Constant HDD activity

[imacdavey]

I have noticed constant HDD activity on my 2009 iMac if iCamsource is running. I does not have to be streaming to cause the activity. When the app is quit the activity immediately stops. I have done the following to try to correct it:

- Reinstall the app
- Delete the pref file
- Reboot the Mac
- Turn off photo uploads
- Turn off detection zones

The problem remains. According to Activity Monitor, iCamsource uses about 22% of the CPU even when it's window isn't visible on screen.

I am on ML 10.8 with 4GB RAM and the newest (non-beta) version of iCamsource. I found an Apple Support thread that showed how to use Terminal to see what app is active and iCamsource filled the screen.

Any idea how to tame the app? I'm afraid the constant reading/writing is going to shorten the life of my HDD.

Thanks.

[SKJM Support]

How many cameras are you running and what is the Brand/Model of each?

Also, try reducing the frequency of motion detection or even disabling it completely to see if that has any effect.

[imacdavey]

How many cameras are you running and what is the Brand/Model of each?

I have four D-Link DCS-920 wireless G cameras.

Also, try reducing the frequency of motion detection or even disabling it completely to see if that has any effect.

That seems to have fixed the HDD activity issue. Thanks. I'll turn the motion detection on for the one camera I think is most important and see how that effects the HDD.

The app still uses close to 20% of my CPU but I can live with that.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/2hkdi1ytomprcb9/iCamsource.jpg

[imacdavey]

iCam Source continually writes/reads from my HDD. I have four wifi cams set to low frame rate. Only one has motion detection (less sensitive) and it records motion events to DropBox. When Source is running the HDD is constantly active. The instant I quit the app the HDD is silent. Some Terminal mumbo-jumbo showed that Source is the most active application on my Mac (10.8.2 iMac with 4gb RAM, early 2009). Is there a setting that I need to check/uncheck.

sudo iotop -P -C 5 10


2012 Oct 25 08:38:16,  load: 2.19,  disk_r:   3704 KB,  disk_w:     20 KB

  UID    PID   PPID CMD              DEVICE  MAJ MIN D   %I/O
   
  505  54665  12052 iCamSource       ??        1   2 R     91


2012 Oct 25 08:35:50,  load: 1.35,  disk_r:   3896 KB,  disk_w:    208 KB

  UID    PID   PPID CMD              DEVICE  MAJ MIN D   %I/O
 
  505  54649  12052 iCamSource       ??        1   2 R     99

[SKJM Support]

What is the the % CPU usage of the iCamSource application? It is located in the Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor application.

[imacdavey]

With four cameras streaming and none of them set to detect motion the CPU for source is about 20%, sometimes 15% and sometimes 24%. The instant the app is launched the HDD starts grinding away and the instant the app is quit the activity ceases.

[SKJM Support]

Please try running the iCamSource with just one camera (delete the others from your cameras list.) If it works, we will continue adding cameras back on to your cameras list.

[imacdavey]

Deleting three of the four cameras had no effect on the HDD activity, BUT, when I changed the location for the motion event saves from Dropbox to a local drive the activity slowed way down. This is despite the fact that motion detection was off on the one camera that remained. I loaded the other three cameras back and it had no effect on the HDD, still nice and quiet. iCamSource is still at about 20% of CPU but I expected that. Right now, with the same four cameras running, there's zero HDD activity when I check it with "sudo iotop -P -C 5 10".

I used Dropbox so I'd still have the images in case my iMac was stolen. I moved the save location to a thumbdrive connected to my AirPort. If potential thieves go into another room and target the AirPort then I'm screwed but those are low odds.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[SKJM Support]

Having Dropbox on would increase the reading from the hard drive, but not by a huge amount. The hard drive should only be working when recordings are being saved. Since the recordings are started by motion detection, that means that the hard drive should only be working when motion is being detected. Is a camera pointing at something that's constantly moving?

[imacdavey]

It's pointed at an entry door. Sometimes it's busy (motion in trees outside the door) but mostly it's just as still door.

It's been several days since I moved the location of the motion saves away from Dropbox and the HDD activity is normal now.

[SKJM Support]

I would suggest closing the iCamSource application and then deleting your com.skjm.icamsource.plist file in your Library/Preferences folder in your home folder. Then, when you re-start the iCamSource, you will be starting with a fresh set of preferences, and hopefully things will act as expected.

If you are running Lion it hides the ~/Library directory for some reason. You can get to that directory by running Finder and then holding the Option key while clicking on the "Go" menu at the top of the screen. If you're holding down the Option key, "Library" will be one of the choices available. You should choose Library, then open the Preferences folder. The plist file will be in there.

[imacdavey]

This is what may be contributing to my problem. See if this makes sense: I think that after iCam sent the motion event images to Dropbox my iMac was then downloading those images via the Dropbox app. This constant syncing may have made my HDD work overtime copying and sending the images and then downloading them. Once I took Dropbox out of the loop everything calmed down (I noticed that the menu bar icon for Dropbox was always spinning but now it too is calm).

[SKJM Support]

iCamSource writes to a folder on the local hard drive which is then synced by the Dropbox program. It will use the hard drive more since the Dropbox program needs to read the hard drive before it send the data to the cloud. But it should still only use the hard drive when motion events are being recorded, it shouldn't be constantly accessing the drive unless there are constant motion detections.