HM2 hangs up

[polishukdenis]

Recently my HM2 started to periodically hang up during play. How can I determine why this is happening? Because it's quite bad. I'm trying to look for some stats and it's just not responding. Even more. When this thing happening I cannot do any actions at tables and sometimes time bank finishes up before I'm able to fix it.

[fozzy71]

Which Operating System, Firewall, and Anti-Virus are you using?

Many of those free Norton, Mcaffee, Comodo, Zonealarm, Avira, Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, etc, 'internet security' bundles will not work well with Holdem Manager.

Please do the following steps, so we can get your computer to a state that we know will work with Holdem Manager:

1) Uninstall any 3rd party security software bundles.
2) Reboot your computer
3) Please install the latest version: http://www.holdemmanager.com/downloa...ger_2_Beta.exe
4) Enable Windows Firewall's recommended settings through your Control Panel, turn off Windows Defender, and add firewall exceptions for HM and SQL - http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...rewall%29#MSES
5) Install Microsoft Security Essentials for antivirus/malware protection and update it - Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows



Please see this FAQ to alleviate any security bottlenecks - http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...olders+HM2+use


If you continue to have problems, please duplicate the issue and send us log files with a detailed description of what you were doing and what problems you were experiencing:
- Open Windows Event Viewer's - Windows Logs - Applications.
- Check for any errors and send the information (Save All Events As...).
- Please send a log file as well - http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...ger+Support%3F

[SteveCut]

I am having this problem too. I just had HM2 hang the Stars client for five minutes whilst contant pounding the hard disk. This happens every day. The interval between hangs varies from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. The length of the hang is between 10 seconds and five minutes, but usually about 2 minutes, I'd say. If I kill HM2, Stars responds immediately. If I wait for HM2 to come back I've usually timed-out on the tables.

The event log is full of the attached errors, every few seconds, even when there is no hang. There don't seem to be any special error messages at the times HM2 hangs hogging the disk.

This has been happening to me for weeks. I have tried cutting down on NoteCaddy definitions, not starting NoteCaddy, optimizing Postgres, adding the HM files you suggest to the firewall bypass, starting a new near-empty database. Nothing has made any difference.

I've attached the log files (I hope).
Steve

[fozzy71]

I am having this problem too. I just had HM2 hang the Stars client for five minutes whilst contant pounding the hard disk. This happens every day. The interval between hangs varies from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. The length of the hang is between 10 seconds and five minutes, but usually about 2 minutes, I'd say. If I kill HM2, Stars responds immediately. If I wait for HM2 to come back I've usually timed-out on the tables.

The event log is full of the attached errors, every few seconds, even when there is no hang. There don't seem to be any special error messages at the times HM2 hangs hogging the disk.

This has been happening to me for weeks. I have tried cutting down on NoteCaddy definitions, not starting NoteCaddy, optimizing Postgres, adding the HM files you suggest to the firewall bypass, starting a new near-empty database. Nothing has made any difference.

I've attached the log files (I hope).
Steve

Those event viewer errors are actually benign errors that only happen in PSQL 8.4. If you install 9.0 or 9.2 those errors will go away but they should not actually be causing you any of the performance problems you described.


What is your hard drive model, RAM and CPU? You can find this in your Control Panel - System - Device Manager. Sometimes lower spec PC's can contribute to lagging but that is not to say we can't still improve it further.


Are you running Notecaddy also and do you have many definitions or use any of the NC Edge or NC Advantage packages? Those can also have an impact on large database with large definitions.
If you do I would suggest reading this thread which will help improve the performance when using NC:
NoteCaddy speed improvement - Assaultware Wiki


In the meantime while you reply with those details I have a couple of things you can try that will improve the performance of your PC in general and may help if this scanning is the cause of the issues your seeing.


Please check these 2 FAQs and try all the steps there to see if they help:
- http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...%28Firewall%29 - Resolves issues where security software continually try to scan files and processes which can slow down your PC
- http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...rts+%26+HUD%29 - General tips and solutions for performance issues

A few other things you could try to see if it helps when playing:
- Try leaving HM2 on the 'Home' tab when playing.
- Try picking a villain in the reports that only has a few hands in your database instead of your hero and restart HM2.
- Try creating a new smaller database with just hands from the past 1 or 2 months to use when playing.





If you continue to have problems, please reproduce the problem and zip/attach your HM2Logs folder with a detailed description of what you were doing and what problems you were experiencing. Email this file to hm2support@holdemmanager.com with a link to this thread and your forum name.


http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...ger+Support%3F

[SteveCut]

Drive: ST9500325AS
RAM: 4 GB
CPUs: i3 M380 @ 2.53GHz
OS: W8 64bit

I am running NoteCaddy, and at first thought that was the culprit but I've cut down on the definitions and checked out all the suggestions for optimization. I don't use a package, I write my own and try to avoid database intensive tasks like keeping a record of hands for the notes.

I'll try your suggestions. I've already tried the new database with the past 2 months hands. The problem still occurred although the hang time may have been shorter on average. At first I thought that had fixed it, but along came a multi-minute hang, so I reverted to my original database.

I doubt it is a firewall problem as it works fine most of the time. This just happens 2 or 3 times an hour on average. It's as if a lot of data is suddenly written to disk. Task Manager shows disk usage at 100% for several minutes and my PC is frozen.

[fozzy71]

Drive: ST9500325AS
RAM: 4 GB
CPUs: i3 M380 @ 2.53GHz
OS: W8 64bit

I am running NoteCaddy, and at first thought that was the culprit but I've cut down on the definitions and checked out all the suggestions for optimization. I don't use a package, I write my own and try to avoid database intensive tasks like keeping a record of hands for the notes.

I'll try your suggestions. I've already tried the new database with the past 2 months hands. The problem still occurred although the hang time may have been shorter on average. At first I thought that had fixed it, but along came a multi-minute hang, so I reverted to my original database.

I doubt it is a firewall problem as it works fine most of the time. This just happens 2 or 3 times an hour on average. It's as if a lot of data is suddenly written to disk. Task Manager shows disk usage at 100% for several minutes and my PC is frozen.

Thank you for the feedback. Your i3 CPU and 5400RPM drive are likely partly to blame for your problems as they less then ideal for optimal performance.

I have added the information to our internal tracking document for this problem and once we have some suggestions or possible solutions that might solve this problem we will be in touch but please send the log files when you can.


Did it help trying to stay on the Home tab when playing or by picking a villain with just a few hands for the reports active player and restarting HM2 (and possibly leaving it on the Home tab again/still)?

Here is something else you could try to configure HM2 to use more or less RAM to see if either helps with your issues. This is generally done by people with big databases and a lot or a little ram. It will not force HM2 to use more RAM on a small database but if you have a lot of hands it can let HM2 use more RAM which helps many people that have a lot of RAM or you can force HM2 to use less RAM which can help people with smaller amounts of RAM that are having performance problems. It is as bit hit or miss and requires some trial and error work on our end to see which settings, if any, help your system perform better.

The default and minimum Static (ProcessWorkingSetBase) memory cap is set to 350mb and the default Dynamic (ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount) is set to 400mb per 1mil hands.


The base/static cap is set to 350mb and Dynamic cap is 400mb per 1mil hands if you don't edit the config file. These values are hard-coded into the program and are not part of the config file by default. If you want to edit these values you need to add the code below to your config file and make changes from the default values.


The base/static cap can not currently be set any lower than 350mb regardless of how you edit the config file but it can be increased above 350. The Dynamic cap per hand can be changed to 0 making it effectively a static cap or increased above 400mb per 1 mil hands if you wanted.


Before you make any changes to your config file please copy/paste a copy to your desktop as a backup: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\HoldemManager. If your Windows is hiding known file extensions the file will simply be called 'holdemmanager'. If you can't see it, turn off the windows option that is hiding that directory. http://faq.holdemmanager.com/questio...es+in+Windows+


Leaving your config file alone is the same as putting in the following code:

  <Section Name="General">     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetBase" Value="350000000" />     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount" Value="400" /> 

If you wanted to try smaller dynamic cap of say 200mb per 1 mil hands you would change it to:

  <Section Name="General">     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetBase" Value="350000000" />     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount" Value="200" /> 

If you wanted to make it a static 350mb cap you would change it to this:

  <Section Name="General">     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetBase" Value="350000000" />     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount" Value="000" /> 

Editing the first line to less than '350' would have no effect on the base/static cap.


From there you could increase the static cap to 500mb without any dynamic per hand capping by changing the config to:

  <Section Name="General">     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetBase" Value="500000000" />     <Key Name="ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount" Value="000" /> 

*Note:
- The upper limit for ProcessWorkingSetBase is 2100000000
- The upper limit for ProcessWorkingSetHandAmount is 840


*Another config file variable that you can try adding and editing is:


<Key Name="MaxHandsCached_Hybrid" Value="200000" />


- try values of 100000, 500000, and 1000000 and see if it makes any difference. This sets the maximum number of player hands for the current player that will be loaded. All report stats are based on these hands.




If you have any problems or make any incorrect edits to the config file you can delete the file and it will be recreated with all default values/settings. If you had any custom settings such as archive folders you can then copy them from the \Desktop copy you made earlier or just copy/paste the entire file from your \Desktop to replace the default or improperly edited file in the \HoldemManager folder.

[SteveCut]

Thanks for the many suggestions. I have been testing the tab and hero suggestions with multi-hour sessions of each of the following:

1. Ran in Home tab with me as hero: big improvement, most delays only a few seconds with one of about 10 seconds.
2. Ran in Home tab with nominal usage player as hero: Perfect! No delays of more than a second.
3. Ran in Reports tab with nominal usage player as hero: Not quite as good as above, but tiny delays.

So running in the Home tab with player X as hero works around the problem for me.
Thanks,
Steve

edit: I just changed the hero back to me and visited the Reports tab. I then reset to player X and went back to the home tab and started playing. I now hit some hangs. So it looks like some process gets triggered in Reports, so if you want to view your own details you need to reset the hero to your dummy account afterwards - then restart HM2 before continuing playing.

Attached are the log entries for the time of the delay (14:37) I noted in my edit above. Maybe the garbage collection is responsible?

[fozzy71]

Thanks for the many suggestions. I have been testing the tab and hero suggestions with multi-hour sessions of each of the following:

1. Ran in Home tab with me as hero: big improvement, most delays only a few seconds with one of about 10 seconds.
2. Ran in Home tab with nominal usage player as hero: Perfect! No delays of more than a second.
3. Ran in Reports tab with nominal usage player as hero: Not quite as good as above, but tiny delays.

So running in the Home tab with player X as hero works around the problem for me.
Thanks,
Steve

Thank you very much for the feedback. This is very helpful as at least 2 others have given us similar feedback recently that these workarounds helped them also. I have added that comment to our tracking document for reference and it should help us trying to reduce or eliminate these problems in the future. This same type of problem/workaround is something that our developers did a lot of work on in the past so it sounds like they might need to go back in and try to optimize some of their previous code they used to improve performance. I will discuss this with the other guys that are part of this tracking group so we can work on a plan of attack for the developers hopefully.

edit: I just changed the hero back to me and visited the Reports tab. I then reset to player X and went back to the home tab and started playing. I now hit some hangs. So it looks like some process gets triggered in Reports, so if you want to view your own details you need to reset the hero to your dummy account afterwards - then restart HM2 before continuing playing.

Yes, this is correct. If the workaround you described in the earlier quote helps then if you use the reports and change to other players you will want to change back to a villain with very few hands and restart HM2 to release the memory completely for the hands that were loaded when reviewing your hero before you play your next session. I am sorry for the inconvenience but your feedback is going to be very helpful in us finding a better/permanent solution for this problem that you and others are experiencing.

Attached are the log entries for the time of the delay (14:37) I noted in my edit above. Maybe the garbage collection is responsible?

This garbage collection process is unlikely to be the cause of the problems but I have added your comments and log file to our document so management and the developers can review it when working on an action plan to try and resolve these issues in future releases.

[fozzy71]

Can you try disabling the Options > Settings > General Settings > Miscellaneous > [ ] Automatically Refresh and see if it helps when using your hero and/or keeping HM2 on the Reports instead of Home tab?

[SteveCut]

Can you try disabling the Options > Settings > General Settings > Miscellaneous > [ ] Automatically Refresh and see if it helps when using your hero and/or keeping HM2 on the Reports instead of Home tab?

I played over an hour like this, with Reports tab open and me as hero. There were a number of short delays and one timeout. Therefore it may possibly provide a slight improvement, but if so, it's not a lot.