Hardware testing very slow and occasionally hangs in linux

[Wild Penguin]

Hi!

Hardware testing is very slow on Linux (either via catapult or from command line). Additionally, sometimes the test just hangs, seemingly randomly, not at any particular machine, and hence non-reproducably (I have openmsx process that just sits there taking 100% CPU, and need to kill it to get rid of it). This feature was nice, to filter the non-working machines and extensions from the catapult GUI, but at present it is unusable on my Linux box. I tried to remove all ROM's and extensions, it is still very slow, and it completing is a hit-and-miss (even without any roms installed).

I remember it being slow (very much slower than on Windows), but not this slow, and previously (ages ago) it at least completed reliably. This is on Gentoo, btw.

I'll provide additional information if that helps =).

[Manuel]

Hi,

thanks for reporting this problem!

Are you able to join us on IRC to have a quick chat? That's usually much more efficient.

By the way, on my system it takes less than 1 second for each machine to test and it never hangs.... So it's not a simple problem... That's why chatting is probably quicker.

[Wild Penguin]

Hi Manuel!

Sorry for the delay I've been a bit busy.

But, I investigated this further, and noticed that the issue was caused by PulseAudio. Previously, I had no PulseAudio; now, when everything is routed trough PulseAudio, OpenMSX hangs occasionally on every process (also, sound studders). Killing PulseAudio and using ALSA directly fixed the issue, then everything works as it used to be. Testing hardware configurations is still a lot slower than on Windows - but not as slow as with pulseaudio - and finishes gracefully.

Why OpenMSX needs to opens the audio device, when --testconfig, is another matter that could be discussed, of course.

Thanks anyway! No need for IRC for now, but of course I could join in future if there's need to (on what channel are you, is there an OpenMSX channel?).

[Manuel]

As we put on several places on our manuals, we are on Freenode.net on #openMSX

Thanks for reporting back. I'll see if we can avoid opening audio for testing.