high CPU usage

[pasnox]

I have since some times now an issue where my rpi5 fan would spin at 50% (loud noise) instead of 25% (no noise) every 5 or 10 minutes. Initially I thought it was related to the PVR Freebox extension which updates its guide every 5 minutes, but it's not, disabling it still has the issue.
I noticed my fan spinning fast because the RPI reached 60-62° when idling which is weird because to be honest the skin is so simple nobody can imagine that. Then I tested other skins, like the default estuary where the issue disappeared and reached a steady 54-55° when idling and no more issues.
I can't imagine a so simple skin needing so much CPU just to change every 30 secs a background image. Would you mind having a look at this issue?
As of now I returned to estuary because of the permanent noise it triggers, which is very annoying - your skin being so much good!

[pasnox]

I'm using LibreElec 64bits:
LibreELEC:~ # /usr/lib/kodi/kodi.bin --version
Kodi Media Center 21.1 (21.1.0) Git:21.1-Omega
Copyright (C) 2005-2021 Team Kodi - http://kodi.tv

[realcopacetic]

Do you know what screens it was on when it was doing this? If it was the background service that fetches fanarts, it should only be running on screens where you see the slideshow background. do you get this noise if you leave it idle in your movies folder or somewhere where the background service isn't running? You could also try disabling the clearlogo cropper in skin settings as that runs in the background. I'm trying to make some optimisations to the background fanart fetcher to make it more efficient, I'll try to push these updates out soon

[pasnox]

It would be screen agnostic, I've reproduced it everywhere.
But I may have found the issue, I have many USB powered USB devices attached to the RPI, 2 HDD one is the boot disk and a Chromecast , so it would heat a lot from there. I removed the Chromecast and it seems to reduce the heat, and then the fan noise.
I will confirm in a week or so.

[pasnox]

Ok I was wrong, USB devices are unrelated.
Tested again this morning in Idle in main page for copacetic and estuary and there is a steady ~10° difference between both.
Estuary stays around 52-54° while copacetic after 3 minutes reach a steady 61-63°.

[pasnox]

Do you know what screens it was on when it was doing this? If it was the background service that fetches fanarts, it should only be running on screens where you see the slideshow background. do you get this noise if you leave it idle in your movies folder or somewhere where the background service isn't running? You could also try disabling the clearlogo cropper in skin settings as that runs in the background. I'm trying to make some optimisations to the background fanart fetcher to make it more efficient, I'll try to push these updates out soon

While there please increase the slideshow interval, I would prefer being able to change any 10/15/30 minutes instead

[realcopacetic]

Mine will be more resource hungry than Estuary because of the extra stuff going on and the fact I don't use the standard containers for views (instead they are manually coded and animated - this is more resource-intensive, but allows for greater freedom in animations).

If you want to bring the temp down, you can disable any features you aren't using in skin settings, e.g. anything in Extras, views you don't want.

I added in 2.6.6 the longer slideshow durations. Using those might bring the temperature down as well, as Kodi won't query the database as often to fetch fanarts.

Alternatively, if you don't mind editing a file, you could remove from addon.xml the line that says

""

You may see some error messages but this will tell us if the issue is with the script running in the background or with the skin itself.

If it's the script, the two main things it's doing in the background during normal operation are clearlogo cropping (which you can disable in skin settings) and the background slideshows, which can't currently be disabled. I could make an option to disable this if it is the script, but then you'd be left with black screens

[pasnox]

If you want to bring the temp down, you can disable any features you aren't using in skin settings, e.g. anything in Extras, views you don't want.

I'm pretty much using the default setup already.
Would copacetic warn if we try to disable a view being used?

I added in 2.6.6 the longer slideshow durations. Using those might bring the temperature down as well, as Kodi won't query the database as often to fetch fanarts.

I can only see 2.6.5 in your repository.

Alternatively, if you don't mind editing a file, you could remove from addon.xml the line that says

""

You may see some error messages but this will tell us if the issue is with the script running in the background or with the skin itself.

Which addon.xml file are we speaking?

If it's the script, the two main things it's doing in the background during normal operation are clearlogo cropping (which you can disable in skin settings) and the background slideshows, which can't currently be disabled. I could make an option to disable this if it is the script, but then you'd be left with black screens

Will check, I don't want to disable the slideshow, i very like it.

[pasnox]

After verification, all things I don't use are already disabled, and clearlogo cropping is already disabled 😞
I will see when 2.6.6 will be released with longer slideshow duration

[realcopacetic]

Ok I'll try to push 2.6.6 out tonight if I have itme,

I also reduced the number of fanarts fetched from 40 to 20, hopefully that will mean a bit less stress on CPU

[pasnox]

Do you know what screens it was on when it was doing this? If it was the background service that fetches fanarts, it should only be running on screens where you see the slideshow background. do you get this noise if you leave it idle in your movies folder or somewhere where the background service isn't running? You could also try disabling the clearlogo cropper in skin settings as that runs in the background. I'm trying to make some optimisations to the background fanart fetcher to make it more efficient, I'll try to push these updates out soon

That indeed seems like the slideshow powered views that increase heat and CPU usage.
When hanging in the movie folder the CPU usage is similar to estuary

[pasnox]

So, i bumped to 2.6.7 and moved to 15minutes slideshow duration, to not get any better result.
I also disabled the import in the addon.xml file and restarted Kodi but it did not changed anything as well.
Note that even with disabling the import the slideshow would continue to work, is this expected?

[realcopacetic]

Removing that import line means the skin is now allowed to run without the script dependency. Now in addons you can disable script.copacetic.helper,

[pasnox]

So commenting the import and disabling the helper make the CPU usage lowering after restarting Kodi. So it seems the script is to incriminate.

[realcopacetic]

So commenting the import and disabling the helper make the CPU usage lowering after restarting Kodi. So it seems the script is to incriminate.

I'll try refactoring the code to see if I can figure out anything else to optimise. Have you used any of the Arctic Horizon or Arctic Fuse skins? I wonder if they have a similar footprint as they are doing many of the same things

[pasnox]

I will have a look

[realcopacetic]

Nearly finished with this. Will try and push the update in the next day or two

[pasnox]

done? which version I'm supposed to see the enhancements?

[realcopacetic]

Sorry I've not managed to finish it yet. We just had a baby which has nixxed any freetime for the moment!

[realcopacetic]

I might have a bit of time later so I'll try and finish if I can. It ended up being a bit of a rewrite of the python code, which is why it's taken longer

[realcopacetic]

Refactoring of the art handler is complete. I just need to test it a bit then will push the update

[realcopacetic]

Hi I pushed the update, please let me know if it improves anything or if you encounter any errors.

[pasnox]

Unfortunately, after intensive tests this does not help much. The CPU usage is sensibly the same.
I suppose we should close the ticket as there is pretty much nothing more you can do.