disk cache is not working

[blackps]

disk cache is not working on 1.26 see pic.

Windows 7 x86 SP1

[greywizard]

Could you be more incomprehensible?

If you took the time to take a screenshot and upload it here, why not take a few more seconds to actually explain what you want to say?

[blackps]

Could you be more incomprehensible?

If you took the time to take a screenshot and upload it here, why not take a few more seconds to actually explain what you want to say?

You are joking right? i have set disk cache to 300 mb ( to load in RAM memory ) and it's loading in memory 600 MB. Doesn't the pic say it all ?

Edited January 31, 2011 by blackps (see edit history)

[greywizard]

Actually, what the picture says is that BitComet is using 593MB of RAM. I doesn't say at all that those 593MB are all cache memory. I don't know how you arrived to that conclusion, hence my previous post.

Following your line of logic it would mean that if you set the max cache size to 0MB then Task Manager should indicate 0MB memory use for the BitComet process. As if the executable doesn't use memory for anything else but cache.

At this point if you can complain about anything at all, you could complain that it used too much of your memory. But from this single screenshot there is no evidence that all that memory is being used for cache. Nor at least, how much of it is being used as cache.

I'm not denying any possible issue, just saying that your picture doesn't support your statement.

[blackps]

Actually, what the picture says is that BitComet is using 593MB of RAM. I doesn't say at all that those 593MB are all cache memory. I don't know how you arrived to that conclusion, hence my previous post.

Following your line of logic it would mean that if you set the max cache size to 0MB then Task Manager should indicate 0MB memory use for the BitComet process. As if the executable doesn't use memory for anything else but cache.

At this point if you can complain about anything at all, you could complain that it used too much of your memory. But from this single screenshot there is no evidence that all that memory is being used for cache. Nor at least, how much of it is being used as cache.

I'm not denying any possible issue, just saying that your picture doesn't support your statement.

Oh , i have uninstalled 1.26 and installed 1.25 and set it exactly like the previous one,it will not load more then 350MB in memory if i set maximum to 300 MB , try it yourself and tell me if there is a bug in 1.26 or not. 300 Is the maximum cache and like 24-50MB it's used by BitComet please give it a try and let me know if you agree or not. Something is not good why in 1.25 will not go over 350MB if i set cache to 300MB and in 1.26 it will reach even 600 MB , how come? this is the question.

[greywizard]

OK, let's try to narrow this down a little.

1. How many tasks are running when this happens (high memory usage)?

2. Are any of them downloading (or just seeding)?

3. If yes at what speed?

4. What is your connection's maximum download speed?

5. What is the amount of memory used by BitComet on your system if you start it with no task running at all (all tasks in the stopped state)?

Unfortunately, I'm using XP SP3 and on it there doesn't seem to be any similar behavior for v.1.26; I've set the max cache size to 200MB and even when downloading BitComet uses around 100-110MB (with one downloading task). It peaked at around 150MB but dropped back quickly. So the program's memory footprint+cache is below the set maximum on my system.

I'll have to try it with multiple downloading tasks to see how high it goes.

[blackps]

I had only one task downloading like 600KB/s but my max speed is like 6-7MB/s ,with all tasks stopped it uses from what i see like 15MB

[greywizard]

Ooops. Totally forgot about that, but you should be able to see the amount of RAM used for cache at any point by looking on the Statistics tab (in the lower area).

Posting a screenshot of that tab, at a moment when it exceeds your set limit, should be a clear enough proof of BC stepping out of its bounds, so that when the team came back they could add this on their to-do list.

[blackps]

Ooops. Totally forgot about that, but you should be able to see the amount of RAM used for cache at any point by looking on the Statistics tab (in the lower area).

Posting a screenshot of that tab, at a moment when it exceeds your set limit, should be a clear enough proof of BC stepping out of its bounds, so that when the team came back they could add this on their to-do list.

Ok i'll give it a try and let you know,thank you.

[blackps]

There is a new problem , in the statistics tab disk cache is not indicating very good how much it uses,look at windows task manager and statistics tab disk cache.

[greywizard]

OK, this will be forwarded to the team, as soon as they return.

[blackps]

OK, this will be forwarded to the team, as soon as they return.

ok thank you.

[Lucy26]

Thank you for the bug report, the development team will work on the problem. :)

[Soloir]

no he is right, I came looking for this problem today. I used BitComet for I dont know maybe 8 years. Usually I can 4 torrents going at the same time with up and down speeds of about 3000KB each and reasonable disk activity.

I now installed 64bit Windows 7 and Bitcomet and the disks are working like crazy lowing my systems capacity to 1200KB up and down.

So I thought, I up the disk cache to 500MB did not help, I set minimum to 500MB which did not help, I removed the tick in the options that that BitComet can choose how much to use. Then I restarted BitComet incase the application got crazzy. Then I started ONE torren and within one minute the activity was high again. If you only got ONE torrent the disk should only be accessed a little.

So clearly it is accessing the disk the whole time not using memory at all.

UNIX specialist, systemsprogrammer, database admin, Cisco CCNA network admin ( if that helps greywizard to believe what I am writing )

And I am also incompetent at windows since I hate the OS. But I need to play games and watch movies.

Does this have something to do with Windows 7??

[Soloir]

can be something with the strategy inside bitcomet. I increased the cache to 1GB and now it is silent. I wonder why. Movies are large, but you need a really crazy spread on the requests. I still don't get it, from full disk activity to near 0.

wait .... I go back down in size now ... 900 OK, 800 OK ......400 OK (?) .... 300 here the problems start again. And the change is dramatic.

Is it something with the specific torrent I am in? Too much spread in which part of the image is requested from peers? Can't bitcomet have some configuration option that gives you the choice how long bitcomet is forced too keep cached pages? And that you have two caches. One to slow down writes, and one for reads and this one can borrow from the write cache. But that no requests from peers will be able to page in new data pushing out older which immeditaley has to paged in again until that data has been in the cache for time.

You can at least delay answering that peer. And if you don't answer the peer the torrent system may slow you down but I think the choice should be the users. Needing to have above 500GB cache when you at the same time play modern games on the same rig might not be room for that.

One can always put in 8GB of RAM but should I have to?

and as I finnish this text the disk is now calm with a cache of 300 hundred. And I now see why .... BitComet crashed. As it has done 3 times the last 24 hours.

And that happens when a task is finnished. Yesterday I started 10 tasks, I ordered BitComet to only work with 4 at a time. When I woke up this morning all had been downloaded successfully but the others were not started, instead bitcomet had crashed. So I started one and bitcomet crashed but the task was completed. So I started 4 and noticed the disk activity, fixed the cache size and it did not help then down to one task and it didn't help so that is why I am here. And before I finnish this post it crashed again but the task is completed.

I guess I will have to live with 1GB cache and have about max 3 torrents at a time. I just rember that I was able to get away with much less resources.

You sure this doesn't have anything to do with 64bit Windows 7?

[The UnUsual Suspect]

You can't judge disc usage by observing the noise it makes. windows itself will move data from memory to page file constantly, unrelated to bitcomet, but as far as the bitcomet tasks, if you want them to run fully within the disc cache, the it could be necessary to use a disc cache size equal to the size of all running tasks. This isn't what most users want though, so the disc cache is designed to hold the most requested data, but other less requested data will constantly be accessed from the disc.

You didn't specify which bitcomet version your using, but our 64bit version supports a disc cache of upto 16gB. All 32bit apps (not just bitcomet) are limited to 2gB of ram and if you come close to maxing that out, it can make bitcomet unstable, so if you want to use large disc cash, then you really should install the 64bit version.

Keep in mind that if you assign a very large disc cache, bitcomet will need to use more ram to run the program too.

Also, it sounds strange that your download speed is reduced to 1200kB/s due to disc speed. Without disc cache I can download at my max download speed setting of 2500kB/s without disc overload. I would check if your disc is fragmented, perhaps that's effecting performance. You can also use flash memory to increase performance in win7. I use Intel turbo ram for this on mine, but any fast flash card or usb device should do.

[greywizard]

Well, I also believed the other user as soon as he managed to provide some sensible data, didn't I? ;)

So why wouldn't I believe you?

Can you send in a PM any of those torrents, to one of us?

I would try to run them on XP to see what results I get.

Anyhow, if it is to be used like a bug report your post should definitely contain the BitComet version you're running and the Windows version.

Then some more detailed data on your system's setup (hardware and software) would probably help.

Then thing with bugs is that in order to trap and debug them you have to be able to reproduce them. Which means very often that you must be able to reproduce the exact conditions which make them manifest. For instance on my system I set the max cache size to 400MB while leaving the min to 50 and when BC downloads to the full speed of my connection (2.5MB/s) I don't see any frantic disk activity.

If fact with 2-3 downloading tasks, maxing out my connection, the cache stays somewhere between 150-200MB and my external HDD (WD Caviar 7200RPM, 32MB cache) connected through USB is quite quiet. So, in my opinion you shouldn't need anything above 500MB in order to have a quite HDD at 3MB/s download speed. Probably below that.

So, telling us what type of disk you use (RPM, cache size, alone or in RAID, internal or external and if external connected by what port type, etc.) would be some valuable info in attempting to reproduce similar conditions with yours.

Also is there anything else installed on your system, such as a security suite, or HIPS+ app which may interfere with the writing/reading process (some resident modules of security applications at times cause a lot of supplementary disk/processor activity and may consume additional memory while trying to monitor all the files which are written on HDD and scan them in real-time, thus forcing a lot of swapping in Windows.

What I'm saying is that you need to narrow this down as much as possible and determine beyond any doubt that is BitComet alone who does this, and that it's not just a victim of the process. So, if you have anything of that type it might be a good test to disable the thing, restart Windows (to make sure the resident module is unloaded) and then run the same test again.

Have you looked at the cache size reported by BitComet when you HDD goes berserk? What does it show?

Does its cache usage readings look consistent with what Task Manager displays as amount of memory used by BitComet?