Any way to prevent Traktor from lagging?

I have asked the same question a few times, but the post seems to always get closed with an "answer" with no answer.

So I figured before I jump the Traktor Ship (I really don't want to, but the reliability is becoming questionable).

I have reset windows 11 several times. The computer is a Dell G series gaming laptop: core i5, 16GB RAM, dedicated video MORE than enough to handle Traktor.

I have purged my music library down from 780GB to under 500GB.

When I initially install Traktor, all seems OK. When the Library is analyzed, everything goes to ******.

Searches are slow, the interface freezes when loading/searching tracks… basically the whole thing is boggy. It's like the entire library is loaded into a json file and traktor is using Javascript to search it.

One thing I have noticed: When I export the song listing, the song UID is over 100 characters long. If that is the "primary key" could that be the issue? I know with SQL and MySQL Databases, ID's that long will cause performance issues. If this is the case, is there a way to reset these ID's?

I really need to find a solution. My next step is to move to Serato, which I am OK with except I have put a lot of time and energy in Traktor already.

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Accepted answers

Kaiwan_NI

Hi @Gudlite I spoke with the Traktor team about your case and they all agreed that your XML file is unusually large. Traktor usually handles 60K-track collections just fine, but the file size makes us think there might be some corruption. Could you send it over to our customer care team? We’ll take a closer look and help figure it out: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/categories/360000053737-Product-Support

All comments

lord-carlos

It's like the entire library is loaded into a json

No no .. what would be too modern. It's an XML file.

~/Documents/Native Instruments/Traktor X.X.X/collection.nml

I have heard about users with large collection having trouble closing traktor, as it touches every file and write the large XML again. But this is the first time I'm hearing something about large collection causing lag during normal usage.

Gudlite

I was afraid it was XML. That would explain a LOT, especially as it is nearly 100MB in size. XML were designed for small data storage.

And the audio_id's are over 300 characters long, so that would be a pain to sort thru as well.

My software does take about five minutes to close, which would be on par if it is rewriting a 100MB XML file.

And if the software is pulling that file in and searching it every time, then pulling the song information while loading, that explains the issue. While 100MB may not sound like much, XML is a clunky process and takes time to perform.

Not sure what the other programs are using, but given that they are not seeming to be having this issue, I would assume an internal database of some sorts, which would parse data much faster.

lord-carlos

Mhh, I don't think it's reading the file every time. I think it does it once on start, then does everything in ram. When you close traktor it writes again.

With it not being being a database, I'm not so sure the length of the audio_id is important. Might be, but ..

Where are your files located? On a external HDD perhaps? I have read multiple rapports of users having performance issues with external or network storage.

When my collection was still around 500gb it took 10 - 20 second to close Traktor. All on the system NVMe SSD.

Rekordbox uses SQLite.

Gudlite

My music is stored internally on a secondary drive, while the xml file is stored on the "c" drive (primary SSD).

All drives are M2/NVM

A large id tag can cause issues, even with XML loaded into ram.

Maybe I will just have to accept that Traktor is for performing (stage) type DJ's who have smaller libraries and not for Wedding DJ's like myself who require large libraries.

Sunborn

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/215940#Comment_215940

this is the first time I'm hearing something about large collection causing lag during normal usage.

Same here, never heard of such thing…

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/215946#Comment_215946

It makes no sense at all. My music database is 669 GB and my Collection.nml file is just 19 Mb. You say yours is 500 GB and your xml is 100 MB? How is this possible?

My computer is fairly older than yours, but i have an i7, not an i5 (maybe this is the problem? not good enough CPU?). And when i close Traktor it takes 10 seconds (12 maximum) to close.

So i assume that your system (Windows?) is totally misconfigured (wrong settings, lot of useless background tasks and services, insufficient latency etc etc)… either way, nothing to do with Traktor itself.

lord-carlos

Collection.nml grows with the number of tracks and playlists you have. Size of the music files itself is not relevant.

300 GB of more Bitrate mp3 can be more tracks then 600 GB of wav files.

If you just have a few tracks, but put them in Playlists over and over again the collection file will grow.

I got 10k songs, and a 12mb collection file.

Gudlite

Currently my collection is around 60,000 songs, MP3 and under 500GB.

I have minimal playlists (one for popular songs, one that holds requests and is emptied nightly and a couple of others). I also have temporary playlists for client special songs (first dances etc).

The collection file is 94MB

Gudlite

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/216017#Comment_216017

Sorry it does not make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either.

My windows is 100% reinstalled and maximised to the recommendations of NI.

It was told to me years ago that I must analyze my entire collection for traktor to work properly. Maybe I should not?

Of course, if I do not analyze my collection, the XML file is much, much smaller.

Do you analyze your complete collection, or only as you load songs?

Sunborn

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/216024#Comment_216024

Yes my entire collection is fully analyzed, to the smallest detail!
I have 17.550 files, about 90% of them are .flac and 10% .wav. I do not use mp3's.
I do have over 150 playlists, actually all my live sets from festivals, dj sets from clubs and outdoor events, radio shows, everything!

Now, about NI recommendations, i am sure that you did what necessary, but just in case, here are few things that consider a must-do for best audio performance in Windows. Make sure that all of them are done correctly and then try Traktor again:

1 - Optimize Power Settings

Most windows computers, as standard, will try to manage the performance to give the laptop the longest possible battery life. This means that the computer isn’t running at it’s best performance, which isn’t ideal for any kind of audio performances.

Open Control Panel
Click on Power Options
Select "high performance"
Click on "change plan setting"
Set the display’s sleep time as well as the computer’s sleep time to Never.
Click on "change advanced power settings"
Click the + next to Hard Disk, then click the + next to "Turn Off Hard Disk After"
In the text field, type Never
Click on the + next to Processor power management, then click the + next to Minimum processor state
Type 100% in the text field
Click Apply, then OK
Click Save Changes

2 - Disabling Screen Saver

If you are DJing for a long period of time and don’t touch your laptop you run the risk of the screen saver starting. The screen saver can cause DJ applications to drop out and lag so it’s always best practice to disable the screen saver.

Right-click on your Desktop and click "Personalize"
Click on Lock screen in the left pane, then click the Screen saver settings link in the right pane.
Select None, then click OK

3 - USB Power Management

Windows as default will monitor and control the power sent over any USB connection. This monitoring takes up bandwidth over the connection from your computer to the decks. By disabling the USB power management, you free up that bandwidth to allow it to be used for more important data transfers, such as faster audio latency.

Open Control Panel
Click on Device Manager
Double-click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers
Double-click on the first USB Root Hub item
Click on the Power Management Tab
Uncheck the box that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” and click OK
Do this for all USB Root Hub and Generic USB Hub items

4 - Optimize the Hard Drives

Windows will often try and compress data on your hard discs. This saves storage space but makes your drives slower for reading and writing audio files. For this reason you need to ensure that Windows isn’t compressing data on any hard drive, especially those that you are playing music from. Make sure you repeat this step for any drives you are using with DJ software.

Navigate to “My PC”
Right click on the hard drive that you use to store your audio and choose Properties
Make sure “Compress this drive to save disk space” is unchecked
Click Apply, then OK

5 - Processor Scheduling

The default setting for the processor is to focus on the active programs running on the PC. However, for audio related tasks, this is not ideal at all. You can significantly boost the performance of the audio by changing the processor to focus on background tasks. This setting can change the performance of your PC in other programs, but for DJ and Audio related tasks this is a great change to make.

Open Control Panel
Click on System
Select "Advanced System Settings"
Click the Advanced Tab
Under "Performance", click the Settings button
When the Performance Options window pops up, click the Advanced tab
Under "Processor Scheduling", select Background Services
Click Apply, then OK
Click OK to close System Properties
Restart your computer for the changes to take effect

Note: There are many more things to do of course, but the above are consider as basic. Try them, and you will see the difference. However, if the difference will be significant or not, it depends on other factors too. For example, do not expect miracles on computers with weak CPU's. Yet, even on those, you will see some improvement.

Gudlite

All the above recommendations have been performed many times.

The CPU on the laptop is MORE than enough to run Traktor. But I can even duplicate these issues on my gaming rig (high performance desktop).

Could it be the tags written to the files themselves that are the issue? Convoluted tags of updates long past?

I do not think the filetype is the problem (flac, wav, mp3) as everything runs find until I analyze my collection. That is when the COLLECTION file becomes huge.

My ceremony laptop, which only has about 5000 songs on it (substantially less than the 60,000+ on my primary laptop) does not seem to have this issue, even when fully analyzed. Of course the collection file is substantially less as well."

In the end, while the performance recommendations do work from a playing the file standpoint, it seems to have little impact on the searching/loading track standpoint.

Gudlite

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/216017#Comment_216017

I understand that windows can be bloated etc, but I have run trials of other programs and they run no problems. Only Traktor seems to have this issue.

I wiped windows, intalled Serato. No problem. Installed Virtual DJ along side serato, no problem. Wipe windows and install Traktor, problem.

So I will conclude the issue is Traktor.

Specifically how it handles the data, and the Collection NML file.

I do appreciate all the comments and recommendations. Are there any wedding DJ's with 60,000+ songs fully analyzed in the support forum?

If I purge my collection down (not in GB size, but number of songs), I know things will work fine. Is maybe the solution to analyze ONLY the music I use on a regular basis?

Also, I will add my "day job" is in IT and I deal with performance issues on servers and computers on a daily basis, so I do know how to tweak my machine.

I have also tested various ways of reading an XML file and (loaded into RAM) and after the filesize gets about 50MB, performance issues arise, even on the most powerful of my machines.

Seems to me that this is where the "bottleneck" is and is what needs to be corrected. Unfortunately I do not know how exactly Traktor is reading the data, so I am unable to fully duplicate.

Sunborn

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/216031#Comment_216031

I do understand all that. What i don't understand is:

The collection analysis is an one-time job, after it is done, you do not need to bother any more. If all tracks are analyzed once, then after that, Traktor should perform normally.
The analysis can be done by steps. Lets say 5000 tracks each time. Trying to analyze 60000 tracks at once, seems illogical to me and, obviously, it will take many hours to complete.
What is "lag" for you? how many minutes process? Are you sure (and apologies for playing the devil's advocate here) that you are not just impatient and consider as "lag", a time that most other people consider as normal?

Some more answers for you:

Is maybe the solution to analyze ONLY the music I use on a regular basis?

Obviously yes, it will be much helpful! Most probably, a good number of those tracks will never play anyway. Yet, this can not be consider a solution but rather a "workaround".

Could it be the tags written to the files themselves that are the issue? Convoluted tags of updates long past?

Nope. The tags themselves are never an issue.
However, the process to create tags from scratch might be!
We may have something here:

I never let Traktor do the entire tagging job. Neither any other DJ software. All my tracks are pre-tagged, before i add them to Traktor by using this excellent program.

This is a very important step, because those tags are internal, they are written inside the track.

So, Traktor or any other DJ app, finds that info. Thus it doesn't need to re-tag them!
It only does the remaining tasks. BPM, key note, stripes etc.

It doesn't have to re-tag names, artists, releases, covers etc. because they are already there!
Traktor writes only one tag to the file.

Plus that, they look much more beautiful and organized on the disc and more importantly, all info are there, forever, available for any application to read them.

Maybe this is the solution for you?

DJM (Sagar)

There are a many things which seem to sometimes affect Traktor's smoothness. I have a collection with around 65k tracks. I also have a laptop with a dedicated graphics card, albeit fairly old.

What worked for me are these two things-

1. Using the dedicated graphics. Waveform display is much smoother for me. Every time I try to default it windows choosing, intel graphics takes over and I get waveform lag.

2. Not importing my collection at install. Importing it after Traktor was updated and installed seemed to heavily reduce the slowness of search and sometimes loading. It also removed overall 'lagginess' of the interface.

I narrowed it down to those two things because I have another laptop which does not have dedicated graphics and I imported my collection to Traktor on that laptop. It was butter smooth. The laptop specs are mostly matched and they're have the same generation of processor with the only difference being the dedicated graphics.

Worked for me.

Gudlite

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/216064#Comment_216064

To explain what you do not understand (as I am likely not explaining it well)

The collection is analyzed at music folder import. I import the music folder fairly regularly as the library is always updating. However, trakter does only analyze the new tracks, it does not re-analyze the old ones
Yes the analysis can be done in steps, however traktor does attempt to analyze the entire library without option to do it in steps. What I end up doing is cancelling the analysis and continuing when I am able to. This is for the obvious reason that a laptop SHOULD NOT run 24/7 as that is not how they are designed.
Lag is pretty general I must admit. But the primary issues are the delay/slowness of song searches and the freezing of the GUI when loading tracks or adding to a playlist

I have seen MP3Tag before, but have not used it. It may be worth a shot. Thanks for the suggestion. Another thing I am wondering is if I should analyze the Library on my desktop (which can run 24/7) and copy that collection file to the laptop (the drives are mapped exactly the same as I prepare playlists on my desktop for weddings and just import the playlist file to the laptop)

I do think the issue is directly related to the collection xml file tho… If I keep that file small (limited analysis) everything performs fine. But as soon as I allow it to analyse everything, it gets huge.

What does have me wondering is if my tags are writing to the XML file instead of the song file… hmm.. I am going to see if I can find the setting for that now….

Gudlite

Thank you for the suggestions. I fully install and update traktor now before importing. I haven't been able to get Traktor itself to fully use the dedicated graphics, and when I try to force it things get wonky (hard to explain, just weird things happening).

But that is a path I will continue to investigate.

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