"Run in Background" in Beta 6

In Beta 6, we're testing a new feature in the Indexer: in Windows Vista and later, we will take advantage of a new OS feature to really perform indexing in the background. (Technical details: On all OSes we already reduce thread priority, but it's the high disk usage that makes the system feel unresponsive. We now use PROCESS_MODE_BACKGROUND_BEGIN to drop the Indexer's I/O priority and give other applications access to the hard disk.)

To activate "background mode", right click the Indexer icon and choose "Run in background". If you do this, we'd like to know two things:

Does it make your system feel faster/more responsive? (We're just asking for a subjective impression here, but if you want to run some kind of benchmark, you can.) Was playing audio/video choppy before, but smooth now? (Note: it may not be an instant change when choosing the menu item; existing tasks may take 10-30 seconds to complete before everything is running in the background; similarly, it may not go back to full speed as soon as the menu item is unchecked.)
Does the indexing complete in a reasonable amount of time if it's running in the background? Anti-virus, defrag, backup, desktop search, and all other programs will be given a chance to run before the OS allows the Logos 4 Indexer to proceed. This can dramatically reduce its performance. On some test machines here, it was (based on existing progress) looking like it would take almost a week to index a large library (we didn't let it run to completion); since the indexer restarts if you reboot the computer, this doesn't seem very good.
Is the tradeoff of system responsiveness for increased indexing time worth it? What if it were more automatic (e.g., background mode between 8am and 10pm, foreground mode overnight)?

Find more posts tagged with

Performance

Comments

Jacob Hantla

I did not have a problem with the slowdowns so much on my faster computer (where indexing would take less than a day), but it was on my netbook where I would want to run the indexing in the background. But as it is, it would take 2-3 days to index (longer if I had to put the computer on hibernate for a long time for transport). To put it on background and continue to use it would then likely take 1-2 weeks (depending on hibernation time). That's a very long time without a restart. My gut feeling is that this solution will only be truly effective if the issue of not allowing a restart is resolved as well.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18602#Comment_18602

it was on my netbook where I would want to run the indexing in the background.

Most netbooks still run XP, too, where this feature is not available. (It will be available in Windows 7, which I expect to become standard for new netbooks.)

Jason

Is the tradeoff of system responsiveness for increased indexing time worth it? What if it were more automatic (e.g., background mode between 8am and 10pm, foreground mode overnight)?

This seems like a good idea. However I think it would be good if there was a reminder that it has not yet finished indexing if you try to close Logos and ask if you want this overnight mode to kick in. Some system of reminder needs to be in place otherwise we just end up in reindexing mode because the computer was turned off!

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18610#Comment_18610

Good point Bradley.

Dave Hooton

To activate "background mode", right click the Indexer icon and choose "Run in background". If you do this, we'd like to know two things:

I didn't take up the option this time on my Win 7 desktop, but if I take up the option to re-index I may do so!!?

Is this nag the price we have to pay for partial indexing? If I hit that link accidentaly I will not be a happy chappy!

Could it not be placed as an item in the Tools menu instead?

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18718#Comment_18718

To activate "background mode", right click the Indexer icon and choose "Run in background". If you do this, we'd like to know two things:

I didn't take up the option this time on my Win 7 desktop, but if I take up the option to re-index I may do so!!?

Is this nag the price we have to pay for partial indexing? If I hit that link accidentaly I will not be a happy chappy!

Could it not be placed as an item in the Tools menu instead?

I had tp go to the office while indexing still worked, so I stopped it for 4 hours and the icon disappeared. Not showed again. I tried to start indexing on my own, but I did not find the way. After 4 hours it did not start also. Than I tried to do search and I saw the announcement Dave is speaking about. I hit this and now the indexing started from the very beginning.

My question is, is this what it should be? When the announcement in Searches is shown? Only if indexing was not successful? Or incomplete?

Mark Smith

Does it make your system feel faster/more responsive?

Yes it does. Instead of making everything drag, the system is about as responsive as when there is no indexing going on.

Does the indexing complete in a reasonable amount of time if it's running in the background?

After updating and starting indexing (it said I had a 1.2 GB download), Logos 4 did not open for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The 'Preparing Your Library" notice was displayed during that time.

This is a long time not to be able to use Logos 4 but I don't know how it compares to the time I'd have waited without using background indexing.

Logos finished the indexing countdown of my approx. 2500 resources in just over 2 hours and 45 minutes. Additonal idexing continued for another 10 mintes, so under 3 hours for the whole job.

Is the tradeoff of system responsiveness for increased indexing time worth it? What if it were more automatic (e.g., background mode between 8am and 10pm, foreground mode overnight)?

Right now I'd say yes to the first question. The only concern is not being able to access Logos 4 at all during this indexing time. Perhaps that's another issue, but I'd like to be able to access the program even if indexing isn't complete.

As long as the user could set the automatic setting (whether on or off and if on at what times) I'd say yes. Otherwise leave the option associated with the icon in the tray.

Darryl Burling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18815#Comment_18815

I ran the update in the background on my Netbook (which incidentally has an SSD Drive - which will make a difference if the process is IO bound), and is also running Windows 7. The system was available very quickly. I was surprised at how fast it was.

On my UMPC - slower CPU and HDD - it seems much slower - but I didn't select the background option there (oops).

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18815#Comment_18815

One other note. After indexing was complete and Logos 4 was open it stayed open to a blank layout (I chose for it not to open to the Home Page). It did not attempt to open the last layout. Perhaps this is due to the upgrade to beta 6.

Also, I just closed L4 without using it at all and it didn't not close normally. After some time I got a Windows generated error message saying the program had not closed normally. Don't know if this is connected with the background indexing but thought I should report it.

I then rebooted and reopened L4. It is working fine.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18815#Comment_18815

After updating and starting indexing (it said I had a 1.2 GB download), Logos 4 did not open for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The 'Preparing Your Library" notice was displayed during that time.

If this was similar to my experience, Preparing your Library was quite long just after updating to B6. When the 1.2 GB download completed there was only 7 resources to be indexed and that did not take long! That initial Preparation (actually Stage 1 and 2, no indexing) will not be repeated.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18937#Comment_18937

Now I'm puzzled. For some reason after this afternoon's installation and indexing I opened a search window and saw the yellow warning I needed to index. So I did, figuring it was a few resources. After all it had just gone through an indexing. I checked after it started and was surprised to see it was reindexing the whole library.

I put it in background and came back five hours later and only about 45 resources had been indexed. I took it out of background mode.

Two questions:

1. Why the second indexing? (I believe I saw this behavior back in Beta 4 or 5 after a download and install).

2. Why is this second use of background indexing taking so long? The first indexing, which it said it was indexing all of my 2500 or so resources, completed in about 3 hours. Here the computer spent 5 hours (most of which time I was not using the computer) to complete less than 50 resources.

Is there some sort of log file I can upload that explains all of this to you?

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18968#Comment_18968

Now I'm puzzled. For some reason after this afternoon's installation and indexing I opened a search window and saw the yellow warning I needed to index. So I did, figuring it was a few resources. After all it had just gone through an indexing. I checked after it started and was surprised to see it was reindexing the whole library.

I put it in background and came back five hours later and only about 45 resources had been indexed. I took it out of background mode.

Two questions:

1. Why the second indexing? (I believe I saw this behavior back in Beta 4 or 5 after a download and install).

2. Why is this second use of background indexing taking so long? The first indexing, which it said it was indexing all of my 2500 or so resources, completed in about 3 hours. Here the computer spent 5 hours (most of which time I was not using the computer) to complete less than 50 resources.

1. As covered in another post (http://community.logos.com/forums/p/2485/18864.aspx#18864), this is a misleadingly-worded message. No reindexing is necessary: your library is completely indexed, but the information is stored in two separate indexes. Searches may be slightly (hopefully unnoticeably) slower, and we can't rank results across both indexes (but we can search individual books just as fast). To fix this, you can merge the two indexes together, which is what clicking the link in the yellow message does. This kicks off a full reindexing (which is what Beta 5 and earlier always did, but what Beta 6 eliminates the need to do).

2. The first thing that you put in background mode was (I believe), "preparing your library". (I assume the "preparing" window was open the whole time.) That was a one-time thing that was necessary the first time the program was run. Its disk access patterns are completely different to "indexing", which may be why "preparing" didn't take too long, but "indexing" was so slow. It's good to know that it was equally slow on your computer as we've seen in the lab; as far as we've been able to tell, using the "background I/O mode" provided by Windows slows the indexer down so much that it's not a feasible solution. (At that rate, it would be over 10 days to complete indexing your library.)

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18972#Comment_18972

Thank you for this change. I really appreciate not having to reindex.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/18972#Comment_18972

The first thing that you put in background mode was (I believe), "preparing your library". (I assume the "preparing" window was open the whole time.)

That is correct. However, I'm now confused. As I recall the pop-up for the tray icon said indexing was going on and even gave the count of the number of resources left to index. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but if not then I guess I don't understand what the pop-up was trying to tell me. Was there indexing going on or not?

As covered in another post (http://community.logos.com/forums/p/2485/18864.aspx#18864), this is a misleadingly-worded message. No reindexing is necessary: your library is completely indexed,

I either missed that one or misread it. Thanks.

Agreed that background indexing is way too slow to be useful. Too bad.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/19011#Comment_19011

The first thing that you put in background mode was (I believe), "preparing your library". (I assume the "preparing" window was open the whole time.)

That is correct. However, I'm now confused. As I recall the pop-up for the tray icon said indexing was going on and even gave the count of the number of resources left to index. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but if not then I guess I don't understand what the pop-up was trying to tell me. Was there indexing going on or not?

If the Indexer icon had a tip with the number of resources remaining, then it was definitely "indexing".

When Beta 6 was first installed, it probably would have identified a very small number of resources that were new or updated. It would have reindexed just those (not the full 2500) which should have been very fast, even in "background mode".