Hello, got these errors while recording quite a bit of stuff at the same time Buffer for XXXXX chX.1 is more than XX% full. I'm using one of the recommended WD 2tb USB3 2.5" drive. Quick search of the forums found an old article I was running out of HDD performance or maxing out the USB port speed. I was recording four long shows(Olympics) and noticed it was also doing a show re-index as well as commercial detection on a auto race. The CPU load averages were in the 20s(never seen them that high). Everything seemed to have recorded fine, but the UI and trying to watch a recording was super slow(told family to not use the app until the recordings were done). Is there an option to say make commercial detection wait/pause? I'm looking at an M.2 Sata drive, but figure the next bottleneck will be the USB 3.0 port speed; so having a way to prioritize/pause/defer processes would be ideal. Thanks.
No there is not a way to do that I don’t believe. My server also had some issues trying to keep up with the Olympics. I ended up doing some maintenance and adding more RAM to give it some more horsepower going forward, but I know with the Pi that’s not really an option. It seems like the disk is the bottleneck for you, so going to a faster disk might give you the additional performance you’re looking for.
Any chance your Thread Count is > 1? I would change it to 1 if not.
A 20 load, though, likely means something is sitting in iowait (i.e. waiting on your disk) - are you absolutely sure you're plugged into USB3?
Thanks for the feedback. I started with a PC "server", but feel it's too much wattage to dedicate to a DVR. I was going towards a Proxmox/Docker based setup, but stability issues pushed me towards getting a bunch of Pi's. Made more sense to dedicated them to single use-cases/tasks. While I know the Pi based DVR had limitations, be good to have a feature enhancement to limit tasks so it would not over-run the Pi's capabilities.
@tmm1 how about a feature enhancement? 
Be nice to select a recording to not do commercial detection. Long live recording commercial skip a waste of resources. The auto race I was recording, the commercial would run in a window and the live race was still going on in the background. So really no reason to do a commercial detection on this kind of recording. Also an option to do commercial detection overnight. Figure do this during low usage times. I can wait a day for commercial skipping. Thanks.
Hancox, I have Commercial detection set to one core only and drive is in the USB3 slot. I've recorded four hour-long shows at the same time in the past with no issues. It appears I had over 7 activities running: 4 long recordings, indexing a long auto race, commercial detection of that auto race, and a "re-index" of a post auto race show. I tried trashing the auto race to try to force it to stop commercial detection. it deleted(checked in Samba too) but the log still stated it was still running commercial detection. I was able to trash the shorter post show and that seemed to have stopped commercial detection on that right away.
I only noticed when the race I was watching got very buggy when I was fast forwarding. That is when I went to the UI to investigate. I know the Pi is underpowered compared to a PC/Mac, so a way to limit/pause/delay what process are running would help.
There are two options I can think of that will currently work.
- Disable commercial detection in settings and do it manually per recording (you can queue them up)
- Disable commercial detection on certain channels
Thanks. I was thinking of turning Comskip off but then you have to use the API to enable per manual recordings? What about season pass recordings? Would not be user friendly for the Family though.
Do like the second option to disable comskip on PBS and certain sports channels, but that would not work well for OTA broadcast channels for the few long recordings I would want to turn-off comskip for but keep comskip for tv series.
Just to be clear, very happy with Channels DVR running on a Pi. No way the Family would have allowed me to cut the cord(and save money) without Channels DVR. Just hit a worst case scenario and would love to avoid the few times a year this could happen.
You could either select Rededect Commercials per recording (they'll get queued up) or use the API to do it (which does the same thing) if you know the Recording FileID (1075 in example below).
curl -XPUT http://127.0.0.1:8089/dvr/files/1075/recomskip
Yah, if you disbable commercial detection in settings, nothing will get comskipped unless you manually do it. I would vote for a setting in passes to enable/disable comskip for that passes recordings.
You can also set it per show, but only for those you've already recorded at least once.
that looks suspiciously like the indexing job would be at fault - I've recorded a ton of things at once and never come close to that load.
Was the reindex triggered manually?
Hancox, everything was automatic. I only went to the UI after I was having issues watching the recording while all those recordings/processes were running. Since so many things were recording, I did not want to reboot the Pi. I never rebooted the Pi and everything is running normally again. I assume with all those processes running, it caused the race condition I experienced. I don't recall triggering a reindex, but I was trying to stop processes and may have caused it. I understand a re-index happens depending on the stream format if I read an older forum post correctly.
having a really tough time with getting ssh access. I've followed countless guides with no success. is this something that can just be enabled in future builds? or can I use the console to run commands like normal? trying to install Tailscale.
Try this post, if you haven't already, then let me know where it falls over
Has anyone used this USB to SATA adapter from UCTRONICS: https://www.uctronics.com/uctronics-ssd-mounting-plate-for-raspberry-pi-1u-rackmount-compatible-with-all-2.5-ssd,.html I have enough Pi's to rackmount them now. 2TB 2.5 SSD drives a little cheaper compared to M.2 Sata sticks.
Video I found on how the drive bracket works:
I have the exact same question. Any updates?
Same question how do we run the Argon Script
This was already answered in the other thread you already posted to, a few posts up.
No. The os that the image is based off (HomeAssistant)does not support the things needed to make that work.
Install the normal raspian os and install channels on that.
makes sense. thanks!
Which OS for the 4PI you recommend? Thanks!!!
The official Pi OS (Raspbian OS) works well.
The Lite version (headless) is very good for always on sever setup.
That is what I use on my other Pi's that do other things..
There also is DietPi OS, that I have heard good things about.
Very nice wizard and easy graphical system to install other software's that is optimized for the os.
Personally, if you are only wanting to use the Pi as a Channels DVR server, use the Channels Image and a good usb3.0 hard drive (SSD works best, like a Samsung T7) and a good case that has a fan. There are many on Amazon. I use this case
The Argon case is kinda finicky, and best for use with more advanced setups with the Pi, in my experience when i tried it, ended up returning it. Bulky as case, and Didn't like the idea of using m.2 type drive setup anyway. M.2 can get kinda hot. Seems to me better to use a direct usb3.0 drive as the intended setup is designed for best stability and performance.
Wow 
thanks a lot for the info.
The case that you got, looks really good.
Appreciated
Hector