Why is Convert Process Maxing My CPU?

Wasn’t questioning you… just throwing out some numbers and thoughts based on my experiences since December. Obviously, I’m relatively new to the EX4.

Like I said, based on my personal 7 second rule AND the timing of things on my end, the math gets me right in the ballpark of how long I can expect to get my standby mode email and solid blue lights.

My conversions take about 7 seconds… top output shows single images being converted (just like you said). Once finished, it moves on to the next image and so-forth. Also - if you stare at the GUI for long enough you’ll also see the name of the image being converted but it isn’t pretty and can be hard to read (at least on my machine).

If the EX4 converts other file types I’m not sure. My results are based on image conversions only. 

Again - if this was documented by WD somewhere it would help end-users understand what they should expect, generally speaking, when they begin to move files to the NAS.

Captain_Panaka wrote:

Debugging this firmware is much more difficult than other products based on Linux because this firmware has specialities I never saw before.

Hold on a second.   Do you have an EX4 or a My Cloud NAS? 

I’ll reiterate for the masses… I have NOTHING turned on. What is Convert “converting”. (yeah, I get it “converting every image I have on my EX4”… it doesnt tell me what they are converting to/for because I HAVE NOTHING RUNNING AND I have very few images.  It had better not be changing/modifying any of the few images I do have!?

Cloud Access OFF
Dashboard Cloud Access OFF
Time Machine OFF
DFS OFF
Active Directory OFF
SMB 2 OFF
FTP OFF
AFP OFF
NFS OFF
WebDAV OFF
LLTD OFF
SNMP OFF
SSH OFF
Dynamic DNS OFF
DLNA OFF
iTunes OFF

To another point, its not just the GUI reporting error, performance is definitly impacted:  (and yes, ive seen and reported that bug too.)
Slow UI (logging in and switching screens)
Slower transfer rates.  (Poor transfer rates get poorer the more “convert” leaks.)

I have rebooted. It restarts.I have shutdown, turned on, and it restarts.
It did quit once! I copied some more files and it started again and hasnt quit.

I did not buy preconfigured. I started with 1 approved drive. (and had problems) and foolishly continued on to additional drives) (and those are older and not on the list) (but work fine in other NAS, and are on thier approved lists.) (hence the origin of WD 800-Support falsely telling me I would void my warranty, and the product manager here telling me WD Support was incorrect.)

Plain and simple, Im not going to “format and recover” to fix thier bug. WD plain and simple doesnt seem proactive enough to me in fixing this or anything. If im going to format , Im going to format on another manufacturer… That all being said im now 90% going to dump this thing. Looking for a $ynology right now.

This issue asside, people here praying for a performance fix seems unlikly. If you look at all 4 bay NAS on $mallN3tBuil3r:

ALL SoC-1 Marvell based platforms seem to max out around 50MBs

The best one only ranks at #43 in overal rankings and the EX4 is #52.

Average is in the 30MBs which is what I am getting (without CPU load ie unless Convert is “converting nothing”

So it seems a hardware limitation and going to be the limit of this machine.

I f we want performance, were going to have to pay for it.  But this thing as buggy as it is and where it is at is not even worth the $350 MSRP.  I would value in the $150-200 range of worth.  (or thats what WD would have to compenste me to keep debugging it for them…) :wink:

Now I just got to get my data off at its lovely 15MBs… :confounded:

Just printed my RMA.   I have up to 2/7 to return.  Just have to find a good deal on a $ynology DS412+ now and start the SLOWWWwwww transfer process off this thing.

WD has only a few days to to come up with SOMETHING before I am gone and someone gets a “B Stock”. :wink:  (My want to love this thing has passed for a want to spend time doing something better that working on it.)

Although I could be persuaded to beta this for the right compensation… LOL  (Say comp a 4TB Red or Green!?) :laughing: 

Well, what do you know…  I MAY, have found something?

Thumbs.db’s

No idea why, but it appears as a result from copying files from windows machines and haveing windows temp thumbs.db file out there in some folders it was trying to do something with them.  Im use to deleteing them prior, and by chance I was in a folder, and said, why is that here and tried to delete.  I recieved an “in use” error?  After a long while I was able to delete.

I scanned the rest of the volumes for this and deleted all.

MY CPU UNPEGGED!  But now WDPhotoDBMerger is running large. (but not at 100%) I rebooted.  DRAT, convert is back, BUT now its trading with DBMerger, and I can actually see more dips off of 100%.  (but still running large.)  Going to let it runn through the night and see what happens.

So im getting closer… (to figuring out WDs PROBLEM)

STILL no reason why it is running with nothing enabled NOR why it would take that long to process a couple hundred files (how many i found and deleted) OR why it is still running with NOTHING ENABLED.

Hmmm.   Interesting. 

I’m not sure you can “turn off” the WD Photos system.  I’m not really sure if that’s considered part of “Cloud Access” or if it’s just on all the time.

Are these thumbs.db files in the “Public/Shared Pictures” folder tree or somewhere else?

If they’re somewhere else, then yeah, that’s definitely a bug, as WD Photos should only be interested in that particular folder.

…and as to why it’s accessing “thumbs.db” that’s very interesting.   I would think it shouldn’t care.

Well no love this morning. Convert is still pegged.

No, I have Nothing in Public.  All in other shares, and none of which have public turned on.

(I even turned the other two default folders to non public (TimeMachineBackup & Smartware(since they are not in use)))

(Frankly, I even thought of deleting Public because nothing is public.  But for future possibility I just left it…)

Well GOOD NEWS!  

After 14 days it finannly completed on its own!  WHATEVER THE HECK IT WAS DOING FOR NOTHING!

Im afraid to add more data for fear of this thing returning to a crawl and becomming a doorstop again…  (real usefull device)

CPU Pegged wConvert 9.JPG

SONAVA!!! ;]

So sure enough, even moving files between volumes have kicked Convert back on and clogging my CPU again.  Looks like another 14 day befor I can move more files…

Thanks WD!

Hi all

I’n new of the forum and new of the MyCloudEx4… and I have the same problem. Just one question: if the system takes ages to process those thumb.db iles (still didn’t understand why and what is it doing with them)… when it finish to convert : what happen if you reboot? Did you make the try?

Thanks a lot

When are we going to see some relief on this with a firmware update?

Having same issue as we speak. CPU at 100% due to CONVERT process. Not sure whats causing it but its happening after rebooting an I’m not running any additional services. I’ve noticed it spikes alot occasionally but never saw it stay at 100% indefinitely. This is on my EX4.

These are WD products and we’re on the WD forum. Why are there multiple threads speculating on the cause of this issue instead of a single solution posted directly by a knowledgeable support rep that knows how to resolve it? I’ve read multiple threads now on this issue dating back a long time with no simple actual explanation and fix.

I researched this EX4 heavily before purchasing and its slowly becoming one nightmare after another:(

Very Same issue here, but with a WD MY CLOUD 3TB. I just bought it, moved a thousand pictures into it

And since then convert wont leave the processor alone.

Even more, I thought that leaving it will eventually finish, but it is putting the entire nas down, After about 12 hours, I cant access my nas anymore, not by ssh neither by the web page. The only thing I can do is to unplug.

Please, WD advise asap!!

I’ve reported the problem at http://community.wd.com/t5/Personal-Cloud-Ideas/Turn-off-Convert-Process/idi-p/712550

Please vote there to get their attention to fix it.  Thanks.

Finally the CPU usage went back to normal a few days ago, but I just had to reboot my EX4 to try to establish a port forwarding connection again due to the service outage issue and staff recommending a reboot.   After the reboot I have the 100% CPU usage issue again.  Usually it’s the CONVERT process but now its the WDMCSERVER process as the culprit some of the time.  Once again there’s no network activity and no additional services running.  Seriously WD, give us a friggin firmware update already.  It’s not like this issue just started, users have been complaining for months about this and everytime you tell me to reboot due to some other issue on YOUR end, it causes this problem again on MY end.

While Tony who is not a staff member has given valuable input on what might be causing this, why doesn’t an actual staff member just tell us already?  Why are staff even on this forum if they’re not going to use it as a venue to help us when we all have the same issue going on for months on end?

*Edited to add both processes causing 100% usage of the CPU.

The unit CPU work 24/7 at 100% because it has issues with a process name “Convert” that tries to create thumbs to media files. The problem I´m experimenting it not an isolated case, you can find in WD Community lots of people having the same problem. WD is aware of the problem for a while and has not find a solution (firmware update) or doesn´t care.

This problem:

  • Not been able to access the unit.

  • When you have access the unit crashes.

  • Difficulty to access files.

  • Continually crashes and need to be restart.

WD should stop selling My Clound EX2 and start a refund process.

jmm317 wrote:
 

 

The unit CPU work 24/7 at 100% because it has issues with a process name “Convert” that tries to create thumbs to media files. The problem I´m experimenting it not an isolated case, you can find in WD Community lots of people having the same problem. WD is aware of the problem for a while and has not find a solution (firmware update) or doesn´t care.

 

Jmm317, have you updated the firmware over the last 2 months?  The firmware update I installed over a month ago when it was released fixed this problem for me. I haven’t had that problem since.

I’m a new user of the EX4. I’ve been through a lot of these issues described above and thanks for all the info as it has helped me track down what is actually happening. I installed filezilla and within a couple of minutes the issue became obvious. My photos which I had uploaded have a hidden subdirectory.

The folder original folder =>  /G_Access/Shared Pictures/Photos (JPEGs)/Family Photos/2001_09 Sept

had additional subfolders => /.wdmc/transcoded_files/d312a08daf7d4218a7d1222eb67d1906

Where each original JPG file has 3 files of lower resolution. Presumably for WD Media centre display or some other purpose and presumably created by the “Convert” process.

When i used the MyCloud software during the original setup I tried to re-organise the folders and the machine would go to sleep seemingly randomly. In retrospect I think the Photo folders were being subjected to the CONVERT process all over again in their new location. That would explain the randomness. (I dislike the software because of the strong possibility of dragging a subdirectory when moving through the list of directories. If you make the mistake of doing this the machine can go to sleep as described above. (How about a confirmation here WD before allowing a move or a wider scroll bar ?). Try testing these things out on a netbook too. I’ve see tomato sauce come out the bottle faster…

On the positive side :smiley:

My backup software (Macrium Reflect) works really well with the EX4 - I store images on the NAS. MR manages the disk space as well and has a default local directory if the NAS is offline / unavailable. It also e-mail me a success or fail message.

Filezilla and FTP on the NAS seem to overcome the limitations of the MyCloud software (although i have a lot more testing to do, things seem very positive and very fast).

When WD fix the CONVERT media problem (or allow the user to switch this feature on or off)  there should be a lot more happy users out there. 

I have firmware Version 1.02.08 it was the latest firmware. Yesterday WD release a new Firmware Version 1.03.41. I check the release notes and didn´t find nothing related to fix the “Convert” proccess. I hope someone write about the new update to update mine.

ReleaseNote: 

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud-EX2/New-Release-WD-My-Cloud-EX2-Firmware-Version-1-03-41-6-10-14/td-p/747510

jmm317 wrote:

I have firmware Version 1.02.08 it was the latest firmware. Yesterday WD release a new Firmware Version 1.03.41. I check the release notes and didn´t find nothing related to fix the “Convert” proccess. I hope someone write about the new update to update mine.

 

ReleaseNote: 

 

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud-EX2/New-Release-WD-My-Cloud-EX2-Firmware-Version-1-03-41-6-10-14/td-p/747510

 

 

There were several updates that came out in the last few months. I think they were like 1.02.25 and 1.02.36. The latest are the 1.03.xx updates.  One of the two previous updates solved the CPU usage issue I was having and I noticed not as many people were complaining about it after that update. I want to say it was the 1.02.36 update.