External Plugins MVP

[joecru]

Hi can anyone give me advice.I am trying to use the external plugins eg: jukebox plugin, but when I choose the option on the MVP menu, the Mvp goes back to trying to connect to server.

[colin]

Hey joecru,

the problem is to do with how the mediamvp works and the how the plugins have been written. Whenever you are interacting with the MVP box it expects a page to be sent to it within 10 seconds of its requests (or a time limit similar to that).

So for some plugins they do not have much in the way of processing to do and can serve up the pages very quickly. The jukebox plugin takes longer to build up its database initially and I believe this is the problem that it is hitting. There is a too large a time limit between the MVP requesting information and receiving it, so it assumes it has lost contact with the server process.

I think the school of thought is the plugins may need to be multi threaded so that response times can satisfy the MVP I have hit this problem in trying to write an email plugin, and am in the process of threading the plugin to see if i can get around issues like this.

Of course if I am wrong, someone will gladly point this out

Cheers,
Colin.

[sub]

What colin says is right.

Quote[/b] ]I think the school of thought is the plugins may need to be multi threaded so that response times can satisfy the MVP I have hit this problem in trying to write an email plugin, and am in the process of threading the plugin to see if i can get around issues like this.

Good to know you're still working on this. I was going to write an email client soon, but i'll focus my attentions elsewhere.

[colin]

Quote[/b] ]Good to know you're still working on this. I was going to write an email client soon, but i'll focus my attentions elsewhere

Yeah work got in the way for a while and now that the wife is back to school, I should have more time now,

cheers,
Colin.

[joecru]

Hi Guys thanks for the info.

I am not a programmer ,so I am not sure what you mean by threading the plugin. Is this something I can do myself ,or do you need the experts like yourselves to do it, or do I just have to wait for a plugin update?

[dottore]

threading is something, only a programmer can do (this was the short version). this means, the plugin is not a piece of code, which must be executed "line by line" but it consists of multiple little codes, called threads, which interact.

in this case one of those threads would "ping" the mvp to hold the connection, while other threads populate the database, etc, etc.

am i right? was it too scientific?

[jeffcora]

Joecru, if you are having problems with more than one plugin it could also be the skin you are using, especially if the MVP resets almost immediately. If the plugin doesn't have the correct background for the skin you are using you will get an error on the screen if using the PC client, or the MVP will just reset if using the MVP client. If you are not using a "standard" skin i.e. blue (not flat blue), try changing it.

Just a thought.

Rob

[colin]

Hey Dottore,

yip its along those lines. Think of a program as being single threaded. Ie. a team of one. It has to do all the work so in the case of the plugin's whenever render() is invoked by the MVP (over simplifed) its like mission impossible. The plugin has to complete its purpose and give the results back to the MVP before it timesout.

So if we take the multi-threaded approach, we break the plugin into a team of at least 2 threads. In the simplest form, one thread responds to the render() call and serves up the results. The other thread is actually doing the work in the background, so like you say this would be building the database. Then you could have a simple state flag of something like DONE|WORKING|COMPLETE so that the render thread will now the state of the worker thread.

So when render() is called, this function checks the state of the other thread and returns the appropriate results. This should mean we never hit the timeout problem (unless there are other issues on the network) as render() will always return something before the timeout.

Sub, I have a clock plugin which I wrote when learning C#, would it be worthwhile multithreading this as an example? Or do you have something which can be used?

Cheers,
Colin.

[joecru]

Thanks Guys for all your help. I tryed jeffcora suggestion and the jukebox is working fine now. I just set the Skin to standard
and the Jukebox plugin is working ok now.

Thanks again.

[Guest]

Quote[/b] (joecru @ Aug. 03 2004,19:38)]I just set the Skin to standard
and the Jukebox plugin is working ok now.

Greetings to Sub and all.  I installed the program a couple days ago and I've been furiously trying to catch up on the forums.  This program is simply amazing...well done.

I just cannot find any more info on this one:

-I am having the same problem listed above on the MVP: I click on "Jukebox" on the main menu and the screen goes instantly to contacting servers.  I mean instantly, there doesn't seem to be a timeout of any kind.

I installed the v.19 from the download link, and I am using v5 of jukebox from a link I found in one of the forums (the link on the plugins page points to something else).

I am using the default blue skin.  Anyone else run into this problem and have any suggestions?

Many thanks, - RS