Neutron "hanging" problems

Support questions for Neutron Player only.
StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:32 am

Hi there,

is anyone else having problems with Neutron regularly hanging for 5-6 seconds?

When I start Neutron I often get a blank screen for 5-6 seconds before I can play music; when going to the library and pressing "Albums" it hangs; when starting from the widget it hangs - sometimes even when going between different screens it hangs! It's really annoying

I don't think it's my phone because I'm using a new Galaxy S3 (nothing else is slow!) but is there an issue with the S3??

Neutron has the best sound quality by a mile so I REALLY want to keep using it, but is there any way to make it work faster??

I've tried switching all the options down to minimum CPU usage but it makes no difference.

Any suggestions or solutions would be really really appreciated!
Hope you can help!
Best,
StuPC

dmitrykos
Site Admin
Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:15 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by dmitrykos » Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:51 am

Hi StuPC!

Have you tried uninatalling Neutron, rebooting device and installing it back. Also do both Neutron versions behave similarly, NEON and standard VFP?

Are you using Power Saver mode or Neutron behaives like you described right after the installation?

What is OS version are you using, is it unofficial or stock ROM?

For example Neutron's UI is fast on my dev devices: single core SGS and dual core SGS2. In general Neutron UI is using basic graphics rendering functions which shall never cause any glitches.

Best regards,
Dmitry.

StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:10 pm

Hi Dimitry - thanks very much for getting back to me about this problem. :-)
My S3 is rooted but running stock firmware - can I use the NEON version??

I've uninstalled Neutron, restarted and installed the NEON version - Neutron definitely runs more smoothly now but still hangs on opening and when first pressing Artist or Album...

dmitrykos
Site Admin
Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:15 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by dmitrykos » Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:49 pm

> hangs on opening and when first pressing Artist or Album

If it is for the first time then it is normal (but will be improved in the future). How big is your database? Albums, Artists, approximately?... NEON version is perfectly suitable for SGS3.

StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:13 pm

Hi Dimitry - I've got about 55Gb of music on a class 10 microSD card, approx. 1800 songs. Other music players do take a second or two to catch up with album covers when I flick through their databases, but Neutron is the only one that regularly hangs. :-(
Oh, and since reinstalling yesterday the hanging has got worse again - whenever I open it there's a 4-5 second wait, and whenever I first click on Album and/or Artists it's the same. Today, it's even been hanging in the middle of playing songs (continuing to play, but unable to stop play or change screens).
Is there something strange about the way Neutron manages larger databases on the S3?? Are there any diagnostics or crash reports I can send you to help?

Best,
Stu

dmitrykos
Site Admin
Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:15 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by dmitrykos » Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:48 pm

Thank you very much for the description. This is strange that Neutron is hanging that much on your device because on my SGS2 with around 1200 songs Neutron is working really fast. There are small pauses on first enter to the lists but they are not like you described.

If you press Artists and get the same pause as for Albums then album covers shall not be the cause of the problem because for Artists section album covers are not used.

There is time consuming operation although when Neutron calculates number of albums/songs for artist, it requires access to SQL database that means access to internal storage. May be you have got slow internal storage? Then it can explain why Neutron is blocking. I already optimized some frequently used database operations by caching them into RAM, may be it worth optimizing calculation of counters as well...

Other players in majority are using standard Android's media database and it provides much simpler information and thus operations consume less CPU.

I will try to think around this area of code, how to improve situation.

StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:28 pm

Hi Dimitry - sorry, I should have said approx. 8,000 songs on my SDcard! And all my music is on an external microSD card, not in the phone's built-in memory. Could it be a problem with the SDcard?? I'll try putting a different card in tonight and see if that makes a difference - I'll let you know what happens... :-)
Best,
Stu

StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:33 pm

Hmm, OK, Dimitry, here's an interesting result - I swapped my 64Gb micro sd card for the older 32Gb version I used in my old Galaxy S2 and Neutron Player works perfectly - no more hanging.

Could it be a bad 64Gb card? Has anyone else had problems using 64Gb cards with Neutron player??
Or can anyone using a 64Gb card with Neutron on an S3 recommend it to me...? I'd be very grateful!
Best,
StuPC

StuPC
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:00 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by StuPC » Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:42 pm

Whoops - I meant 16Gb, not 32Gb! :-)

dmitrykos
Site Admin
Posts: 1914
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:15 pm

Re: Neutron "hanging" problems

Post by dmitrykos » Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:21 am

Hi StuPC! :)

Yes, SD Card real performance (not the one declared by producer on package) can be the problem as it takes much much longer to access data saved on it and may be that is the cause of all problems you had. For example, Neutron does not attempt to cache anything additional on storage and once you open Albums section the album art is taken either from image files on SD or from metadata of music files, so if SD is slow the operation will slowdown too. I made this process asynchronous but may be very slow storage affects overall system performance when file access is happening.

For example one of my SDs had internal failure and Neutron was lagging badly, when I re-formatted SD the problems disappear.

Have you tried re-formatting your SD?

Anyway, I will also try to find the ways to improve/overcome lags when SD storage is very slow.

Best regards,
Dmitry.

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