Peacock - Long Analysis

Dog

I tried using your trick and had no luck :( I attempted adding items on my watch list and adding items not on my watch list. All resulted in the kitty. I'll wait to hear back from you before I R&R SF. Thanks, again, for your help :)

Cats4U

Let me go back to your # 18 message first -

Don't worry about the sidetracking. It happens. Not your or anyone else's fault in this case. I have full intentions of writing a message to Mona, for when she comes back from the weekend, to key in on my initial message, where my suggestion is, and not necessarily worry about the rest of the thread (unless she finds something that she wants to take to the developers).

The attached picture - again don't worry about it. It happens. What I try to do is crop my screenshots to the most important thing I want to show and not the whole webpage. I then use the Full setting. Even then, it doesn't always work right for me and I, too, wind up with an unreadable image. Some day when every other problem here has been solved I vow to try to figure out the best way to make it work.

Now, to the meat and potatoes concerning your messages #18 and 20 - I'm really sorry that my suggestions didn't immediately make it work for you. Like JPP72 mentioned, it's crazy that certain things work for some people and not for others. It just doesn't make sense sometimes, like with the kitty visiting me twice for a download attempt when I literally hadn't seen it in a month or more with having done many Peacock downloads over that period. One thing I want to clarify, you wrote that you added items on your watch list and not on your watch list. Did you do the exact method that I did which was just to try to download Farscape S01E01 by itself (no list) and if that failed, to abandon the Farscape download and choose another show episode and to cancel that out prior to clicking on Add to Queue or Download Now and then going back to try to download Farscape S01E01 again? You probably did do that but I just want to clarify anyway. I'm not saying that that method is my big secret. When I occasionally get a bad download, no matter what streamer it is, I just play around with different things and see what happens. The switching to a different file and cancelling out the download, before I start it, is just one of those things. Sometimes it works, other times not. I don't have a clue why, either way. Unless others have written here specific bug reports about a video I want to download, I always feel optimistic that my playing around will eventually result in successfully downloaded file.

The only other thing that I can think of to recommend at this point is a complete uninstall and a clean install. Some people don't like me posting these instructions that I have written up but it is a time saver for me in that I don't have to manually type them out new each time and it lowers the risk that I might leave something out by mistake. So, here are my clean install instructions. I, personally, use them with each update of StreamFab.

How to do a clean install of the latest StreamFab

1. Totally delete the contents of your StreamFab Log & Temp directories

2. Use a "professional" uninstall program to completely remove old version of StreamFab
Make sure the uninstaller removes Registry entries for StreamFab as well as the program
Do not use the built-in Windows uninstaller as it tends to leave stuff behind
A good source for currently available free uninstallers is at
Be sure to choose to remove StreamFab's current configuration when asked

3. Download the latest offline version of StreamFab
32bit version:
64bit version:
Never use the online pop-up installer as it sometimes produces bad installs

4. Install the new version of StreamFab
If the uninstall program you used has a Install component to it, use that to install StreamFab
Using the Install component will keep a complete log of everything added and make a future uninstall easier next time
A pop-up will appear when you first start StreamFab asking you to re-authorize your StreamFab, do it
Run Settings and set up your StreamFab configuration
After setting up your configuration and saving, it is best to close StreamFab and then restart it
Do a clean install everytime a new StreamFab version comes out and you will have less problems

Dog

Hey, Cats4U - great stuff - thanks for taking the time to include so much detail.

To clarify, when I said I was trying to download things on (or not on) my watch list, I meant the Peacock watchlist, not the SF queue - my bad for not being specific about that. Unfortunately, I never get to the point of being able to select 'download now' or 'add to queue' in SF - for all intents and purposes (meaning: as long as I'm willing to let SF sit there and grind its gears, which is well beyond 15 or 16 repeats of the progress indicator shown during the analysis step), SF never gets out of the analyzing stage, whether I'm trying to add something that is on my Peacock watchlist or something that is not. Further, cancelling the analysis stage requires me to close and restart SF or it won't analyze anything else I navigate to in the Peacock tab of SF (simply closing and reopening the Peacock tab doesn't work). So, as much as I could, I did follow your directions to the letter.

Taking some time to think about this today, I *might* have another avenue or two to explore before going full R&R on SF, but I probably won't get to them until tomorrow or later this week since I have another machine I can use (making this less urgent for me, atm). If I discover anything useful, I will most certainly post what I find for future reference. One more item of note - this seems to only be affecting Peacock as I *can* download from Paramount+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.

Oddly enough, I almost always do the online upgrade and can't recall ever having any confounding issues like this (not that I have the best memory). Even more perplexing, I did this upgrade from version 6.1.3.2 using the full 397MB 6.1.3.3 installer. In fact, this is only the second time I can recall using the full installer for an upgrade and I ran into problems last time as well. I'm sure Don McMillan (look him up on YouTube) could create a wonderful piece about that peculiarity alone.

One final thought - if you think looking at the logs might be helpful, I can paste them as plain text in a post. I've already removed any personally identifying information from them, so I'm not worried about accidentally doxing myself.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with me. Other than posting the logs (if you request it), if I don't post back that means I had to follow your instructions for an R&R and I learned nothing new that might be of use in the future (thus I had no reason to post).

Cats4U

Mona,
We've had a wonderful conversation under this title here while you were on your weekend. I hope it was a pleasant one for you. Anyway, now that you are back, could you please read the first message in this thread, written by me, and see if the developers might be interested in trying to flip the DRM key list in order to possibly speed up the Peacock Analysis. Thank you.

Cats4U

Dog,
If you followed my "professional" uninstall/clean install exactly and it still isn't working, I'm out of ideas. You having used the online install previously is all the more reason for a "professional" uninstall to begin with. That should have helped.
So, I think the best thing for you to do at this point is to start your own problem thread here on the forum. Explain all that you've done to try to get it to work and provide your StreamFab.log. Hopefully Mona will pass it along to the developers and they'll be able to figure it out and fix whatever it is that is affecting you and not me.

Dog

Apologies for the lack of clarity on my part. I haven't done the R&R yet. I have only tried your previous suggestion of trying to queue up a show, then cancel it and try to grab the show I actually wanted. I will attempt the full R&R sometime this week and will post the results only if it doesn't work.

Thanks, again, for all your help and patience. :)

KidJoe

I noticed the same on Analyzing... I was trying to get the latest episode of American Ninja Warrior Season 15.. (E05 and E06). It just sits there on analyzing.

I'll post my log later. I'm currently downloading some other items from Amazon and Netflix. Once they are done, I'll kill my log folder and download from Peacock and post the logs.

Oh, and yes, SF never saves my Peacock login. I have to login every time. SF does keep my Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ log ins.
KidJoe

FYI, today I'm not having the stuck on analyzing issue... No changes to my system or setup. (Still having to login every time still happens)

Cats4U

FYI, today I'm not having the stuck on analyzing issue... No changes to my system or setup. (Still having to login every time still happens)
KidJoe

So, you are saying you aren't getting the delay where the line goes across the screen 15-16 times before the download begins? If so, very interesting. I only did one episode download from Peacock earlier today and I still had the delay. I'll have to try another download now.
As far as the login problem, that's a whole 'nother issue that I've complained about to Mona numerous times. For reasons unknown, it doesn't seem to be a priority for them to fix.

Mona

I mentioned this in passing in some of my past messages but never with the intent of having it fixed, but now I am. What I am talking about is that when trying to do a Peacock download it takes an excessive amount of time to analyze the download. If you go by the graphic image of the Analysis line going across the screen, it takes 15-16 times for the line to transverse the screen before the download begins. With most other streamers it is completed in 1 or 2. I've never actually timed it but it has to be well over a minute. According to the StreamFab.log it appears that SF is attempting to find an appropriate DRM key (or whatever term you want to use). If I'm not mistaken, these keys are coming from the StreamFab server. Being that the Analysis always lasts 15-16 times now it becomes obvious that the most used keys on the list, found on the server, are the ones found at or near the bottom of the list. In theory, if you flip the order of the list and have the bottom keys at the top and the top ones at the bottom you potentially increase how quickly a download is analyzed. My suggestion is that you try doing that.

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Cats4U

Your message has been noticed by the developers.

Cats4U

Your message has been noticed by the developers.
Mona

Thank you so much, Mona.

KidJoe

So, you are saying you aren't getting the delay where the line goes across the screen 15-16 times before the download begins? If so, very interesting. I only did one episode download from Peacock earlier today and I still had the delay. I'll have to try another download now.
Cats4U

That is correct. I queued up S15E06, E07, E08 of American Ninja warrior, started the download and they didn't take extra long to analyze and download like they did when I posted earlier in this thread

Cats4U

Thanks for the comeback. I'll give them a try but all the videos I've downloaded since I first started this thread have had the 15-16 times wait. Nothing has changed for me. I'll get back to you with my results on the Ninja.

Cats4U

All 3 of the American Ninjas had the 15-16 wait. I used a digital stopwatch program on them and the resulting times of Analysis were 1:01 minutes, 1:03 minutes, and 59 seconds, respectively. Considering that Analysis for downloads on other streamers usually only take about 2 seconds, that's a long time.

KidJoe

All 3 of the American Ninjas had the 15-16 wait. I used a digital stopwatch program on them and the resulting times of Analysis were 1:01 minutes, 1:03 minutes, and 59 seconds, respectively. Considering that Analysis for downloads on other streamers usually only take about 2 seconds, that's a long time.
Cats4U

It was DEFINATELY slower this morning. Its not just analyzing, but "Processing" also seemed to take a long time before the green line went across the screen too.

After adding the 3 to the download queue, going to the Downloading tab, I clicked start download and the stop watch at the same time.

First file switched from Analyzing to downloading audio at 1:06. The first file finished at 4:07.

At 4:19 it started analyzing the second file. Audio started downloading at 5:08. . Remuxing was fast. The second finished at 8:35

Third started analyzing at 8:42.

I had to look away at that point.

Cats4U

There are so many factors involved in the download and processing parts of the download. I really don't worry about that because for the most part they are out of my or StreamFab's control. Such as latency between you and the CDN, type of and speed of your CPU, hard drives/SSD, memory, other tasks being run, etc., you get the picture. The fact that the Analysis green line loops across exactly 15-16 times shows that it is a constant that is controlled by StreamFab's DRM key list on their server.
One tip that I'd like to pass along to everybody (and should be kind of obvious if you think about it) is to put your StreamFab Temp folder on the fastest SSD drive that you have. I am not a fan of keeping the Temp, Log and Output folders on a C: drive Documents directory as is default. Besides the often talked about OneDrive issue, the C: is usually very busy (especially if it is a hard drive) and this will slow down downloading and processing. I consider Remux to be part of Processing.

MrGrackle

My experience with watching the process is that it analyzes for quite a while, but then suddenly it jumps to 40% complete on the download and then comes in at an insane speed, completing in less than 10 seconds.
This is for a typical 45 minute TV show.

Cats4U

I'm just concerned with the Analysis part as I explained to KidJoe. That is the only part of the download that StreamFab has any direct control over by the order in which they list their DRM keys on their server. All the rest of the download depends on your hardware and your Internet connection.

KidJoe

One tip that I'd like to pass along to everybody (and should be kind of obvious if you think about it) is to put your StreamFab Temp folder on the fastest SSD drive that you have. I am not a fan of keeping the Temp, Log and Output folders on a C: drive Documents directory as is default. Besides the often talked about OneDrive issue, the C: is usually very busy (especially if it is a hard drive) and this will slow down downloading and processing. I consider Remux to be part of Processing.
Cats4U

As soon as we were able to move the temp and log folders, I moved them to my "D" drive. Its a spinner, but I wanted them out of the folders directed to my OneDrive! My Output has always been on my "F" drive, which I also use for processing my disc rips.

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