[VU+ Solo2] Confluence Skin - "Spinning ViX" - Yahoo Weather

[sigpark]

Firstly - a MASSIVE thank you to @Rossi2000 for all for the original and great work, and respectfully to the developer of the Yahoo Weather plugin, I believe the issue may be "the way and the timing of when" the plugin checks for weather updates?

So what am I referring? Since the introduction of Yahoo Weather to the Confluence skin, I have noticed some delay of 3 ->5 seconds when bringing up the info2 screen. These delays appear consistently, and are introduced after the box is dormant for about 20 minutes. They are a "niggle" but the "wait" tends to be a bit of a "spoiler" to the end user experience. The behaviour may only be a little "performance issue", however you do not see in your other @Rossi2000 skins - tested YouVix Blue and VixBMC 1080 - on exactly same build, both perfect.

I have proceeded with debug and commented out the weather plugin from the Confluence skin -
<!--panel name="2IBWeather" /--> and for good measure I have also commented out the Weather Panel section in the templates file skin_ViXBMC_1080_Common_Templates.xml. Removing the use of the Weather panel completely resolves the issue.

It appears that the Weather plugin is refreshing the data - perhaps this could be coded for background update, rather than on access?

I am a fan of @Rossi2000's work, and really do appreciate your contributions. Also to anyone that makes a contribution, so same goes to the author of the Yahoo Weather plugin, thanks

 

[twol]

Firstly - a MASSIVE thank you to @Rossi2000 for all for the original and great work, and respectfully to the developer of the Yahoo Weather plugin, I believe the issue may be "the way and the timing of when" the plugin checks for weather updates?

So what am I referring? Since the introduction of Yahoo Weather to the Confluence skin, I have noticed some delay of 3 ->5 seconds when bringing up the info2 screen. These delays appear consistently, and are introduced after the box is dormant for about 20 minutes. They are a "niggle" but the "wait" tends to be a bit of a "spoiler" to the end user experience. The behaviour may only be a little "performance issue", however you do not see in your other @Rossi2000 skins - tested YouVix Blue and VixBMC 1080 - on exactly same build, both perfect.

I have proceeded with debug and commented out the weather plugin from the Confluence skin -
<!--panel name="2IBWeather" /--> and for good measure I have also commented out the Weather Panel section in the templates file skin_ViXBMC_1080_Common_Templates.xml. Removing the use of the Weather panel completely resolves the issue.

It appears that the Weather plugin is refreshing the data - perhaps this could be coded for background update, rather than on access?

I am a fan of @Rossi2000's work, and really do appreciate your contributions. Also to anyone that makes a contribution, so same goes to the author of the Yahoo Weather plugin, thanks

I use both Bello & Confluence (2 receivers) and have not noticed any delays.

 

[sigpark]

I use both Bello & Confluence (2 receivers) and have not noticed any delays.

I will try the Bello skin - long time since I tried.

The delay I refer to is between Info and Info2 screen ONLY, and appears to be when the Yahoo weather plugin updates - my weather plugin is set to a weather station in the West of Ireland, but assume data is coming from the central Yahoo Weather server.

If the interval since accessing Info2 screen is less than about 20 mins, then there is no delay. It seems to be after a short dormant period the plugin checks the weather.

thanks

 

[judge]

If the interval since accessing Info2 screen is less than about 20 mins, then there is no delay. It seems to be after a short dormant period the plugin checks the weather.

I've noticed this too. It gets worse if you have a bad internet connection or your internet is tied up with downloads.
It also happens when you bring up the channel list & just change channels, even without a call to the second infobar.

 

[sigpark]

I've noticed this too. It gets worse if you have a bad internet connection or your internet is tied up with downloads.
It also happens when you bring up the channel list & just change channels, even without a call to the second infobar.

Thanks judge. I tend to agree with you about the "general" performance bit - I believe I see this too both with channel list and changing channels, but did not want to exaggerate what I was trying to report. I have a 4Mb broadband service - best you can get in rural West of Ireland. Additionally I do not see this behaviour with other @Rossi2000 skins.

It is because of this that I commented out the panel code in the templates file as well, instead of just the one line skin code that references the panel code.

Anybody can repeat this behaviour - There is a file in /tmp/ called yweather.xml. The script seems to check the time stamp on this file, and decides if this xml needs to be regenerated. With me I measure 6.5 seconds for the regeneration. Just rename the yweather.xml in /tmp/ file or delete it and go to into info2 screen to trigger the regeneration and you should see the delay!

 

[twol]

I love the weather in the skin, so hope that what you are seeing is a simple fix ... no wish to see the weather disappear

 

[sigpark]

I love the weather in the skin, so hope that what you are seeing is a simple fix ... no wish to see the weather disappear

Yeah - agree, it is a very nice addition. Hope that the info will help @Rossi2000 decide what best to do

 

[rossi2000]

ive encountered something once on my mutant hd2400, i seen a spinner for a few secs, thats it. curious to why i got a spinner, i checked my debug logs and it was when it downloaded the new xml, thats it, a spinner to let me know it was processing something. ive not seen it on any other machine and only the once on the mutant.

i dont see any delays opening ib and 2ib also.

 

[sigpark]

ive encountered something once on my mutant hd2400, i seen a spinner for a few secs, thats it. curious to why i got a spinner, i checked my debug logs and it was when it downloaded the new xml, thats it, a spinner to let me know it was processing something. ive not seen it on any other machine and only the once on the mutant.

i dont see any delays opening ib and 2ib also.

Hi @Rossi2000. The Vu Solo2 is pretty powerful, and the spinning only occurs after the dormant "wait" time of about 20 mins. It then consistently takes 6.5 seconds to generate the weather .xml in /tmp/. My broadband is a 4Mb service, and the kids can be watching Netflix or the like, so yours might be faster, but I am guessing that you should see the delay?

Why not delete the file called yweather.xml in /tmp/ and see what happens as you select info2 screen from info screen?

As I said, do not see any delay on ur skins that do not use weather plugin (just swapping to a new skin with all build the same), so it does look like the latency to refresh the weather data - perhaps you guys have better Broadband LOL?

thanks

 

[sigpark]

I've noticed this too. It gets worse if you have a bad internet connection or your internet is tied up with downloads.
It also happens when you bring up the channel list & just change channels, even without a call to the second infobar.

ive encountered something once on my mutant hd2400, i seen a spinner for a few secs, thats it. curious to why i got a spinner, i checked my debug logs and it was when it downloaded the new xml, thats it, a spinner to let me know it was processing something. ive not seen it on any other machine and only the once on the mutant.

i dont see any delays opening ib and 2ib also.

With respect to all developers and contributors, this forum is all about improvements. I live in the West of Ireland, and I am happy that my broadband service is 4Mb - you would be if you lived here:amen:. AND I think @rossi2000 Confluence skin is the best of all skins - IMHO - but I believe it! :trustme:

I can CATEGORICALLY say that the yWeather plugin impacts the Confluence skin performance - NO DOUBT. (probably dependent on BB capacity available to you?)

What I don't know is if it is the ViX architecture (plugin refresh timing), the yWeather plugin, my broadband performance or a combination of all?

For weather info, @rossi2000 Confluence skin effectively relies on Cloud Services (must do). @judge has noted that the "overall" skin performance is affected, this is absolutely the same for me (complete virgin build and no additional plugins). I have run ViX BMC 1080 and YouViX Blue - snappy, fast and what you would want from any skin! - great work @rossi2000 - as always. My weather station is Mayo, West of Ireland, wish it could be a sunnier location , however there are delays with the skin performance for me - and others I expect!

Anyway, I have run Confluence without the yWeather panel for the last few days and all has been good. It is important and like @judge said with the yWeather plugin enabled , I DO see quite a few other delays in the skin, even though the panel is only used on info2 screen - it's as if the whole skin data is being refreshed as you use any of the screen - EPG or Channel List, Menu etc., even though yWeather is only called on info2?

If you want to verify or try the Confluence skin performance without the Yahoo Weather plugin, you can delete the Yahoo Weather plugin BUT this is not clean and causes other issues with the skin (but it still works!). Alternatively I have attached a skin_user file for the Confluence skin, that removes yWeather, BUT leaves everything else intact and working. The skin_user file needs to be saved to root/etc/enigma2 using the same name as the attached xml file.

I do hope this is helpful - snappy and responsive performance is important from any interface. My box is a vusolo2. I had to zip the .xml to attach. The change is very simple, it removes the yWeather code from the templates file mentioned in an earlier post of this thread. Thanks!


View attachment skin_user_ViXBMC_1080_Confluence.zip

 

[judge]

The use of the plugin is the fault.
Max out your internet connection with torrent or any other downloads & the issue is easy to reproduce.
If you want to use this skin, a decent internet connection is required.

 

[sigpark]

The use of the plugin is the fault.
Max out your internet connection with torrent or any other downloads & the issue is easy to reproduce.
If you want to use this skin, a decent internet connection is required.

Much of the time the internet connection is idle, and anyway has a capacity of 4MB. That is good enough for Netflix @1080!

It would be preferable if the plug-in design would cater for varying internet capability, rather than "stall" the skin; perhaps "throttled back" background updates, rather than in "real-time", and not during EPG access or Channel up/down etc.

Really, this is a plug-in with a single panel on the info2 screen only, and it appears to impact the performance of the skin as a whole! IMHO this should not be the case. Thanks

 

[twol]

I guess my only comment is that like HD skins don't run on some boxes due to technology, this is also a technology issue and perhaps the answer is don't run it .... you cannot throttle back changes because some people for whatever reason cannot utilise because of technology restrictions.... sigpark's circumvention works fine, but don't expect everybody to rework solutions for the lowest common denominator unless it is dead easy to support all platforms

 

[judge]

I guess my only comment is that like HD skins don't run on some boxes due to technology, this is also a technology issue and perhaps the answer is don't run it ....

I noticed it first on a Solo2 on a 4g connection, then on an Ultimo & GBQuad on an Eircom 3mb connection.
Nothing to do with the tech of the box.

 

[sigpark]

I noticed it first on a Solo2 on a 4g connection, then on an Ultimo & GBQuad on an Eircom 3mb connection.
Nothing to do with the tech of the box.

I guess my only comment is that like HD skins don't run on some boxes due to technology, this is also a technology issue and perhaps the answer is don't run it .... you cannot throttle back changes because some people for whatever reason cannot utilise because of technology restrictions.... sigpark's circumvention works fine, but don't expect everybody to rework solutions for the lowest common denominator unless it is dead easy to support all platforms

I suppose I am thinking that for a single screen, providing information that only needs updating at a maximum of every ½ hour, and creates an .xml file that is 30 lines long or so as I recall, the performance degradation is a big impact. Anyway, it is great to see @rossi2000 putting the time in to develop. Perhaps the owner of yWeather can "tune" the python script, or perhaps it is how ViX is handling the skin?

Thanks very much for the input and views, and although like @twol I do like the weather feature, the quick workaround that I posted does improve the skin performance quite a lot for me.

BTW, if anyone has any ideas on how to improve this behavior, I am very happy to test.

 

[Larry-G]

Personally and yes I know this is bordering on off topic but I have always wondered why the hell people bother with weather apps on stb's, afterall if you want to know what the weather is doing just stick your bloody head out the window.

 

[twol]

Personally and yes I know this is bordering on off topic but I have always wondered why the hell people bother with weather apps on stb's, afterall if you want to know what the weather is doing just stick your bloody head out the window.

Well Yes, but I like to know what it's promising for the next few days, so that I can swear when it's usually wrong ...... or plan what I am doing for those sunny days!