My CPU at 100% "convert" process

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
1

My EX2 cpu is pegged at 100% some 24 hours after i finished transfering files to it.

I dont have a single picture on it.

Thanks

Dejan B.

2

Hmm…so there are no video or picture files at all?

3

Videos yes, pictures no.

It finally stopped after 2 days.

4

Hi,

I have one EX2 with 5TB of videos and its CPU is 100% since a day ago, after I populated it, with the process “ffmpeg” and “wdmcserver” taking it up to the 100%.

I have DLNA and itunes disable.

Any clue on what is the NAS doing or how long can it take?

Thanks in advance

5

It has NOTHING to do with iTunes or DLNA.

wdmcserver is “WD My Cloud server.”

ffmpeg is a library used by wdmcserver to generate thumbnails for all media files for use by WD My Cloud software and apps.

Doesn’t matter how large the videos are (in other words, 5TB doesn’t mean anything).  It’s the NUMBER of videos.

If that 5TB is thousands of videos, it can easily take a day or two.

If it’s 5TB of photos, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a week or two.

1 Like
6

There is an request for WD to disable convert process. You can vote for it here

http://community.wd.com/t5/Personal-Cloud-Ideas/Turn-off-Convert-Process/idi-p/712550

7

TonyPh12345 wrote:

 

wdmcserver is “WD My Cloud server.”

 

wdmcserver is actually WD Media Crawler server.

8

Cybernut1 wrote:

TonyPh12345 wrote:

 

wdmcserver is “WD My Cloud server.”

 

wdmcserver is actually WD Media Crawler server.

You may very well be correct!  :)

9

The name of that, gleaned from a script, is so full of truth :slight_smile:

10

Just to mention today I saw already both EX2 NAS going to sleep and not having 100% CPU during regular work, so I find acceptable the time it took to convert and prepare all the TB I entered in burst (around 36 hours).

So far, so good, much better experience than My CLoud one, which I could not even create a user with specia characters like underscore in.

11

Thanks for this update, genoso. I expected it to. I only recently copied a handful of movies, 7 to be precise and all the thumbnails, etc. must’ve been generated very quickly because I never noticed the CPU spike. I only found out when I logged into that directory via ftp that those additional files were generated on that particular share.

12

Given that I feel there really isn’t any reason to ask or demand the convert process to be killed. It’s doing it for a purpose and just needs to run it’s course…if you have a lot of files it’ll happen for a longer time, but it’ll eventually stop…until you add some more movies or pictures.

13

Very pleased with the EX2 for now but:

This process has been running at 100% for over 50 hours now.

All I copied was 383GB videos, 50MB music, 400MB pictures and 2.25GB ebooks (235 pdf’s).

I never asked for the proces to run, I just need my files on the server as they are.

Is WD going to incorporate something to DISABLE this service in one of their next firmware updates?

Or can they at least clearly explain what this process does while running?

EDIT: after 2 days, convert process stil running at 100%…

14

I don´t understand how can WD still sell My Clound EX2 and EX4 knowing the problem all users are having. I think all of us should post in other blogs and in customer reviews. Maybe doing this will help WD understand the importance of finding a solution. It seems as they don´t care finding a solution because people are still buying it.

I invite all to make reviews in:

Amazon

Newegg

CNET

Bestbuy

and others… 

Maybe it would help WD realize the importance of the situation.

15

jmm317 wrote:

I don´t understand how can WD still sell My Clound EX2 and EX4 knowing the problem all users are having. 

Who said ALL users have a problem?   I have multiple My Clouds and have never seen this issue.

16

You have multiple My Clouds with how mucho multimedia stuff on then? I have My Cloud EX2 4GB in Raid 1 with 20% used. I have a lot of photos. I think this issue affects all how have a My Cloud EX2 and EX4 since I assume if you buy it is because you have a lot of information including photos, videos and music.

Good lock with your unit.

17

Same here. No major issues with my EX2 (EXCEPT the FTP one).

Last night I started a DLNA database rebuild and it was done 3 hours later. And I have hundreds of movies. If you have thousands upon thousands of movies, music and pictures, building that initial index will take that much longer. I don’t understand why when a device is doing it’s job, it is a “problem”. Of course my CPU was running at or near 100% but so what?? It came down to 0% a few hours later. Big deal.

18

if it was for a couple of hours, no problem…

But this convert proces ran for 5 days straight at 100% to index or “convert” only 400MB of pictures… (that’s only a small part of my picture collection…)

I got tired of this and I reformatted the drives and did a system restore.

I uploaded all the same content to the drive (raid1) except for the 400MB of pictures → no problem now.

I guess I’ll keep my pictures backed up on an other drive then.

Though I would like a clear explenation what this convert process does to pictures and why it takes so long.

And an option to turn this of in firmware if possible.

This is my only problem with the ex2, I’m happy about the speed, noise, heat,…

19

You said you copied over 383GB videos in addition to 400MB of pictures. Well, the total file size isn’t important. What’s important is how many video files and how many picture files are in those 383 gigs of videos (I’m guessing for 400 megs of pics not that many).

Anytime you copy over, video, pictures or audio and you have the media streaming turned on, it will update the dlna database and also build thumbnails for those videos and pictures. I know the twonky server handles the dlna database part. I think the convert process creates thumbnails for all your pictures and videos - that you can view when you access My Cloud EX2 via the movile app. It doesn;t matter whther you actually use that feature or not. It will do that regardless. Your PDFs shouldn’t cause any of this process though.

I can only answer one of your questions - why it takes so long part. It takes so long because this isn’t a very powerful CPU inside the EX2 and there is only 512 megs of memory (RAM) in there. So if you copy in small batchesof multimedia files initially, it won’t take this long. Problem happens when you try to do a large amount of stuff, the memory can’t handle it all so it uses the hard drive’s swap memory to push through and as always swap memory takes much longer to work with. Not to mention a weak CPU doesn’t help. But on the flip side, the NAS costs much less than some of other vendors’ more powerful NAS, which has more powerful CPU and more memory.

You are understanding about the speed, noise, heat, etc. - that’s good because those are expected (though speed shouldn’t be an issue anyway if you are using a wired connection).

1 Like
20

My Clound  CPU has been more than 10 days at 100%. I don´t care it works a 100% but I do care when i can´t access my files, when I have to spend hours to try to reset the unit, when I´m afraid of not been able to get my files out.Â