Raspberry Pi Forums

Have been enjoying RPi for almost a year now, no problems, however, in the last couple of weeks a strange problem has surfaced.
Whenever I attempt to access my Movie repository the RPi will reboot either before returning the list of movies or while I am scrolling through the list of movies. The weird thing is, this problem does not occur when I access my TV Shows repository - can watch TV shows all day long but haven't watched a movie for a couple of weeks because of this issue (so that rules out faulty PSU).
I rescanned for New Content - no difference.
Removed all Sources, remapped SMB shares, rescanned - no difference.
RPi updated itself with the latest distro (funky red colour palette and prominent R dead centre) - no difference.
SD Card and PSU are both reputable brands with acceptable capacity and class.
The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is that I have assigned the RPI with a static IP.
So, kind forum peoples, does anyone have any idea what may be going on or have an idea where I can start looking to diagnose this problem? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there! It does have all the hall marks of a power issue though hey?
Just out of interest, how many files are in the movies folder compared to the TV folder?
If the number of movie files is higher maybe you could try splitting them up into sub folders; "A to M" and "N to Z" or something?
That would then test if the issue is to do with the number of files in a folder.

If that doesn't help then I wonder if the drive is suddenly consuming a bit more current when it reads the contents of a folder.
I know the Pi can only supply 100 mA of current per USB port, but I presume this is a USB external drive and will have its own PSU or you're running it through a powered USB hub. Or is the movie repo on the SD card? Or Network?

I know you didn’t say but I presume you’re using a variant of XBMC? In which case it may be that you have found a software bug! The bug being with the maximum number of entries that can be put into a file list. In which case splitting the directories down into smaller chunks could solve it. If that turns out to be the case then you should raise this as an official bug report.

nthdegree wrote:Have been enjoying RPi for almost a year now, no problems, however, in the last couple of weeks a strange problem has surfaced.

Which distribution?
Is the reboot a full reboot (back to rainbow square), or just xbmc disappearing and relaunching?

Hi Davespice and dom, thanks for your quick responses.
There are a considerable amount more files in the Movie directories than TV Shows, so you could be onto something there.
Good idea about splitting them up into subdirectories, will be a pain since they are spread across multiple network shares but it might be something I will have to resort to.
Yes, correct - using RaspBMC.
I will follow your advice of logging a bug report if splitting the file list into multiple folders resolve the issue.
dom - I'm not 100% sure, after one of the many reboots 2 days ago the RPi began updating itself automatically - I'm guessing I can track down the exact distribution version in the System Settings somewhere or will that only reveal the RaspBMC version?
Full reboot.

I also forgot one fairly pertinent point as well - which, the more I think about it, the more relevant it seems... I downloaded and enabled the Aeon Nox skin, which, as fantastic as it is, was a little too much for my RPi and it was then that the random and unexpected reboots began (not just while scanning the movie list - anytime). I restored/re-enabled the original skin only to find the problem that I have outlined above.

Thanks for your help so far, gents.

nthdegree wrote:Full reboot.

A full reboot can be caused by the current limit override. This is normally associated with overclocking, although the camera board can contribute.

The current limit override was removed on 3rd June, so check your firmware is newer than that (vcgencmd version).
With older firmware you can disable it with (http://elinux.org/RPi_config.txt)

but that sets warranty bit.

Remove whatever addons were installed with the Aeon skin, probably Common Plugin Cache, maybe Artwork Downloader and who knows what else. Being that the problem didn't start until you added the skin removing what the skin added should fix it.

Note that even though the logic on power may seem sound unless you have physically checked the voltage on the board you cannot rule out power as a problem.

Thanks so much for all your assistance... however an irrecoverable Kernel Panic message this morning has precipitated a complete rebuild Multiple reboots, removing the SD, plugging it back in, whispering encouraging words has done nothing to resolve the error so it's time to start from scratch again.
I will be curious to see whether the issue carries over into the newly rebuilt RPi - I will let you know if it does, otherwise; no news is good news.
Again, thanks for your suggestions and interest in helping me resolve this.
Cheers.

Update: After successfully rebuilding my RPi, remapping my network shares and updating the library everything is now working fine. So it appears that the problem is well and truly related to the remnants of the Aeon Nox skin.
Library file limit; not an issue.
PSU; not an issue.
Next step is to research how to make a backup and how to restore the backup.
Again, thanks very much to all those that helped and offered assistance.