Rolf Howarth
Forum Replies Created
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Sorry, I thought I did reply (see below). We plan to increase the timeout in the next release.
[Rolf Howarth] “Using the Cache-A API, CatDV queues a list of files to be restored one by one. Normally adding individual files returns very quickly, so there’s a timeout of 5sec, but it seems that occasionally the Cache-A doesn’t respond in time so it times out. We’ll increase the timeout in the next release of CatDV but for now you should be able to wait a little while then repeat the restore command until it successfully restores all the files. Apologies for the inconvenience.”
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[Jeff Schaap] “There seems to be some sort of issue with CatDV timing out when there is a large amount of files to be restored. Rolf, what exactly is happening at this stage that is causing the system to pause so long? Is it building and transmitting a list of files to restore to the Cache-A?”
Using the Cache-A API, CatDV queues a list of files to be restored one by one. Normally adding individual files returns very quickly, so there’s a timeout of 5sec, but it seems that occasionally the Cache-A doesn’t respond in time so it times out. We’ll increase the timeout in the next release of CatDV but for now you should be able to wait a little while then repeat the restore command until it successfully restores all the files. Apologies for the inconvenience.
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[Jeff Schaap] “Rolf, is there a difference between a software update from Cache-A and the firmware update you are talking about? Tom, how do we know if we have the latest Cache-A firmware (we have software version 2.1.15)? How do we request a firmware update if we need it? We bought our Cache-A in July 2010.”
Sorry yes, I meant a Cache-A software update. I believe 2.1.15 is the current version.
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That’s a good point about the empty folders. We don’t actively track empty folders in our catalog but could probably restore them in the specific case of restoring a P2 volume.
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Sorry to hear about the problems people here are experiencing with the archive plug-in.
It’s true that spanned volumes are not supported.
What Tom says about restoring manually is not quite true however, as CatDV 9 will ask the Cache-A to restore files from tape to vtape. For this to work you need a reasonably up to date version of both CatDV and Cache-A firmware (within the past 6 months say), and need to enter the hostname of the Cache-A device, not just the vtape share location. We have recently learned that this may not always work realiably however: it seems that the request to restore files might sometimes not return as quickly as we thought, so we may need to increase an internal timeout value to prevent errors when issuing the restore command.
We are also aware of an issue specific to the Mac that can cause problems, both when archiving and restoring. If the Cache-A volume goes offline while using CatDV that CatDV might in some situations then create a folder on your local drive called /Volumes/Cache-A , which means that when the Cache-A is next mounted it will get the name /Volumes/Cache-A-1. To see if this has happened to you, use Finder > Go > Go To Folder and type in /Volumes. If you unmount the Cache-A and still have a folder by that name, move that folder to the trash (first checking to see if it contains any “archived” files!), then remount the Cache-A and reselect the vtape folder in the CatDV archive config settings. CatDV is supposed to protect against that happening so we’re trying to find out under precisely which circumstances one of these phantom folders can appear.
We are investigating both these issues and will issue an updated version of CatDV shortly with any changes as necessary.
Regarding not being able to archive to a tape, eject it, load it again, and add more files to it I’m not aware of anything in CatDV that would stop that working, so that may be a Cache-A issue. Can you add more files to an existing tape if you use drag and drop from the Finder (or Explorer)?
-Rolf
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It’s true that CatDV won’t archive the LASTCLIP.TXT file from a P2 card. By default, when you import a folder into CatDV it only creates clips for media files it recognises. In general an arbitrary folder could contains all sorts of irrelevant files – backups, temporary files, hidden files, non-media files etc. – that simply aren’t relevant to a catalog of media assets. If you select a number of clips and archive them it will only copy the files directly used by those clips.
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Glad you got it sorted with Robb’s help. The latest version of CatDV is 9.0.6, which is a free point update with bug fixes etc. available at https://www.squarebox.co.uk/download1.html
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If you could send us a small .MTS file that shows the problem so we can investigate that would be great, either by email to support@squarebox.co.uk or using a service such as sendthisfile.com (or an FTP server if you have one).
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If you want fast encode then Photo JPEG (with uncompressed PCM audio) can’t be beat. File sizes aren’t as small as H264 but it’s really quick. Experiment with frame size and JPEG quality settings to get the best bit rate and image quality for your requirements.
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I’m not sure what a Cache-A “Resource temporarily unavailable” message means but try breaking things down to see at what stage it goes wrong.
When you archive files to the Cache-A from CatDV what it does it copy the files to the Cache-a VTAPE volume, then wait for the Cache-A device to automatically copy them to tape. First, check that the files are indeed copied to the vtape. Then, try doing an archive operation just using the Finder without using CatDV. Copy an entire P2 or JVC folder structure to the vtape and see if that is correctly archived or also gives you errors.