[Android Apps and Games] Briain:
Thumbnail caching when using on LAN

Hi

Summary

I have found an odd issue and thought I'd better mention it. I have installed BubbleUPnP Server on both an Intel Qnap and an ARM Qnap. In both cases, I'm using it to function as a Proxy for MinimServer and thus create small thumbnails when browsing on my control points (on the LAN). With the Intel Qnap, BubbleUPnP Server caches the thumbnails (as expected), but on the ARM Qnap, the cache system is not working. It worked briefly, then stopped (I'll explain that below).

Note that I have 38,000 FLAC files and use only embedded art (maximum size I use is 800 pixels at jpg compression of about 8); most are between 500 and 600 pixels.

In detail

The reason I was investigating this is that whilst all the other control points seemed really fast, Songbook Lite (a UPnP control point with the Linn extensions) was taking ages to initially build its thumbnail cache (it caches them on the iThing). It was many times slower than when using the full sized images served directly from MinimServer (or Twonky). Rather than interrupting service on my main Intel NAS, I decided to test this on my ARM NAS to see if it was calling thumbnails (by seeing whether BubbleUPnP was caching them) or just requesting full sized images. I installed Bubble Server on the ARM NAS and found nothing was being cached, so I rebooted it and tried again; sure enough, the CP I first tried (Kinsky Desktop) was calling thumbnails and Bubble was caching them. I then tried Songbook and it cached more images; all looked well.

I was curious that some were 160 (ish) pixels where many were 200 (exactly) pixels and some were even more. So I decided to test the CP's individually to see if Songbook was overriding the 160 pixel default thumb size as set in the Bubble conf file. To do this I used SSH to empty the cache folder (again) and tried Kinsky Desktop; it cached them as expected. I then deleted the cache again, and tried Songbook, but this time Bubble Server didn't cache anything. I the tried other CP's (including Kinsky Desktop), but again, nothing was now being cached.

I tried several reboots, but still no caching. I then tried changing Bubble Server to proxy Twonky (as opposed to MinimServer) but that didn't change anything; still no caching. I then tried removing and reinstalling Bubble Server, but still no caching. I then tried removing Bubble Server, removing MinimServer, removing JRE, then reinstalling them; still no caching. I even tried the removal and re-installation process (of all these packages) but with a reboot after installing each part; still no caching.

I can't think of anything else to try in order to fix this. As I mentioned, it didn't work at my very first installation and required a reboot to get it caching, but after a brief period of it working, it won't cache anything at all. I can't think of anything I've done to upset it (like deleting the cache manually) and in any case, I've tried many re-installations just in case it was that (and that should have resolved any issue I'd caused).

Does anyone have any thoughts on the caching issue in the ARM NAS? The fact it didn't cache the first time but worked after a reboot, then stopped caching half way through my tests makes me wonder if it's an issue with the ARM version of BubbleUPnP Server, so I thought I'd better post this and see if anyone has any thoughts on whether I've just missed something obvious, or whether it might be a bug.

Details:

Intel NAS: Qnap TS-659 (1600 Mc/s Intel Atom)

ARM NAS: Qnap TS-219P+ (1600 Mc/s Marvell)

Both have JRE 1.7.0_06 (i.e the latest one)

Both have identical services running (only the media servers) and the same Qnap FW versions (current)

Both have Twonky and MinimServer running.

BubbleUPnP Sever version 0.6.2

All art is embedded in FLAC files (38, 000 FLAC files).

PS What would be the official way to empty the cache (say you'd updated some album covers)?

Bri

Incidentally, back to the reason why I was investigating all this in the first place, can anyone think why Songbook Lite was painfully slow to build up its first cache on the iPad? When doing that, I had previously build the Bubble Server cache by showing pages of thumbnails in Kinsky Desktop (using the albums container) so it wasn't just the Bubble server taking time to re-size images (it was actually blisteringly fast at doing that when using Kinsky Desktop to show pages of over 100 thumbnails at a time). In any case, Songbook was very fast when dealing with full sized art (some of my covers are 800 x 800 pixels, most are a mixture of 600 pixels and below).