Firefly.exe excessive registry accesses

[KWhitfield]

I've been researching an excessive delay (around 5 seconds) between each time a Firefly button is pressed and a response is seen on my machine (Athlon 2600 w/1G dual-channel DDR 2700 memory). This delay seems to occur whenever I'm controlling a program other than Beyond Media Basic.

Using the EventViewer app mentioned in another thread on this forum, I've verified that the Firefly commands are received in the x10 subsystem almost instantaneously.

It seems that the dispatching of commands to other programs involves numerous inefficient calls to the operating system - possibly accesses to the Windows Management Information (WMI) API (maybe to determine the currently active window?).

In contrast, when using Firefly to navigate the Beyond Media Basic menu, it seems that response is practically instantaneous. (However, investigation with SpyXX indicates that Beyond Media Basic's menu is integrated within the Firefly.exe process itself - i.e., no actual dispatching takes place.)

Using RegMon (freeware from www.sysinternals.com), I've determined that a single keystroke to an app other than Beyond Media Basic results in somewhere around 252 registry accesses, including multiple accesses to:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\Disable Performance Counters
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Wmi\Security \...

In contrast, a keystroke in Beyond Media Basic results in roughly 34 registry accesses, including:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClasse s\{a7c7a5b1-5af3-11d1-9ced-00a024bf0407}

In both cases, file accesses by firefly.exe (monitored with the freeware app FileMon.exe from www.sysinternals.com) are minimal.

If anyone else has encountered these delays, particularly if youv'e been able to resolve the issue, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks!

Kevin Whitfield

[Samg]

I haven't experienced any delays, everything happens pretty much instantaneously. I did check the registry access going on, and I found that while starting or switching to an app causes FireFly to generate hundreds of accesses, controlling an app (I used WinAmp & PowerDVD) that's already open only generates about a dozen from FireFly (although it does cause lsass.exe to make thousands of registry accesses, which kind of surprised me).
But in none of these cases do I experience a delay. Perhaps you've got something else installed that's causing the delay.. or some kind of auditing?
Hope that's of some use to you-
-Sam

[KWhitfield]

Thanks for the input. I'll need to look into it further, possibly with SoftIce.
Kevin

[KWhitfield]

I tried checking the debug console using DbgView (freeware from www.sysinternals.com), and I get this output from the FireFly.exe process:

0.00000000 [3796] *** Stateown Buttonown ***
2.34926366 [3796]
2.34933770 [3796] Process performance counter is disabled, so the requested operation cannot be performed.
2.34953018 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfo s(PerformanceCounterLib library)
2.34953018 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfo s(String machineName, Boolean isRemoteMachine)
2.34953018 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.ProcessManager.GetProcessInfos( String machineName)
2.34953018 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses(String machineName)
2.34953018 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses()
2.34953018 [3796] at SnapStream.Common.Util.hWindow.GetWindowInfo(IntPt r ipHwnd, String& sText, String& sClass, String& sFile)
2.39428419 [3796] *** State:Up Buttonown ***
4.68931023 [3796]
4.68939963 [3796] Process performance counter is disabled, so the requested operation cannot be performed.
4.68957591 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfo s(PerformanceCounterLib library)
4.68957591 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfo s(String machineName, Boolean isRemoteMachine)
4.68957591 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.ProcessManager.GetProcessInfos( String machineName)
4.68957591 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses(String machineName)
4.68957591 [3796] at System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses()
4.68957591 [3796] at SnapStream.Common.Util.hWindow.GetWindowInfo(IntPt r ipHwnd, String& sText, String& sClass, String& sFile)

Note that this is MCE2005 (i.e. XP Pro SP2 underneath)

Does the process Performance Counter need to be enabled? How is that done?

I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks!

Kevin

[KWhitfield]

Found it!

Somehow, there were a couple of registry entries which got emptied:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\009\Counter
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\009\Help

I imported the values from another XP machine, and the controls are now quite responsive, and DbgView doesn't list any errors.

[aaronmielke]

Thanks for the excellent input. We'll work on making sure this issue can't happen in the next release.

[sweedishfishy]

After hours of searching, I found this thread that solved my firefly slow responsiveness in vista.

I'm using the latest firefly remote software. Uninstalled / reinstalled several times, wiped profile data, etc.etc.

The only thing that fixed it was to follow the instructions above.

In my case, I went over to my xp-64 machine, found the key in question, exported it, and then imported it on the vista machine.

It worked instantly. I'd attach the key, but I doubt anyone would use some strange person's reg key on their machine. lol. But email me if you need it - I'd be happy to send it over.

I noticed another few threads related to "performance counters" and vista. I tried the Microsoft fixes first -- didn't seem to do anything. Maybe that needs to be done before the software is installed so that the software itself can properly set the registry info. don't know... just glad it's fixed.


Kinda can't believe this is still a problem in 2009. Oh well. I hope someone can google to find this.

Good luck!