[PD] GUI overload

Ivica Bukvic ico at vt.edu
Fri Dec 21 03:30:40 CET 2012


Miller,

Pd-l2ork has this fix since your original post on the PD list and I've yet
to see any regressions. Many thanks for the suggestion. That said, I've yet
to understand the logic behind it ;-).

P.S. I also discovered quite a while ago that netreceive had a tendency to
freeze GUI permanently, likely due to asynchronous message processing. I
fixed this by enqueuing its messages and syncing them with the main PD
loop. This has been a part of pd-l2ork for over a year without a single GUI
freeze. That said, I did encounter situations where high traffic would
freeze GUI temporarily and then resume (albeit running now behind the
actual timeline as the GUI would simply resume as if nothing happened,
rather than processing all calls that have piled up since the temporary
freeze happened and for which time has already passed, e.g. having a timer
in a score that freezes and then resumes from the moment it was stuck
rather than adding seconds lost since such calls should've been enqueued
while the freeze was in effect). This may have been in part due to atom
cpus being taxed to their very limits. I've yet to see whether your
proposed fix resolves the lingering issue.

HTH

Best wishes,

Ico
On Dec 20, 2012 7:02 PM, "Miller Puckette" <msp at ucsd.edu> wrote:

> OK... I've pushed a change that seems to have fixed the
> arrays-atop-updating
> problem (at lest in the Brane example).  Not sure if I should also commit
> the
>   return (sys_domicrosleep(0, 1) || sys_poll_togui())  ---> + change
> as well (somehow I think it should never be necessary to do that but I'm
> realizing how little I understand Pd's scheduler.)
>
> cheers
> M
>
> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 12:17:35PM -0500, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> >
> > It seems that there are a number of issues here:
> >
> > * GUI objects sending every update, regardless of change (fixed)
> >
> > * arrays stop updating on Mac OS X (pinpointed) I just tested this on
> Windows, and it looks like only Mac OS X is affected
> >
> > * all GUI activity stopping related to:
> >   return (sys_domicrosleep(0, 1) || sys_poll_togui())
> >
> >
> > * GUI objects sending updates to GUI as fast as they receive them even
> tho the screen will never update faster than every ~10ms.
> >
> > * some GUI updates send lots of raw Tcl code to be parsed, compiled, and
> run in realtime
> >
> > .hc
> >
> > On Dec 20, 2012, at 5:54 AM, Ed Kelly wrote:
> >
> > > OK, well in fact the problem was not arrays updating. It was all the
> other GUI objects (sliders, mknob, num2 etc) that would freeze, and this is
> running on GNU/Linux. This was a real problem, since I could change them
> with the mouse, but the results of the change were not shown (e.g. the
> pattern-number in one of my sequencers).
> > >
> > > Changing sys_pollgui() did fix this, so perhaps what we are actually
> dealing with is two separate issues, one concerning arrays and another
> concerning the rest of the GUI.
> > >
> > > Ed
> > >>
> > >
> > >> I tracked down the commit that seems to be causing the problem that
> Porres
> > >> reported.  I think its a totally different problem related to
> Pd-0.43's new
> > >> portaudio implementation.  It does not affect GNU/Linux, which
> doesn't use
> > >> protaudio.  I haven't tested it on Windows.
> > >>
> > >>
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3573542&group_id=55736&atid=478070
> > >>
> > >> Ed, if part of your problem is arrays that stop updating and you're
> running
> > >> on Mac OS X or maybe Windows, this might also be affecting you.
> > >>
> > >> .hc
> > >>
> > >> On Dec 17, 2012, at 3:12 PM, Miller Puckette wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> OK... except that I don't know why this works yet... by which i
> mean, I
> > >>> don't think it's possible that sys_domicrosleep(0 is returning 1s
> > >> on every
> > >>> tick unless teh GUI itself is sending hundreds of messages per
> second down
> > >>> to Pd.
> > >>>
> > >>> Reducing the average volume of trafic won't solve the underlying
> > >> problem, it
> > >>> will just make it harder to recreate it :)
> > >>>
> > >>> M
> > >>>
> > >>> On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 08:00:31PM -0500, Hans-Christoph Steiner
> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I've seen similar things, like with the patches that Porres
> > >> submitted.  It
> > >>>> looks like what's happening is that when there are too many updates
> > >> being
> > >>>> sent, a lot of them get dropped.  Its pretty easy to get 250k per
> > >> second of
> > >>>> Tcl code being sent to the GUI, so we're asking a lot of the Tcl
> > >> parser and
> > >>>> compiler.  The solution is to reduce the amount of Tcl code that
> gets
> > >> sent and
> > >>>> also use Tcl procs to handle bigger chunks of stuff so that we can
> take
> > >>>> advantage of Tcl caching parsed and compiled procs.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> .hc
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On 12/16/2012 01:47 PM, Miller Puckette wrote:
> > >>>>> This is just a guess... in s_inter.c, try replacing:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> int sys_pollgui(void)
> > >>>>> {
> > >>>>>     return (sys_domicrosleep(0, 1) || sys_poll_togui());
> > >>>>> }
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> with:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> int sys_pollgui(void)
> > >>>>> {
> > >>>>>     return (sys_domicrosleep(0, 1) + sys_poll_togui());
> > >>>>> }
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> It's possible that sys_domicrosleep(0 - which polls for input
> > >> from GUI and
> > >>>>> other FDs - isn't ever returning "idle" (zero) so
> > >> that sys_poll_togui() never
> > >>>>> gets called.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I've also seen a patch's GUI stop updating, but rather than
> > >> bewail the fact
> > >>>>> that my GUI was dead, my immediate reactions was to be astonished
> > >> that the
> > >>>>> sound was still working :)
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Miller
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 01:47:43PM +0000, Ed Kelly wrote:
> > >>>>>> Hi List,
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I'm not going to say whether this is a
> > >> "recurrent" problem as it's hard to say whether the rewrite of the
> > >> GUI has affected it...
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I'm using a lot of abstractions with larger GOP or non-GOP
> > >> GUIs, and I find the following problem occurs. There comes a point
> where the GUI
> > >> objects stop responding in a patch when it is reloaded. I am
> wondering if there
> > >> is a specific limit to GUI objects that could be changed. I think Pd
> is making
> > >> some kind of decision that "there's too much of this stuff - I'm
> > >> gonna prioritize the audio and not worry about it" and I'd like to
> know
> > >> how or if it is possible to control this process from within Pd, or
> by setting
> > >> flags on the command line.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I'm also making less GUI intensive versions for performance
> > >> time, since the really big GUI patches are often pattern-sequencers
> which I will
> > >> not want to program when I am performing. Example patch enclosed to
> give you an
> > >> idea. The really GUI-intensive objects are the trackers, especially
> quadtracker
> > >> (which I think has pushed the GUI of Pd patches about as far as I can
> go now).
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> System: quad core i5 PC running Ubuntu (10.04 Lucid),
> > >> Pd-0.43-4, lots of externals compiled and loaded.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Warm wishes,
> > >>>>>> Ed
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Gemnotes-0.2: Live music notation for Pure Data, now with
> > >> dynamics!
> > >>>>>> http://sharktracks.co.uk/
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> _______________________________________________
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