improper Closing

[Remus_of_Rome]

Version: 1.20

Internet: Cable

Using Cable Modem and Linksys WRT54G Wireless G Router: A port is open for Bitcomet (I'm hardwired in at 100MB/s (shouldn't mater for this problem)

OS: XP SP3 (Up to date as of April 15th)

Antivirus: McAfee (Up to date as of April 16th)

With the exception Bitcomet version and OS not much else should be needed, though if any aditional information is needed please ask.

The Problem I am having is Bitcomet improperly shutting down. When I tell it to exit it prompts me whether I want it to close with tasks running. I click "yes", however, the client remains open. I try 3-4- more times to close and it still won't. The only way it will close is if I tell it to exit and then manually shutdown all of my active (uploading or downloading) torrents then it will shut down by itself like it should when I click the exit with processes running button. This problem has been persisting for the last 2 weeks though I have had this version of bitcomet longer.

[greywizard]

V.1.20 indeed seems to take a long time to close down, for me as well.

But then again I have around 86 tasks in my Task List and around 60 running at all times. BitComet theoretically has to write in the .xml files for each running task the exact status of the task, so that it would know where to pick up when it starts again. Nevertheless, it shouldn't take forever as it does many times.

How many running tasks (downloading + seeding) do you usually have in your Task List when this occurs?

[Remus_of_Rome]

I am currently running 15 normally but the problem started when I was running 11.

Also one other probably related bug that happened literally right before this started is it took the torrents forever to start up. Basically I would start 1 new task it works ok, I try to add a second and it doesn't add it for almost 30mins. Thought if I try and add the task again it says "it is already in the history do I want to overwrite?". I say yes and it still has the same problem. However, if I restart Bitcomet, the task is not in the task list (still missing), but now when I try to start up the torrent it works without question.

I have Bitcomet set to automatically allocate file space for the files to be downloaded, but my harddrive has more than enough room for any torrent I download.

[gavin.wang]

can't shut down？Could you tell me whether the grey icon on status bar？ If you see the grey icon,Please wait a moment.

[Remus_of_Rome]

I'm well aware of the "disk busy please wait" gray icon but that isn't there. The icon remains the orange color it normally is and goes about its business continuing to upload and download until I begin to stop active torrents.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Remus_of_Rome (see edit history)

[Remus_of_Rome]

Just wanted to mention this problem seems to have worked itself out and bit comet has been closing fine for the past week now.

If I had to take a guess as to the cause of the problem, it was more likely a virus than a bug since it fixed itself after switching to a new virus software (McAfee to Norton) and Norton has been catching a lot more than McAfee did.

[kluelos]

I haven't seen this at all, myself. I have seen the "disk busy" notice a LOT more often than with older versions -- indeed, I don't recall ever seeing it before 1.18 or so. I think you should probably look for an external cause. If you don't have Process Explorer yet, you should get it. It's freeware from sysinternals.com and is a lot more useful that Task Manager. When your system goes off into one of these long delays, you can use it to see which process is really soaking up all the cycles. That'll tell you whether it's BitComet or something else. Either way, that's good to know.

[Remus_of_Rome]

had this problem again on the newest version 1.21, however, I think I figured out the cause of the problem. I am now using a different computer than before, and I have had the same problem. I think what was causing this wasn't a bug of any sort it was a lack of cache to work with. Recently whenever I close I always check the disk cache. If it is low on space I have the problem, if I have more than enough to work with it closes without any sort of problems. and also I find I am having it occur much less often after I increased the amount of disk cache it can use.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

This could be the sign of a badly fragmented harddrive, or a harddrive or file system error. Having the larger cache, the closing of your tasks are saved and executed from the cache, but if there is no cache, bitcomet must wait for all the harddrive tasks to complete before the gui can close.

Increasing the cache could be simply a bandaid repair if this is correct. I'd recommend you scan your drive/s for errors then do a defrag. Also make sure there is adequate free space.

[Remus_of_Rome]

My hard drive on both computers are set to defragment by themselves ever week, they haven't had over 4% fragmentation in a long time when ever I manually check. Also I find it difficult to believe there is a file system error on a fresh install of an OS with a full reformat. and to have the problems on both computers.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

It's our job to tell you possible causes, yours to test and/or rule them out, since its your computer and only you know of it's maintenance history.

I offered this as a possible cause for you, and other users reading this thread. When bitcomet exits with tasks running, it will attempt to send messages to the trackers and save all config files. If the harddrive is busy, the tasks will get put into cache and the gui will close. Since you report this problem only occurs when the cache is exhausted, then it would seem that the saving of the files on the harddrive is being delayed. This can be caused by low system resources, a harddrive that is functioning normally, but busy with other tasks, or a sign of problems developing or impending.

If you have ruled out this as a cause, then ignore my advice.

[Remus_of_Rome]

You might be onto something now that I look a little closer because I seem to be having an unusually high number of cache faults with the number of faults/second remained over 100/s and up to 300/s for almost 30 seconds. I'll be running a disk check later but first I need to modify some computer settings so, I'll post those as soon as I can.

Update: I ran a disk check on both hard drives and I double check the fragmentation and there are no problems on either drive according to the check disk and The fragmentation on the OS drive was 5% which isn't bad and on the drive I save everything to had 0% fragmentation.

[kluelos]

Did you try rebuilding your swap file?

[Remus_of_Rome]

I'm going to have to say no, on the grounds I don't know what that is.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

fragmentation on the OS drive was 5% which isn't bad

I have to disagree with that. I would defrag the drive asap. Not saying it is your cause, but having 5% of your data scattered all over on your main operating system drive is going to hurt your performance.

[kluelos]

Every modern computer OS writes pages of memory to disk when it needs to free up memory for other uses, then reads them back in when it needs to. The disk structure it uses for this is called a "swap" or "page" file, and its performance is critical. If it becomes corrupt this has very serious consequences for the system.

This is, well, pretty basic stuff. If you don't know it, you probably shouldn't attempt to judge what is or isn't needful or effective, because you don't have the basic knowledge you need to make those calls.

If an application won't do a normal, orderly shutdown in a timely fashion, then it's encountering serious problems along the way. Typically, when there are low-level disk problems, Windows' underlayments will try over and over again, not declaring failure and returning an error to the application, until the error count gets astonishingly high. This also takes a really long time. It's a holdover from the earliest versions of MS-DOS. I suspect this is what you're seeing. The system should, eventually, return an error but eventually can be a really long time. Under the circumstances I' advise you to take the machine in for service.

[Remus_of_Rome]

OK I know what a page file is, I've just never head of it referred to as a swap file and no, I have not tried rebuilding the page file I'll go ahead and try that.

Also the the OS drive is no longer fragmented. did it automatically yesterday.

rebuilt and testing to see if it makes a difference.

Edited June 25, 2010 by Remus_of_Rome (see edit history)

[The UnUsual Suspect]

The term "swap file" predates microsoft's term "pagefile". Back when all microsoft operating systems needed additional drivers/software to address ram memory in excess of 640k, operating systems like Linux required swapfiles equal to the size of installed ram to function. Microsofts inclusion of this technology was anything but straightforward. In most cases, the "swap files" were temp files that were created as needed, and if no continuous harddrive space was available, then you ended up with a fragmented swap file. Most (if not all) Linux operating systems require a unique harddrive partition to use as swap space, but microsoft continues to jam everything into the same partition.

When I build a computer, I use multiple partitions on my harddrive. One is used exclusively for my swapfiles, one for data storage, and usually at least two more for installing operating systems. I normally install the windows version I'm using twice. This gives me an alternate OS to boot to if the first needs to be repaired/scanned/ect.

On my own computer, I have several windows versions installed as well as Linux.

[Remus_of_Rome]

Also to be honest I have yet to touch my page file for the most part, I think its usage has sat around 200ish MB 300, when I'm running bit comet. I have 6 GB of ram and I have yet to see more than 3GB used.

Also on a separate note when I rebuilt it I went from system managed, grows and shrinks based on need up to a point, to a static 9GB of page file available at all times.

Edited June 25, 2010 by Remus_of_Rome (see edit history)

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Windows adjustable pagefile system wasn't a very good idea in my opinion. Basically it's only good point is that it frees up disc space if the page file isn't needed, but if disc space is that scarce, then your surely going to have a badly fragmented pagefile when it's needed.

Setting a perm pagefile as you did is a very good idea, assuming you have the free disc space. Going one step further and putting it in it's own partition would be even better, but as long as it was made using unfragmented disc space, then it should be fine.

[greywizard]

I have 6 GB of ram and I have yet to see more than 3GB used.

I hope you are well aware of the fact that unless you're using a 64 bit version of Windows, your system kernel won't ever be able to access more than 3+ GB of memory, no matter how much physical memory you have installed.

By 3+ GB I mean an amount between 3GB and 4GB.

Since the total addressable memory space by 32bit processors is 4GB you have to subtract from that the size of the memory available on your video card and on the rest of the plug-in cards available in your system (which have to use the same address space) in order to find out the maximum amount of RAM your system will be able to use at any time.

The rest just sits there waisted, since your system can't access it. So, I do hope you're using a 64bit OS to go along with your 6GB of memory.

In case you don't and you need a deeper look into it here's just a good start as any:

Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?

Memory Limits for Windows Releases

This is more or less off-topic, but I was just checking.

[Remus_of_Rome]

I'm in no shortage of disk space I have 2.5TB hooked up to this computer directly and a FTP server which has another 2 TB hard drive.

But yeah the adjustable page file was a bad idea since in order to adjust said page file it requires even more resources when they are already in short supply.

Also in 2 shutdowns I haven't had any problems.

I am well aware of these things I have an A+ cert and have just been hired for a network admin position next year at my university. the new computer is Windows 7 64bit.

Edited June 26, 2010 by Remus_of_Rome (see edit history)