Suddenly, booting is slow

So just yesterday, in the middle of a session... my MPC starts to boot really slowly. The screen is blank for about 45 seconds, with just the Tap button blinking... and then everything is fine. This happens both when starting up, and when exiting Controller mode. Version 2.13, have been running this for several months.

Harmless, I guess, but disconcerting. No, downright scary. I saw one fellow (@Low3001)* had a similar problem... any thoughts or experiences to share?


* is there a way to tag people in posts?

jamos wrote:So just yesterday, in the middle of a session... my MPC starts to boot really slowly. The screen is blank for about 45 seconds, with just the Tap button blinking... and then everything is fine. This happens both when starting up, and when exiting Controller mode. Version 2.13, have been running this for several months.

Harmless, I guess, but disconcerting. No, downright scary. I saw one fellow (@Low3001)* had a similar problem... any thoughts or experiences to share?


* is there a way to tag people in posts?

Which MPC? Have you tried OS-ejecting all attached storage, removing the attached storage, and then see if it still slow boots? Have you tried resetting preferences?

EnochLight wrote:Which MPC? Have you tried OS-ejecting all attached storage, removing the attached storage, and then see if it still slow boots? Have you tried resetting preferences?

Good questions. MPC Live... and I was going to say "I don't use external storage", but then I remembered I have a USB stick out at the end of a hub I hooked up, and yes, that's what was causing the problem!

Many thanks.

There used to be problems with expansion packs having large images... older firmware for sure... not sure if they fixed it or not

jamos wrote:

EnochLight wrote:Which MPC? Have you tried OS-ejecting all attached storage, removing the attached storage, and then see if it still slow boots? Have you tried resetting preferences?

Good questions. MPC Live... and I was going to say "I don't use external storage", but then I remembered I have a USB stick out at the end of a hub I hooked up, and yes, that's what was causing the problem!

Many thanks.

No worries! Glad we got it sorted.

Lampdog wrote:Hardly anyone I know actually ejects media.

just the thought of yanking a hard drive out of something w/o ejecting makes my stomach drop

jaymack wrote:just the thought of yanking a hard drive out of something w/o ejecting makes my stomach drop

Same, but it's not just attached storage like HDD's or SSD's - it's USB sticks and SD Cards, as well. Users are so used to them being so portable and small, they often aren't aware that they're supposed to be software-ejected first. Then they wonder why the file structure gets destroyed and their data gets janky. D'oh!

On most computers, well at least the windows boxes I use, you can disable write caching which should eliminate the need to eject media. This is why I personally am in the habit of not ejecting things. Is there any way to disable this on the MPC, perhaps through some of the Linux hacks that people mention?

Lampdog wrote:Hardly anyone I know actually ejects media. AND this slowly inevitably eventually, positively, as a matter of fact-o-guaran-fkn-tily happens to them.

^ this is the right answer. one of your drives prolly has a buggered up file system. run fsck on drives.

jamos wrote:Is there any way to disable this on the MPC, perhaps through some of the Linux hacks that people mention?

I'm sure it can be hacked somehow I'd wager, but the vast majority of users won't know how to do this (nor can they be bothered).

I cover software ejecting in my MPC backup strategy article