Topic: DSP Settings don't stay (Read 8838 times)

jimwallen · « **on:** June 11, 2016, 12:08:31 pm »

My DSP settings seem to revert to "Flat" after every song change. Any ideas??
Thanks.
-jim

ferday · « **Reply #1 on:** June 11, 2016, 12:37:16 pm »

do you have a tag set in the DSP tag?

jimwallen · « **Reply #2 on:** June 11, 2016, 07:43:32 pm »

I don't find any tags in the DSP column.

jimwallen · « **Reply #3 on:** June 12, 2016, 12:49:47 am »

I've not found the cause or solution. Re-installed JR Player and no luck. Any more suggestions? DSP column in the playlist is empty, and in the tags file it's also blank.
Thanks.

blgentry · « **Reply #4 on:** June 12, 2016, 07:34:23 am »

Quote from: jimwallen on June 11, 2016, 12:08:31 pm

My DSP settings seem to revert to "Flat" after every song change.

What does "flat" mean? Can you post a before and after screen shot?

What does the audio path say during playback? (Player > Audio Path)

Brian.

jimwallen · « **Reply #5 on:** June 12, 2016, 10:51:18 am »

Audio path: In; 96kHz 24 bit 2 ch from source format FLAC
Out: 96kHz 24 bit 2 ch using ASIO (direct connection)

Flat means the equalizer resets to zero on all bands.

I'm stumped.

blgentry · « **Reply #6 on:** June 12, 2016, 10:57:18 am »

If the Audio Path doesn't show anything in the Changes section, then the DSP isn't being used at all.

Do you have check marks next to the EQ module and any other DSP modules you want to use? Has this worked in the past?

Brian.

jimwallen · « **Reply #7 on:** June 12, 2016, 11:28:22 am »

Adjust volume and Resample have data in the changes screen. Nothing else does.

jimwallen · « **Reply #8 on:** June 12, 2016, 11:33:28 am »

Also, yes I have check marks and it's always worked for years. I'm sure I've inadvertently changed a setting or two somewhere, but I can't figure it out.

jimwallen · « **Reply #9 on:** June 13, 2016, 12:38:59 am »

Who wants to do a remote session to try to help me get things working right again???

blgentry · « **Reply #10 on:** June 13, 2016, 12:07:59 pm »

Jim and I just spent about 45 minutes working on this via remote screen sharing. I've never seen anything like this and I'm hoping someone else will have a good idea on how to fix it.

As Jim reports, the Equalizer section of the DSP studio resets to all bands at 0dB after each song change. Interestingly, if you pull up DSP Studio *right* after a track change, you can watch all of the bands slowly creep back down and return themselves to 0! It seems to take maybe 5 seconds for a band that's pushed all the way to the top to return to 0.

We did some pretty crazy stuff. We built a new library and imported only 2 albums. No change. We built a new EQ preset. No change. We uninstalled MC21, including removing Registry entries *and* deleting the library. After reinstalling (21.0.86), we imported a handful of albums (about 250 tracks) and tested again. It still did the same thing.

I even changed the sound output device to "Null Output" and tested with that. Same thing.

I feel like I must be missing something, but at this point I have no idea what that could be.

Anyone have any good ideas?

Brian.

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** June 13, 2016, 12:14:57 pm »

Problems like this often turn out to be caused by "security" software (antivirus, etc.). Registry cleaners also can do it.

blgentry · « **Reply #12 on:** June 13, 2016, 12:23:54 pm »

^ Hmmm.... I did notice "CCleaner" had a pop up at the lower right corner of the screen after we de-installed MC21. I didn't think AV software could have done anything this crazy... but maybe so!

Brian.

jimwallen · « **Reply #13 on:** June 13, 2016, 01:05:15 pm »

AV and Malware programs are the same as when the DSP was working properly.

jimwallen · « **Reply #14 on:** June 13, 2016, 02:00:33 pm »

It doesn't seem to be AV or Reg Cleaner as I shut them down. No difference.

blgentry · « **Reply #15 on:** June 13, 2016, 02:50:01 pm »

Jim H is probably going to tell you that you need to uninstall your anti-virus software and possibly your registry cleaner too. The AV for sure. If you are using Windows Defender, here's the wiki article on how to configure it to leave MC alone:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Taming_Windows_Defender

I don't pretend to know the answer to your problem. I just know this is the normal route for any unusual problems: Uninstall AV as a test.

Brian.

mwillems · « **Reply #16 on:** June 13, 2016, 03:03:25 pm »

It's seems that there are three likely explanations at this point (given the total reinstall):

1) something is preventing MC from writing to the registry,
2) something is deleting MC's registry entries or
3) something within MC is reverting the settings (for example the files have DSP-per-file tags, and the preset they're referring to is blank).

Number 3) seems unlikely given that you've done a complete purge and reimport, but it's possible that those tags might've been written into the files? 1) or 2) seem more likely, but would point to some kind of registry cleaner/protector so the uninstall would be helpful to rule that out.

CountryBumkin · « **Reply #17 on:** June 13, 2016, 03:10:33 pm »

Quote

Interestingly, if you pull up DSP Studio *right* after a track change, you can watch all of the bands slowly creep back down and return themselves to 0! It seems to take maybe 5 seconds for a band that's pushed all the way to the top to return to 0.

How could an anti-virus, or something preventing writing to the registry explain the "slow creep" to 0? You would expect the setting to not get applied (not stick).
Definitely a weird one.

blgentry · « **Reply #18 on:** June 13, 2016, 05:43:13 pm »

Quote from: CountryBumkin on June 13, 2016, 03:10:33 pm

How could an anti-virus, or something preventing writing to the registry explain the "slow creep" to 0? You would expect the setting to not get applied (not stick).
Definitely a weird one.

It's definitely strange. This "creep back down to zero" happens for one band or for many bands at once. Whatever isn't set at zero creeps down until it's all zeroed out.

Mwilliems: I checked the DSP field for a bunch of songs, including several we were testing with and found no values in any of the DSP fields, per song.

I'm pretty sure that the OP (Jim) is running his PC as a non-administrator because when he reinstalled MC, he right clicked and chose "run as administrator".

Another detail that I found strange: I was unable to locate C:\Users\<his username>\AppData . This folder did not seem to exist at all. So I couldn't locate where MC was storing it's library files. I wanted to do this so I could be sure that we deleted the library, including all settings, before reinstalling.

Further, when I went looking for MC database backups, I found some, but only 3 files. One from today and two from February. That's it. In my experience MC makes database backups every 2 to 5 days, and keeps monthly backups seemingly forever. The OP (Jim) said he uses MC constantly, so MC should have been making backups.

The whole thing is really weird and would seem to have some common cause. But I have no idea what that cause might be.

Brian.

jimwallen · « **Reply #19 on:** June 13, 2016, 09:20:16 pm »

I fixed it. And I don't know exactly how!! I messed around with Malware and Bitdefender exclusions, closed MC, opened it and the DSP settings "stick". I should get another star for that!!!!!!

blgentry · « **Reply #20 on:** June 13, 2016, 09:25:40 pm »

^ Amazing. That's the weirdest AV/Malware MC problem I've personally heard of.

Good job Jim!

...and good call Jim H.

Brian.

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