[markmorgan]

Firstly, on advice in a previous post, I have switched the search index updating to out-of-hours so that is not the problem.

Here is my analysis of what is going on.

Awasu is presented with 100 feeds that are due for a refresh - this can happen in several ways: Import an OPML file, start Awasu in the morning, Awasu wakes up after observing the blackout time, or a large number of feeds become due a refresh at the same time. The former causes the latter.

As it stands, Awasu is taking between 10 and 20 minutes to update my feeds, which are all firing off at two-hour intervals - maybe I should change some of them? During this time my machine becomes unusable. Time to make a coffee!

How I would fix this. Introduce a random element. In the first three scenarios above, when Awasu is presented with a large number of feeds to update at once it should schedule them randomly throughout the next hour. This then fixes the last scenario as the feeds then update in two-hour intervals based on their last update, which was randomly scheduled. This spreads the load throughout the day. An impatient user can then override this by selecting Update All Channels or forcing an update on specific channels.

Mark Morgan.

[markmorgan]

Firstly, on advice in a previous post, I have switched the search index updating to out-of-hours so that is not the problem.

Here is my analysis of what is going on.

Awasu is presented with 100 feeds that are due for a refresh - this can happen in several ways: Import an OPML file, start Awasu in the morning, Awasu wakes up after observing the blackout time, or a large number of feeds become due a refresh at the same time. The former causes the latter.

As it stands, Awasu is taking between 10 and 20 minutes to update my feeds, which are all firing off at two-hour intervals - maybe I should change some of them? During this time my machine becomes unusable. Time to make a coffee!

How I would fix this. Introduce a random element. In the first three scenarios above, when Awasu is presented with a large number of feeds to update at once it should schedule them randomly throughout the next hour. This then fixes the last scenario as the feeds then update in two-hour intervals based on their last update, which was randomly scheduled. This spreads the load throughout the day. An impatient user can then override this by selecting Update All Channels or forcing an update on specific channels.

Mark Morgan.

[support]

Thanks for the feedback.

Is your machine old? What version of Windows are you using? Lots of disk space? Fast disk? Given that you've deferred indexing, performance should generally be OK. Even when I run Awasu on a laptop in low-power mode, performance is generally OK.

WRT to your suggestion about introducing a random element, we tried that a while ago and found that it confused people. It worked OK at first but then people whould shut down Awasu for the night and when they started it again the next day, all the channels would be due for an immediate update and the random element was lost. If we re-introduced a random element again at startup, people wondered why their channels wouldn't update straight after starting Awasu Can't please all of the people all of the time I'm definitely open to other suggestions to re-introduce this random element since I think it could work well.

[support]

Thanks for the feedback.

Is your machine old? What version of Windows are you using? Lots of disk space? Fast disk? Given that you've deferred indexing, performance should generally be OK. Even when I run Awasu on a laptop in low-power mode, performance is generally OK.

WRT to your suggestion about introducing a random element, we tried that a while ago and found that it confused people. It worked OK at first but then people whould shut down Awasu for the night and when they started it again the next day, all the channels would be due for an immediate update and the random element was lost. If we re-introduced a random element again at startup, people wondered why their channels wouldn't update straight after starting Awasu Can't please all of the people all of the time I'm definitely open to other suggestions to re-introduce this random element since I think it could work well.

[markmorgan]

I use it on two machines. I notice the problem mostly on my work machines as that one gets used the most. I do notice problems on my home machine also but not as pronounced.

Work = Pentium 4, 1.7GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD (29GB free), W2K SP4, corporate T1 LAN behind a firewall
Home = Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 120GB HD, XP SP1, on a 1M Broadband connection

Mark.

[markmorgan]

I use it on two machines. I notice the problem mostly on my work machines as that one gets used the most. I do notice problems on my home machine also but not as pronounced.

Work = Pentium 4, 1.7GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD (29GB free), W2K SP4, corporate T1 LAN behind a firewall
Home = Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 120GB HD, XP SP1, on a 1M Broadband connection

Mark.

[support]

The 40 Gb drive is probably somewhat old and slow...

[support]

The 40 Gb drive is probably somewhat old and slow...