Bliss BETA

[andrew]

I have started working on a BETA for bliss. You can install it using these commands.




yum clean all


yum update


yum install bliss

[gravelld]

Thanks Andrew. I'll be around to answer any questions anyone has. I've not tried out Andrew's packaged beta myself yet, but will be doing over the next day or two.


For those asking "What's bliss?" - it's a music management application designed to be run on a server. At the moment, it only manages album art.

[Ron Olsen]

I posted a more detailed announcement for bliss in the General forum:


vortexbox.org/forum/general/bliss-cover-art-management-service-now-available-for-beta-testing/


to give the bliss announcement a wider audience.


I installed the bliss rpm (bliss version: 20100403) on my VortexBox Appliance and let it run on my music library. I find that after it has analyzed all the cover art in my library and has identified alternative cover art for all the albums, it still uses 30% to 98% of CPU time, as shown by top.


This seems excessive, since there really is nothing bliss has to do at this point. Is it continually rescanning my music library, looking for changes/additions? If so, I think this needs to be changed to reduce CPU usage.


I would prefer it to not constantly scan my music library, but instead adopt the approach used by SqueezeBox Server, where a rescan of the music library must be initiated by the user, or else by the VortexBox software sending a Rescan request to SqueezeBox Server over its API port.


I would like to see:


1. When bliss finishes processing the music library, it stops active scanning for new music requiring cover art, and goes into a quiescent state.


2. A Rescan music library button added to bliss.


3. An API interface so the VortexBox software can send a Rescan request to bliss.


This should reduce CPU usage of bliss when it has nothing to do.


As it stands now, I shut down the bliss daemon and only turn it on when I need it. This should not be necessary, but I have to do it since bliss is quite the CPU hog, even when my music library isn't changing, and I'm not using the bliss web interface.

[JimG]

Ron,


Would lowering the Bliss process priority make any difference? My guess is that it would not help, because it would still use the balance of the CPU.


I guess the problem with high-percentage CPU use is that it draws more power, makes more heat, and runs the fan faster and more often to dump the heat. I have noticed the fan noise when the VBA is busy.

[Ron Olsen]

The main problem with bliss chewing up CPU cycles is that it takes them away from CD ripping and encoding, music library scanning by SqueezeBox Server, and any transcoding SBS has to do to stream music to various players.


I don't mind bliss using the CPU when it has something productive to do, but not if it's constantly scanning a non-changing music library.

[JimG]

Thanks Ron,


First off, my questions are only intended to help me to understand Linux and VortexBox better.


1. If Bliss is now scanning the music collection constantly, it's probably
running disk seeks constantly. That cannot be good for the drive.
It that correct?


2. Would lowering Bliss's priority preserve CPU cycles for ripping, encoding,
and SBS scanning and solve that problem?

[gravelld]

Hi Ron!


I installed the bliss rpm (bliss version: 20100403) on my VortexBox Appliance and let it run on my music library. I find that after it has analyzed all the cover art in my library and has identified alternative cover art for all the albums, it still uses 30% to 98% of CPU time, as shown by top.


This seems excessive, since there really is nothing bliss has to do at this point. Is it continually rescanning my music library, looking for changes/additions? If so, I think this needs to be changed to reduce CPU usage.


Yep, that's way too much. Even on my home server when bliss is actually doing something it doesn't go above 50% much.


Regarding scanning: bliss does not scan, on Linux it uses inotify, a notification mechanism for file changes. This should mean it gets told about file changes which is more efficient, rather than rescanning to find them.


However, if bliss has finished its work and it's still using that much CPU there must be something wrong, so I want to solve this! A first step that would help me would be if you could send me your logs (/tmp/bliss.log.*)


This week I have been working on some performance/memory consumption improvements prompted by a customer who was having memory and CPU trouble (although on Windows). It turned out he had several directories with a lot ( > 100, some with ~400) of tracks inside, all from different albums. This caused high memory usage. I tracked down the issue and fixed it. This has been tested in his installation and will be released as a general beta this weekend. If you like, we could give it a whirl on your VortexBox.


I think your suggestions regarding a rescan button sound reasonable because some people may rather just work this way. Could you add it to the UserVoice (http://bliss.uservoice.com) page?

[gravelld]

Ron pointed out to me by email that he'd noticed the CPU usage increased markedly when the web interface is open, and for a good while afterwards.


Having tested this in a number of ways, I agree. Having measured the usage by various parts of the application, I am working on some efficiencies that should hopefully lower this CPU usage.


I'll keep you posted on how things go.

[toaster75]

I have installed Bliss but it doesnt work. I have included the install text which displays a problem with starting the deamon. I have tried starting manually to no avail. Is there anything i can do?




Thanks in advance.




[vortexbox.localdomain ~]# yum install bliss
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package bliss.i586 0:1.0-1 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================== ========================
Package Arch
================================================== ========================
Installing:
bliss i586

Transaction Summary
================================================== ========================
Install 1 Package(s)
Upgrade 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 6.6 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:

Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing : bliss-1.0-1.i586 1/1
[ Starting to unpack ]
[ Processing package: bliss (1/1) ]
[ Unpacking finished ]
[ Console installation done ]
Stopping bliss daemon: [ OK ]
Starting bliss daemon: /bin/bash: daemonize: command not found
[FAILED]

Installed:
bliss.i586 0:1.0-1

Complete!
[vortexbox.localdomain ~]#

[andrew]

toaster75 said:

I have installed Bliss but it doesnt work. I have included the install text which displays a problem with starting the deamon. I have tried starting manually to no avail. Is there anything i can do?









yum install daemonize

[toaster75]

ok thats seems to be running now. Will report back later.




Thx

[Ron Olsen]

Andrew said:


yum install daemonize





The bliss rpm should be updated to include this dependency.

[paltomare]

How can I delete Bliss from my VBA?


I did a yum remove bliss, restarted the unit but BL still shows in the GUI.

[andrew]

Bill is in BETA we are woking on a way to fully remove it.

[Ron Olsen]

paltomare said:

How can I delete Bliss from my VBA?


I did a yum remove bliss, restarted the unit but BL still shows in the GUI.




rm -rf /opt/bliss


rm -rf /etc/rc.d/*/*bliss

[paltomare]

That seems to have done it, thank you.


Can I assume it is now competly gone?

[Ron Olsen]

Yes.

[gravelld]

A new beta build was released today with CPU usage improvements with regard the UI. I'm hoping to have these improvements released next week.

[andrew]

I just uploaded the latest version of Bliss. It should resolve all the problems users are having.

[wizardofoz]

wish there was a MAC version of Bliss ....




mind you if it can work well on the VB/A then thats a really good start

[andrew]

wizardofoz said:

wish there was a MAC version of Bliss ....




mind you if it can work well on the VB/A then thats a really good start




That's the point of running Bliss on VortexBox it will work with all your music regardless of what OS you run on your other systems.

[gravelld]

wizardofoz said:

wish there was a MAC version of Bliss ....




mind you if it can work well on the VB/A then thats a really good start






I'd love to support a Mac version and it seems like a popular request (http://bliss.uservoice.com/forums/21939-bliss/suggestions/516535-a-mac-version-of-bliss?ref=title). There are quite a few people who run Mac Minis for home servers. The trouble is the costs involved in developing for the Mac. I'm getting close to the point where it would be worth it however.


Thanks Andrew for updating with the latest build. There's more info about this build here (http://musiclibrarymanagement.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-release-build-20100425-faster.html). Importantly, the problem Ron reported about CPU usage has been fixed.

[wizardofoz]

Is there a new update to bliss that can be installed... seems the last version was causing some swap file runaway...




what yum command should be used for the new version if there is one?