Delete old Media at Xibo Client Libary

CNG · January 27, 2017, 10:27am

Hey, me again.

When I edit a layout and replace the image with a new one, I can completely delete the old file using the checkbox in the CMS.

How can I automatically remove the old file, which is located on the Xibo client in the library?

thanks for your help

alex · January 31, 2017, 10:02am

It will be automatically removed once it’s not been in use for a period of time. I can’t remember the value, but it’s several days.

The Player will clear it up eventually itself.

Wouter · January 31, 2017, 12:21pm

Was looking for this. Just checked the library of an client we have been using for a while now. Only the mp4 files that where uploaded yesterday and today where there. The rest of the content (uploaded in the first week of January 2017) was already removed.

CNG · January 31, 2017, 1:24pm

Thanks for the answers.
I will pay attention when the contents are deleted.
Is this also for the folder, where the backgrounds are stored?

Is it sufficient, if the XiboClient Player runs or must run for this process also the Watchdog?

Thanks

alex · January 31, 2017, 2:00pm

The Player does the cleanup. We’d suggest you run the watchdog too (infact you have to specifically disable it with recent releases), but that doesn’t affect the cleanup.

As far as I know, it will cleanup all the files it makes that it no longer needs.

Nathan_Rowe · November 8, 2017, 1:21pm

Hello,

Is there any way to force the client to clean up sooner? We have clients running on 32GB Intel Compute Sticks, and they are running out of space because we push a new video every minute. I know this sounds crazy, but there is still a need to clean up the content every day vs every 7 days or so.

Thanks for the help!

alex · November 8, 2017, 1:23pm

The Player should initiate a cleanup when it starts to get low on space. Are they actually erroring? Or are you just concerned that they might?

The setting isn’t configurable as far as I’m aware in any case.

Nathan_Rowe · November 8, 2017, 1:25pm

Windows is running out of space and throwing a windows error.

alex · November 8, 2017, 1:28pm

github.com

xibosignage/xibo-dotnetclient/blob/develop/default.config.xml#L10


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ApplicationSettings>
<XmdsResetTimeout>900</XmdsResetTimeout>
<SizeX>0</SizeX>
<SizeY>0</SizeY>
<OffsetX>0</OffsetX>
<OffsetY>0</OffsetY>
<EmptyLayoutDuration>10</EmptyLayoutDuration>
<EnableExpiredFileDeletion>true</EnableExpiredFileDeletion>
<LibraryAgentInterval>2</LibraryAgentInterval>
<ScheduleFile>schedule.xml</ScheduleFile>
<LogLocation>log.xml</LogLocation>
<StatsLogFile>stats.xml</StatsLogFile>
<CacheManagerFile>cacheManager.xml</CacheManagerFile>
<RequiredFilesFile>requiredFiles.xml</RequiredFilesFile>
<VideoRenderingEngine>WindowsMediaPlayer</VideoRenderingEngine>
<LibraryPath>DEFAULT</LibraryPath>
<ServerKey>yourserverkey</ServerKey>
<DisplayName>COMPUTERNAME</DisplayName>
<ServerUri></ServerUri>

That shows the default is every 2 days.

There’s no GUI setting to change it to every 1 day, but it may be possible to set that directly in the Player settings xml file.

Nathan_Rowe · November 8, 2017, 1:34pm

Thanks for pointing this out. I will adjust this setting and see if that fixes my issue.

Thanks again!

Nathan_Rowe · November 13, 2017, 9:09pm

@alex So where should I try to add those settings. It doesn’t seem to call the defaultconfig.xml, and I can confirm there are 5 days of files on my drive right now. I tried adding those lines to the Xiboconfig.xml in the user\appdata folder, but it overwrote them when I tried to save the config.

alex · November 14, 2017, 8:22am

I believe the default file is the correct place to edit that.

You can see the logic here:

github.com

xibosignage/xibo-dotnetclient/blob/develop/XmdsAgents/LibraryAgent.cs#L88




/// <summary>
/// Run Thread
/// </summary>
public void Run()
{
    Trace.WriteLine(new LogMessage("LibraryAgent - Run", "Thread Started"), LogType.Info.ToString());


    while (!_forceStop)
    {
        lock (_locker)
        {
            try
            {
                // If we are restarting, reset
                _manualReset.Reset();


                // Only do something if enabled
                if (!ApplicationSettings.Default.EnableExpiredFileDeletion)
                {
                    Trace.WriteLine(new LogMessage("LibraryAgent - Run", "Expired File Deletion Disabled"), LogType.Audit.ToString());

Every 15 minutes from startup, the agent runs, and logs its actions.

If you enable audit logging on your Player, is it not picking up those files? Do you have some options on your filesystem that prevent filesystem last accessed times being correctly reported?

For a file to be deleted, it will need to not be in RequiredFiles (a copy of which you can see in the Player library), and also not have been accessed for more than 2 days (by default). So I’d assuming that the CMS continues to report a file in RequiredFiles to the end of the day (which it will do), and then that content stops showing just before midnight, I’d imagine it would be 2-3 days before the file was cleaned up.

Similarly if something else is routinely accessing those files in the library, then that will prevent them from being cleaned up too - eg background anti-virus scans, backup applications etc