk write queues/issues can have a major impact on system performance, even when CPU shows only <20%.  Check in Windows Reliability and Performance monitor where Radarbox is updating the database, and look for any queue issues.

I also upload a screenshot via FTP every 30 seconds or so and when this happens I get the busy/sleepy pointer for a good few seconds or indefinitely if I am navigating a menu.

Try turning off FTP upload for a few days and see if that fixes the apparent memory leak.

Might be worth checking Windows Reliability and Performance monitor for anything unusual on memory, CPU, or disk usage.

[jannuh]

I haven't had a chance to experiment further yet, but if there's a memory leak with the ANRB  software, you may be able to get around the issue by running a little application called minimem.  Firefox has an inherent memory leak issue, and minimem always keeps the memory footprint low for me.  This application should work with any program including ANRB in theory.

Check it out.  http://main.kerkia.com/Tools/Minimem/description.aspx

Have the app runnin for a few minutes, got memory-usage from abt. 33 to 21 mB

Did install it for another program, Subsonic,  (doen't do anything on that program), which eats a lot of of mem when running for longer time, usually I reboot this PC once every 3 weeks.

Btw no problems overhere with freezing menu.

[GlynH]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Chris,

A working set of 70MB or thereabouts seems good to me...certainly far less than the 200MB I have now or the 500MB I saw the other day!

Hard drive is formatted Basic NTFS under XP

Looks like you are using Vista? On XP here so no R&P Monitor I'm afraid.

Best I can do here looks like the attached screenshot.

I only have ANRB on to update my website but I will try turning it off. That did seem to help with busy pointer on menus previously.

Haven't got time to do much this week and am off to Brussels for a couple of days but should get some time when I get back.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[wojteksz]

hello to all,
i also seem to have the memory leak problem: started yesterday 115MB, the next day in the morning i have 236MB. I am located center of Poland so not extremaly high traffic above (top would be some 60 planes observed) I use 4.03 with external antenna.
I have turned off polar diagram, maximum range and radar rings but memory is still leaking.
This must be application error - should be fixed.
If more advanced observation would be needed i may use the Wininternals software (highly recommended from my prevoius usage for other applications under tests).

[wojteksz]

hellooooo!
the menu/memory problem is here all the time!
can not turn off network data
memory around 480MB

i have pressed many menu tabs and all pressed has been recorded by the software but not executed as i can see all pressed tabs WITH tab border around and the unpressed WITHOUT border line.

any ideas?

[AirNav Support]

Check a few things wojteksz.

1.) Backup your databases and try installing fresh and see whether your memory issues goes away. It may be a corrupted database causing the issue.

2.) Are you viewing the PC from a remote login crew?