Phone home slowness

[rlewis19]

Hi,

I'm running v2.27 of PinballX.  Normally, my cab is not connected to the intranet.  It's only connected to my home network.  When starting pinballx, I notice a rather lengthly delay before the selection screen displays.  However, when my cab is free to reach the internet, the delay is gone.  What can I do to eliminate the delay and keep the cab disconnected from the internet?  By the way, the delay is also present with starting the game manager.

Thanks,

R

[fuzgi]

Maybe you want to try to disable PinballX's online option in the settings. That could help, but be aware that you loose the ability to download media from the ftp with the game manager, untill you reenable onkine-mode.

 

Regarding the loading of the game manager... How many tables are in you database(s)? Loading time obviously incrases with bigger xmls and more wheel logos to load.

[rlewis19]

Hi Fuzgi,

Thanks for responding.  I have around 300 tables.  I'm taking into account the number of tables when I'm talking about the delay.  I'll check on whether my online checkbox is set in game manager.  My memory is that I had that disabled.  To give a comparison based on my memory... when pinballx can talk to the internet, the frontend comes up in about 2 seconds.  When pinballx can't talk to the internet, it takes 10+ seconds.

[Draco1962]

Providing copies of your pinballx.ini and log.txt files help us to better help you resolve issues such as this. Click on the PinballX How to ask for help link in my signature for instructions on where to find and how to submit these files for review. Thanks!

[rlewis19]

14 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

Providing copies of your pinballx.ini and log.txt files help us to better help you resolve issues such as this. Click on the PinballX How to ask for help link in my signature for instructions on where to find and how to submit these files for review. Thanks!

Thanks, Draco.  I'm attaching those two files here.

PinballX.ini

log.txt

[rlewis19]

Would it be possible for PinballX to have a configuration option that turns off the phone home?  Or, at a minimum, do it in the background and let the frontend not be impacted by lack of network connectivity?

[Draco1962]

Your pinballx.ini file shows that you have GameEx Online enabled as well as GameListManager. Locate the following lines within your pinballx.ini file, make the suggested changes, save and advise if this resolves your issue:

 

[Login]
Enabled=True (Change to False)

[GameListManager]
onlinemode=true (Change to False)

[Tom Speirs]

Hi,

Other that what Draco pointed out, all it does right now is check on version number but I don't think the game manager goes online when started.

Other than that it could just be a general windows thing and nothing to do with PinballX. For example signed apps can be slower when launching without an internet connection. I don't think its the phone home as you call it that is the problem.

 

It should all be done in the background so not sure what is happening.

[rlewis19]

For what it's worth, I made sure to turn off the login section and the game manager section.  It still takes around 30-35 seconds before the pinballx screen displays.  When I re-enable internet connectivity, it takes about 2 seconds.  Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

 

Tom & Draco, I really appreciate your help.  Thank you.  I'll be glad to try a "debug" version of pinballx that displays more info to the log if that helps.

[Tom Speirs]

I'm not sure I can help. I am pretty sure its a windows thing. As you can see from the log, PinballX is starting up in under 5 seconds. Its not PinballX that is causing this issue directly.

Is the delay happening before PinballX starts at all? I mean do you see the loading screen right away?

[Carny_Priest]

It is a shot in the dark, but in other contexts players have had trouble with Windows Defender. You might try creating exceptions for PinballX and VP.

 

As always, set every executable associated with your setup to run as administrator.

[rlewis19]

Now this is strange... I opened up the cab to the internet to download the latest nvidia driver.  Then I started pinballx again.  Now it shows the pinballx logo screen in about 2 seconds.  Even after I closed down the internet connectivity.   I also rebooted for good measure.  I don't mean to imply the nvidia update fixed it, I'm just saying there are multiple variables in play which may make finding the root cause to be a losing battle.  In answer to a few questions, I have windows defender already excluding pinballx and turned off by group policy.  Also, the delay I was observing was before the pinballx logo screen first appeared.  I'll have to see if there is a gradual degradation over the next few days while internet connectivity is blocked.