High CPU Usage
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Matt GreenMatt Green
    Posts: 18Member
    Hi, 

    I am in the process of setting up an airtime server for a small radio station which will running for a week from the middle of a Scout Jamboree. 

    For this reason we have managed to acquire a small server which we were hoping would do the job.  I have got airtime installed and running but I am having a bit of trouble with performance. 

    The machine has a 1.3Ghz processor with 1GB of RAM.   

    When running airtime with 1 x Alsa output and 1 x 64kbps OGG stream.     When running both of these I sometimes hear 'skipping' on the soundcard output and the odd gap in the stream.   When I open the airtime webpage the soundcard output skips consistently and the stream drops out more frequently. 

    Looking at the processes on the system it appears that airtime-liquidsoap is using 50% CPU on average, peaking at about 65% CPU.   apache2 is also utilising quite a high percentage, peaking at about 25% CPU.  

    Does anyone  have any suggestions as to why the CPU usage could be so high, and if there is anything we can do to reduce it?  Ideally I don't want to have to reduce stream quality or anything.    


    (Also - the UI seems to be quite unresponsive which I am guessing is a related issue).


    Thanks in advance.
    Post edited by Adam Thomas at 2012-09-28 08:02:49
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  • Vote Up0Vote Down Martin KonecnyMartin Konecny
    Posts: 1,860Member
    A lot of CPU is used because Liquidsoap needs to transcode the stream from whatever your uploaded format is, to 64kpbs OGG in realtime. 

    Please check /var/log/airtime/pypo-liquidsoap/ls_script.log

    If you see lots of "We must catchup x.xx seconds" entries, then you will most likely need to upgrade your hardware.
    Airtime Pro Hosting: http://airtime.pro
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Matt GreenMatt Green
    Posts: 18Member
    Thanks Martin,  I thought that may be the case. 

    Time to hunt out a new airtime server!
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