Skype Room Systems v2: known perf issue for Surface Pro (2017)-based devices
Published May 08 2018 10:49 PM 13.1K Views
Microsoft

Skype Room Systems v2 devices based on the Surface Pro (2017) tablet may observe performance issues under meeting conditions where a combination of HDMI wired ingest sharing, dual front-of-room displays, and multiple remote video streams are being used.  Repro symptoms may not appear for 15 to 30 minutes after HDMI wired ingest sharing begins. Local symptoms of such performance issues include slow touch console keyboard response and dropped meetings.  Remote attendees may notice the room video rendered at a lower frame rate than normal.

 

Possible workarounds to alleviate these symptoms include:

- Desktop sharing into the meeting via the Skype for Business application (as a replacement for HDMI wired ingest).

- Reducing the front-of-room display configuration from dual to single screen.

 

The same symptoms have not been reproduced on Surface Pro 4 and non-Surface Pro-based systems.

 

Resolution: The Skype Room Systems Engineering Team is investigating a software-based solution to resolve this issue.  Release date for a potential fix is not determined.  I will keep this thread updated with any late-breaking changes in status.

40 Comments
Copper Contributor

Please keep me up to date...

Brass Contributor

thanks for the update. Our china office are all using 2 tv's and surface pro 2017  . We have experienced it today those you mention above .Anyway, i will ask my colleague to use 1 TV first and will test. Our main office are using mostly 1 TV without any issue except one room that is using 2 Tv.

 

hoping for an update soon. By the way, is there a way i can make the skype app in windows mode so that i can minimize? we want to run wireshark on the device to investigate some network reconnecting issue.

 

 

 

 

 

Iron Contributor

I assume this is due to overheating issues with Surface Pro 5's which don't have fans, as opposed to Surface Pro 4's that do?

Brass Contributor

@Damien Margaritis I don't think so . using 1 TV works fine without any issue. its just dual display .

 

we try to change to resolution of two tv's to 720p and seems it didnt disconnect or skype crash at the moment. 

 

we will keep on testing tomorrow.

 

Iron Contributor

One more reason to install Lenovo Hub 500 only from now on.

Brass Contributor

is it reliable? let me check this Lenovo hub.

 

 

Iron Contributor

@rodelmurex that's precisely the reason why it's a sporadic issue, overheating based on load. If you're only using a single screen, not presenting etc device does not overheat, throw more at it and issues arise. This is due to the Surface device disabling services to protect itself from overheating.

Brass Contributor

Actually, using 1 Tv has no issue at all video + presentation . It just so happened that our china office has newly installed this device but they are using two TV . We have remove the the 1 tv display in china and test again and we don't encounter any issue .

 

Brass Contributor

Lenovo hub 500 is much more cheaper that this Logitech  + surface pro 2017 . Time to test this haha.

 

 

 

 

Iron Contributor

Agreed @rodelmurex, but then Logitech SmartDock has flex coming soon to simplify cabling...

 

Each option out there does 95% perfectly, just a different 95% depending on what you choose.

Iron Contributor

@rodelmurex, it's reliable. We have been testing one since January, now the device became SRS standard in our company.

Brass Contributor

@Pavel Aivazov are you using dual screen for your rooms?

 

 

Iron Contributor

@rodelmurex, we have both - single and dual screen rooms

Brass Contributor

is there any update on this @David Groom

Microsoft

@rodelmurex - we are in the final stages of testing and preparing a fix for release to the Store. I'll have post status again before the end of the week.

Deleted
Not applicable

Hi @David Groom, The SRS deployment kit MSI is showing a new version number (3.1.104.3) but the actual AppxManifest.xml inside is showing the old version (3.1.104.0) and when we ran the recovery PowerShell script, we still ended up with 3.1.104.0.

 

What's the status on the new release?

Microsoft

@Deleted - The only change in 3.1.104.3 was an updated version of the recovery tool.  The application update itself contained in this MSI will bring you up to 3.1.104.0.

 

We're evaluating a fix to the perf issue described in the article above.  I'll publish an update on status this week.

Brass Contributor
@David Groom - So that status update...
Microsoft

@Tristan Griffiths We have a 3.1.112.0 update that's been released to address the issue.  It's currently throttled up to 20%.  We'll monitor results a little longer before throttling up to 100%.

Brass Contributor

@David Groomexactly what do you mean by throttled to 20% here?

Microsoft

@Jed Ellerby When we release an update, we typically do so in a gradual manner to devices in the field.  "20% throttling" means that 20% of deployed devices are being offered the update.

Brass Contributor

@David Groom  so this update will resolve skype crushing for dual display  when doing skype + presentation 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brass Contributor

strange I have run the update using the Microsoft store and only 1 device gets updated only to 3.1.112.0 . Ive check the version for all Skype and seems the same .

Deleted
Not applicable

Hi @David Groom, we've got nearly 2 dozen units deployed but haven't seen the update arrive. Where are you at in terms of the deployment throttling?

 

I know it's a bit of a stretch, but is it possible to get a zip with all the new application files (appx, manifests, dependencies) so we can use the InstallSkype.ps1 provisioning script to do a manual update of the package? Failing that, can we get a new version of the SRS recovery tool that includes this new version?

Deleted
Not applicable

So according to the engineer handling our support ticket, the deployment of 3.1.112.0 is at 100% now. We've seen some units update however the overall impression so far is pretty average. It doesn't appear to have made the units more unstable, but it hasn't changed the situation much when it comes to HDMI ingest. Our experience is essentially the same and we're still seeing frequent lockups too (usually when a meeting isn't even running), sometimes the app is able to recover itself after 15 minutes or so of being locked up but sometimes it'll remain locked up until someone manually intervenes by rebooting the unit.

 

The behavior of the application when it is locked up is really strange too. Yesterday I logged into a frozen unit via RDP as 'admin' and used procexp to look at the frozen SRS process. It looks like right around when it crashed the application suddenly started spawning a new thread approx. every second until it reached over 500 threads and suddenly stopped. The process didn't show as suspended and all the threads appeared to be idle, there were no open network connections and the DesktopAPIService log indicated that there was no activity from the app to the desktop bridge.

 

I'm going to monitor the situation when it comes to thread count and see if there's a correlation between a high thread count and crashes.

 

@David GroomIf I recall correctly, the freezing issue was acknowledged and attributed to a previous update which a subsequent update was supposed to have resolved. This freezing issue is far less frequent than it was back then but we're still seeing at least 4 units each day lock up. Has your team considered this issue resolved or are you aware of an ongoing issue still?

Microsoft

@Deleted - Is 3.1.112.0 now installed on your systems? Are you seeing the issue repro (i.e. non-responsive console touch screen on system connected to dual front-of-room displays + video ingest connected to a laptop)?

 

For others on this thread, here's a link announcing the release of 3.1.112.0.

Microsoft

@Deleted Also, please confirm whether you are using Surface Pro 2017 or Surface Pro 4.

Deleted
Not applicable

Hi @David Groom, thanks for the fast reply. Yes we have 3.1.112.0. It's not on all of our units yet but the one I've been focusing on when troubleshooting is 3.1.112.0 and Surface Pro 2017 with 1703. We have a mix of Surface Pro 4s and 2017s as well as 3 Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500s. All of our units have a single external display, no dual displays.

 

Most of the time when we experience a freeze (i.e. touch screen not responding), it happens outside of a scheduled meeting. So this is a bit offtopic for this thread but we also see extremely high CPU utilisation (90-100%) when HDMI ingest is occurring. The combination of HDMI ingest and presenting the screen from the SRS unit seems to cause this to occur and we have reports of low framerates and bad audio quality when this happens, though outright app crashes/freezes are relatively rare when doing HDMI ingest.

Brass Contributor

Seconding @Deleted 's lockup issue, we are seeing non-responsive touch screen happening outside of scheduled meetings, when the device is sitting idle.

 

It's not only unresponsive, the clock stops moving and the app disconnects from Skype as well. Network connection overall is still OK, I am able to remote in and see this frozen screen.

 

I think for us it's mostly Surface Pro 4's although there may be some 2017's in there as well. And mostly single displays.

Deleted
Not applicable

Glad to hear I'm not alone on this, @Nick DiFeo. For what it's worth we're also running Lenovo SRS units and they work fine, it's just Surface Pros which are experiencing the issue with non-responsive touch screen / freezes.

 

It sounds like your experience is identical to our's. I've been monitoring the thread count for the SRS app and it seems there's something odd going on.

 

2018-06-11_14-46-42.png

The moment the thread count started rapidly increasing, the app became unresponsive, the dip is where I initially rebooted it then it crashed again afterwards and had to be rebooted.

 

From looking at the trace logs I can't find anything that jumps out as potentially useful other than this:

06/11/2018|12:15:00.523 1D00:1E7C INFO  :: CUccMediaDeviceManager::DeviceRemoved - Device was removed: id=2812440981328 name=[SyncMaster (Intel(R) Display Audio)]
06/11/2018|12:15:00.523 1D00:1E7C INFO  :: CUccMediaDeviceManager::FireTelephonyDeviceCollectionChanged - Telephony device was removed type=0x4 name=<[NULL], [SyncMaster (Intel(R) Display Audio)]>

I've looked at 4 trace logs today and 3/4 had this event right when the crash occurred.

I can provide these logs to David or anybody else at Microsoft if they are interested.

 

On an unrelated topic (but more relevant to this thread), we're having issues with HDMI ingest on a Surface Pro 2017 unit with SRS 3.1.112.0. A staff member is doing HDMI ingest and presenting their screen and they experienced poor framerate and audio issues. This is only a single display unit.

 

Our monitoring for that unit showed the CPU utilisation stuck at 100%.

Brass Contributor

Actually, On our 2 TV display , we have lower down the resolution of the TV's to 720 and upgrade the app to version  3.1.112.0 .  So far so good. thanks to this update. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

yesterday I wanted to update one of our SRS to v3.1.112.0, when I checked the updates I got the v3.1.113.0 installed? So far, so good. After a lot of stress Tests with dual Screening and HDMI Input injected, the SRS never froze again...BUT...there are several new issues!

 

Since the new Version, the Performance of the SRS is very poor! Changing the Tabs with participants, Chat or Content has a pretty lag. Also the mute button, it takes several seconds when I tap on the SRS Screen, that the mic is muted (we use a logitech meetup with the latest Firmware 1.2). When I share my Screen, the participants have to wait a Long time until they get my HDMI injected Display shown.

 

Then I had a issue that broke the whole Meeting! I presented HDMI Content, then uploaded a PowerPoint an startet switching between These two presentations in an online Meeting. After a few minutes my HDMI Content couldnt get shown in the Meeting again, only PowerPoint worked. Leaving and joining the Meeting, or reconnect the HDMI didnt help. I had to plan a new Meeting and invite every participant again, to Show my HDMI Content to the participants .

 

What can be the reason for all These Performance issues, is it the new v3.1.113.0?

Deleted
Not applicable

Hello,

 

We are experiencing this issue on our Logitech Surface Pro Skype systems.  It occurs intermittently on during meetings and all of our systems are connected to just one monitor.

Brass Contributor

We have about 20 Logitech based SRS installed in our organization and are in general very happy with the functionality but have since the beginning struggled with the console not detecting the TV consoles after boot, possibly after power outages. The only workaround is a "hard" boot with the power button without the HDMI cables attached and the reconnect the HDMI after the system is up. The problem comes and goes without a clear pattern. We have also some Lenovo Hub 500 and have never experienced the same there. Has anyone seen the same issue? Have gone through the community posts but not found anything. 

 

Copper Contributor

Hi there,

 

any News on this Topic? We have tested a lot in the past few weeks, and got an interesting fact. When we changed our two 4K 65" screens to two full HD Desktop Monitors, Meetings dont crash anymore when we inject HDMI Content into a SRS Meeting.

 

But we have to use our two 65" Displays, reducing the Resolution to full HD on These two screens didnt helped. So please tell me how we can go further, we already have opened a Case at Microsoft with this issue.

Brass Contributor

Stefan, I posted the same question also on another thread and got some feedback that you might find useful https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Blog/Teams-meetings-enabled-on-Skype-Room-...

 

Copper Contributor

Hi Ivar,

 

thanks for your answer, do you mean we should use an extender like this https://www.gefen.com/product/booster-hdmi-edid-detective-EXT-HDBOOST-141 ?

 

We have connected our screens directly to the Logitech Smartdock, the cable length is about 7,5m. Should we use the logitech extender box?

Copper Contributor

This is 100% related to the passive cooling as mentioned before. Basic microprocessor theory: the more a microprocessor is doing (which means anything), the more heat it generates, the more heat, the more heat, the more electrical resistance, the more resistance, the more errors.

modern processors have built in error handling, hench the thread count spike. It's trying to compensate for the errors, which generates even more heat.

try this to prove it. Pull off the dock frame, tilt the surface forward, put a fan pointed at the unit and try to reproduce the problem. You won't be able to.

Brass Contributor

@David Groom Is this issue still persisting? Or should it be resolved when we lower down the resolution to 720p or Full HD?

I have a customer with massive problems in dual screen mode.

Copper Contributor

Yes. In fact we just discovered that throttling didn't fix the issue and that 2 of our units have permanently been damaged from the heat issues. One unit has a flicker in the back light and the other overheats and reboots even when it is not in the dock. 

We ordered 2 new surfaces but plan to find a way to jam some fans in the smart dock before installing them. 

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