rockbox frustrating on ipod5.5 80g

[mykchan]

hi all,

ive used rockbox for years now, first on an iriver h10 and more recently on a 5.5gen 80gb ipod video.

i want to know if anyone else using the same model ipod has noticed that in newer builds, rockbox is slower at booting, accepting key presses, starting/resuming playback, pausing playback, skipping tracks or going backwards*, opening menus, etc.

* this is pretty intense. i press the next button and nothing happens for 5 seconds, so i press it again, and nothing happens, again, and i skip forward three songs and get a 10 second period of silence before the track starts. for what its worth, though, this only happens if i skip two or more tracks in a row.

these issues are becoming a serious frustration for me. im considering using the actual ipod firmware for the first time (but not itunes, never itunes, please god spare me the horror).

[SpawnHyuuga]

My first question to you - is how many songs do you have? That usually impacts Rockbox.

A first suggestion, I offer you is to pause the music and browse and then play the one you want to listen to.

I also believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, that your player's cache of songs and directories may have an impact on that.

[gevaerts]

My first question to you - is how many songs do you have? That usually impacts Rockbox.

Huh? Since when?

[gevaerts]

Have you tried checking the filesystem?

[torne]

Do you have the directory cache enabled? Not using it is the number one cause of slow responses on hard disk based devices.

Edit:
Also, generally performance should have improved slightly on ipods over the last year or so; we've implemented DMA and other improvements, and benchmarking buffering speed, USB transfer speed, etc on my own ipod (same model as yours) doesn't show any slowing over time, but rather the opposite (though only slightly).

[mykchan]

thanks guys, responses:

My first question to you - is how many songs do you have? That usually impacts Rockbox.

A first suggestion, I offer you is to pause the music and browse and then play the one you want to listen to.

I also believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, that your player's cache of songs and directories may have an impact on that.

i have around 5000 songs on the ipod but really, i doubt the number of songs would affect performance, except for the in-ram database.. any comments here?
pausing and attempting to start another track exhibits the same 10-second slowness as skipping to the next in queue, and its terribly frustrating to have to pause to choose another song.

Have you tried checking the filesystem?

thats a really good point. i use ubuntu at home and work but when i connect the ipod to a windows pc it goes on about needing to check the filesystem. ill run hdd diagnostics (on ubuntu) and find out what i can.

Do you have the directory cache enabled? Not using it is the number one cause of slow responses on hard disk based devices.

no, but i usually do.. i think the last time i updated rockbox and cleared settings, i forgot to turn it on. ill do it now and get back to you in this thread.

Also, generally performance should have improved slightly on ipods over the last year or so; we've implemented DMA and other improvements, and benchmarking buffering speed, USB transfer speed, etc on my own ipod (same model as yours) doesn't show any slowing over time, but rather the opposite (though only slightly).

ill update use the newest version (although i believe im using one from ~5 months ago).

[jeffrx]

I switched from a 30gb 5.5 to 80gb 5.5 and experienced the same problems.  Try turning off auto-update.  It's still slower than the 30gb with the same number of songs.