Hello Jonathan,


On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 16:47 -0500, Jonathan Thomas wrote:
> I just confirmed that under normal circumstances (i.e. not 100% CPU
> utilization) OpenShot seems to close just fine (no processes are still
> running after closing it) when launched from the sh script.

I can confirm this happens when the viewport has not frozen. Openshot
closes correctly and the console terminal window closes as well.

But if the viewport has frozen, and I quit from OpenShot, then the
console terminal is left behind after the OpenShot window has gone. And
the 100% cpu stays stuck at 100% until I kill the console terminal
window. This is why I think it is an orphan process.


> Let me ask a few more questions about the CPU:
> 
> 1) Does the CPU only stay at 100% when playing (or seeking) the video?

No - there is usually one cpu at 100% whilst OpenShot is running. Any
activity at all causes the 100% load to switch to another cpu, or at
least causes a temporary dip in the load of the 100% cpu.

> 2) If you Pause the video (and wait a few seconds), does the CPU drop
> back down?

Yes it dips down for a second or two and then goes back to 100%


> 3) When the video freezes, will it unfreeze after a certain amount of
> time... if left alone?

No - I have left it a long time to see if it will unfreeze, and it
doesn't. Changing to another project does not unfreeze it either. 

> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Helen McCall
> <email address hidden> wrote:
>         Hello Jonathan,
>         
>         Yes this still happens with 0.9.8 all installed from .deb
>         packages. The
>         only bit that I've had happening is the freezing of the
>         viewport whilst
>         playing. Still the same effects on System Monitor.
>         
>         One difference (caused I think by the different way of
>         launching
>         Openshot with a sh script) is that the process doesn't die
>         when I kill
>         OpenShot. I have to kill the terminal window as well before
>         the 100%
>         process dies.
>         
>         This is a menace because it is making it difficult for me to
>         edit the
>         circus film projects I am working on.
>         
>         I can reduce the chances of a freeze if I first drag the
>         cursor all the
>         way along the timeline before trying to play it. I have a
>         niggling
>         feeling that this has something to do with one of the length
>         attributes.
>         I was having so much trouble at first with the released form
>         of 0.9.7
>         and 0.9.8 that I didn't manage to log all the bugs that
>         occurred, but
>         several of them were giving error messages on the console
>         relating to
>         length attributes.
>         
>         The files I am working on for the circus project are all mp4
>         files
>         rendered by OpenShot from AVCHD clips from my camera. This
>         technique was
>         working fine until version 0.9.7 when the freezes became too
>         prevalent.
>         I was using 0.9.4 before that.
>         
>         Helen
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 13:55 -0500, Jonathan Thomas wrote:
>         > Helen,
>         > The processors switching between 100% from CPU 1 to CPU 2,
>         etc... are
>         > probably happening based on how the Linux kernel handles
>         multiple
>         > processors.  The CPU selection happens on a much lower level
>         than what
>         > I'm doing in Python.  However, there is obviously a problem
>         with
>         > OpenShot maxing out at 100% CPU.
>         >
>         > Can you recreate this behavior using the new version you
>         installed
>         > with .DEB files?
>         >
>         > On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Helen McCall
>         > <email address hidden> wrote:
>         >         Wow! This test with the system monitor has woken me
>         up from my
>         >         tired
>         >         state.
>         >
>         >         The video files are all on a "projects" partition on
>         one of my
>         >         internal
>         >         harddrives (SATA2). I ran the subsequent tests with
>         only
>         >         OpenShot,
>         >         System Monitor, and Evolution running.
>         >
>         >         I monitored first: The clip freezing in the
>         viewport, but
>         >         leaving
>         >         Openshot still working in all other respects.
>         >
>         >         Prior to this viewport freeze, all processors had
>         their loads
>         >         reasonably
>         >         evenly spread with activity in the middle ranges for
>         all of
>         >         them.
>         >
>         >         When the viewport froze, one processor went up to
>         100% and
>         >         just stayed
>         >         there like it was in a never ending loop. The other
>         two
>         >         processors went
>         >         down to a low level of load around 10% or lower. Any
>         activity
>         >         like
>         >         moving the timeline curser or opening a dialogue
>         window caused
>         >         the two
>         >         low level processors to increase their activity a
>         little.
>         >
>         >         The only thing I found which changed this situation
>         was to
>         >         open a
>         >         file-selection dialogue for importing a clip. This
>         caused the
>         >         100%
>         >         processor to swap with one of the other processors,
>         so that a
>         >         different
>         >         processor was stuck at 100%, and the original high
>         load
>         >         processor was
>         >         now one of the pair of low load processors!
>         >
>         >         Second test: Openshot freezing completely on opening
>         the
>         >         project I sent
>         >         you. This did the same thing and caused one
>         processor (#2) to
>         >         go to
>         >         100%, and the other two (#1 & #3) to go to very low
>         load.
>         >
>         >         I couldn't use the Openshot file-selection dialogue,
>         so I
>         >         opened gedit.
>         >         no activity on that or on the terminal window
>         affected the
>         >         state of this
>         >         #2 100% processor, except opening the file dialogue
>         on gedit
>         >         caused #2
>         >         to go low level, and #1 to switch to 100%! I tried
>         this a few
>         >         times and
>         >         it always caused a different processor to go to
>         100%. After
>         >         leaving one
>         >         processor running for a few minutes at 100%, the
>         opening of a
>         >         file-selection dialogue didn't switch the processors
>         any more.
>         >         Leaving
>         >         that processor permanently at 100%
>         >
>         >         On killing OpenShot with a "Force Quit", the 100%
>         processor
>         >         immediately
>         >         dropped down to low level and joined the other two
>         so I had
>         >         then all
>         >         three processors in a balanced load at low level.
>         >
>         >         Therefore I would surmise that freezing of the
>         viewport or the
>         >         whole of
>         >         OpenShot both are caused by a never ending loop as
>         some
>         >         process is
>         >         waiting for a result from a sub process which has
>         probably
>         >         died, and the
>         >         waiting is not being timed out.
>         >
>         >         Women's intuition suggests to me either: that one of
>         the MLT
>         >         functions
>         >         has a bug where it fails to return an error code
>         when failing.
>         >         Or else
>         >         some function in the Python code is failing to test
>         for the
>         >         error return
>         >         from a function, and is just looping and calling
>         until it gets
>         >         what it
>         >         considers to be a valid return value (which never
>         comes)
>         >
>         >          A clue to where this might be is that any call to
>         the Gnome
>         >         file-selection dialogue, causes that looping process
>         to be
>         >         re-spawned on
>         >         a different processor. (Wow! This takes me back
>         nearly 20
>         >         years to when
>         >         I was learning to program Transputer arrays in the
>         Occam2
>         >         language!)
>         >
>         >         At soem point in all of this, some process related
>         to the file
>         >         selection
>         >         is timing out but leaving the looping process as an
>         orphan and
>         >         so then
>         >         it never switches until the application is killed
>         and all
>         >         related
>         >         processes are sent the kill signal. Therefore the
>         orphan
>         >         process is
>         >         still open to signals like KILL. (sig something, I
>         can't
>         >         remember all
>         >         the signal codes anymore)
>         >
>         >         I hope this helps.
>         >
>         >         Helen
>         >
>         >
>         >
>         >         On Thu, 2009-07-23 at 21:11 +0000, Jonathan Thomas
>         wrote:
>         >         > Helen, are your media files located on your
>         primary
>         >         harddrive?  or an
>         >         > external harddrive?  Also, please check your
>         "System
>         >         Monitor", and see
>         >         > what the CPU is doing while OpenShot is hanging.
>         And, as a
>         >         side note,
>         >         > see how many "Python" processes are running on
>         your
>         >         computer.  There
>         >         > should only be a few.  Thanks!
>         >         >
>         >
>         >
>         >
>         >
>         
>         
>         
>