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[gazjam]

As above:
downloaded MC21, MC gets stuck on Theatre View playback...maybe shows 3 or 4 images from internet of artist then defaults to ablumart on disc.

Been a JRiver user sinceMC17, never had this...any ideas guys?



Thanks.

[fitbrit]

I was going to post this for you!

[JimH]

Same problem?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100268.msg694945#msg694945

[JeTie]

Quite positive, same issue.
I observe the same since Win10Pro/MC21 update.
At some random point during the slideshow the background changes to Album cover, there it freezes, always.
After some time the cover art reappears in the foreground, but almost transparent.
In case the slideshow starts with the album cover itself, there's still the album cover in the foreground (fully visible) which does not disappear, ever.
I wouldn't blame the FW or any security measures like AV or WinDefender.

[JimH]

Try this build:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100368.msg695710#msg695710

[JeTie]

No difference with MC 21.0.9

[Dawgincontrol]

I have this problem on the server, but not the client.  Very strange, both running Windows 10.

Edit:  It's on both after a review.

[jdizzy623]

I am also begun noticing this when playing audio in Theater View and viewing Playing Now screen....

I hadn't used MC for a while and now, when I first started using it again, everything seemed fine.... the slideshow would show many images from the internet and then start replaying same images (which is fine).

Recently, slideshow shows a coupe images and then loads up cover art, or even disc art, then sits there.

Like it gets stuck (possibly when it starts to cycle through images again)??

Using build 21.0.85
Windows 10

[davelr]

Also am having this problem. Hadn't been listening to music for a while so don't know which version this "came" with. All I can say is 2 to 3 months ago I never saw this.

Currently at 21.0.85 on a Win 10 64b fully patched system.

[OldGuyNW]

I noticed this issue after the update to 21.0.83.  I tried updating to 21.0.86, no difference. 

I reverted back to 21.0.50, rebooted, and the Slideshow is now functioning "normally".    Running on Windows 7 x64 Pro.

"Your mileage may vary."

[Dawgincontrol]

Thanks OldGuy, I'll try to go back in time.  It's strange it does it on my server, but not the client playing the same library.

I hope they can figure out what they changed to fix it.

[OldGuyNW]

I don't know if this anything to do with anything but...

I noticed that, when you stop playback on the newer versions, it tends to display the album art.  When you stop playback on the older version, it displays one of the "stock" images of a piano keyboard, or the triple speakers, or a guitar neck.

I hope that may give them a clue to help resolve this issue because I really enjoy watching the slideshow while listening to the music.

BTW: The only reason that I reverted all the way back to 21.0.50 is because I had that file downloaded locally.

[davelr]

Bump

Any possibility that someone from JRiver could comment on this?
Is this on any type of bug fix list?
Do you need any other information we might be able to help with?

[IanH]

Just noticed this on mine too.  Both server and client.

Works fine for a few slides...then freezes on cover art.

[Matt]

I just can't reproduce anything strange with the image slideshow.

I'm playing Jewel as an example.  I pick "Gadgets > Playing Now" in Theater View.

I just see a continuous slideshow of Jewel images.

Thoughts?

[IanH]

Matt, I rolled back to 210050, then up to 210076 and both worked fine with the slide show.  I have 80, 83 and 86 stored...I'll try those and see when it starts to freeze.

[IanH]

Looks like it's after 210080, because 83 freezes. Sometimes it will go a few frames, sometimes it will lock with the cover art showing. I have also had it go a few frames and lock on cover art from another artist.  Also on the working versions, when you hit stop in playing now, it reverts to the pictures of the instruments or speaker. In 83+ it goes back to the cover art. Maybe a change somewhere in there?

Two that were giving me problems were Gowan and Bob Seger...

[Dawgincontrol]

It's funny, yesterday I tried it again and it worked for about an hour and then went to the cover art stop.

I have tried changing themes, using different combinations of scraping, and all the standard skins.  Tried creating my own theme.  None of those seem to work.  At first I thought it was a glitch with recycling through previous viewed pictures, but then I realized that wasn't it.  It may be certain artists and not others or even albums and how they're configured with tag or file structure.  I listened to George Jones' Greatest Hits and it did it there, then did Gary Puckett and it did not.  Does that make sense?  Maybe MC21 isn't a country fan, but likes 60's easy listening.    I know it isn't multiple artists albums vs. single artists albums.  Tried albums tagged as podcasts or mix albums, no correlation.

Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine" did it every time.  So I looked at the album work (FLAC file) and there was the cover in the file and a cover in the folder.jpg file.  The folder.jpg file was a different cover art.  I deleted the second and it didn't do it.  Could this be the problem?  I have over 10,000 files and it would be time consuming to see how many had different covers in the files and folders.

Edit:  After some more experimenting, deleting the second artwork in the "folder.jpg" file has cured it every time.  Artwork is saved in the Flac file and evidently causes a conflict in MC21 with the folder.jpg file in the slideshow.  I have kept the artwork tagged in the file and deleted the folder file and it appears to fix the problem.  I have files that contain more than one cover art in the FLAC file tag, but they don't seem to be affected.  

[davelr]

Like Dawgincontrol, my setup is not consistent in how the slideshow locks up. Some artists like Hendriks or Aretha Franklin seem to go for quite a while before they lock up, but others do it pretty quickly. My only thought about this was that those that had a bigger selection of images seemed to last longer before locking up but they also weren't internally consistent sometimes locking up sooner than other times.

All of my music files are flac and I have folder.jpg files in every album directory. I can't comment on Dawg's thoughts about deleting the folder.jpg files but am willing to test it next week when I return from a business trip.

I can say that my setup has been like this for the entire time I've been using MC so it does seem that this conflict, if it is such, is a new phenomenon.

[jdizzy623]

Edit:  After some more experimenting, deleting the second artwork in the "folder.jpg" file has cured it every time.  Artwork is saved in the Flac file and evidently causes a conflict in MC21 with the folder.jpg file in the slideshow.  I have kept the artwork tagged in the file and deleted the folder file and it appears to fix the problem.  I have files that contain more than one cover art in the FLAC file tag, but they don't seem to be affected.  

I think he might be onto something here....

I deleted my folder.jpg (or folder.png), in each individual album folder and it stopped getting stuck on the cover art.
It then, occasionally, would get stuck on the cdart/disc art image I also had in the folders..... deleted those.

Now very rarely, it gets hung on an image (usually album cover art that was named something other than folder.jpg
). I then go to that particular folder find the image and delete it... it then will continue to show artist images from the internet.

For some reason fanart doesn't seem to hang it (yet).
Been running 3 hours now without an issue.

[davelr]

Matt,

Finally got a chance to take a look at this. I assume that fixing this is a low priority since there's a workaround, but I thought I'd pass on what my setup is in case it's any help.

HTPC is a home built running Win 10 64b fully patched. Processor is Core i3, Graphics are Intel HD4000 latest drivers.

MC is 21.0.85 Skin is MetroX Theater - Dark, default Theme

Music file structure is:

...\Artist\Album\<song(s)>.flac and folder.jpg

There are NO album art images stored in the flac files.

As others have reported, onset of the lock on the album art starts at varied times depending on something about the particular album being played. My guess is that it has something to do with how much art is available to display from the internet, but it isn't perfectly consistent from play to play on the same album either.

Also as others reported above, it appears to be the presence of the folder.jpg (or apparently other image files) file that creates the problem. As I said above I do not have art stored in the flac files themselves.

Using forfiles to fall through all the albums and rename folder.jpg to folder.jpg.xxx SEEMS (haven't run hours and hours yet) to solve the problem.

If I can provide any other info, please let me know. Thanks

[jdizzy623]

Matt,
I assume that fixing this is a low priority.
Using forfiles to fall through all the albums and rename folder.jpg to folder.jpg.xxx SEEMS (haven't run hours and hours yet) to solve the problem.

Happily, the workarounds will cure the image freeze but sadly breaks it for other media center programs that use folder.jpg.

[davelr]

Well, I know for sure that in my situation Media Monkey will not display album art once I rename the files. I think that might be the case with VLC as well.

In any event in my case without having the cover in a tag in the file, when importing an album into MC you have to leave the file named folder.jpg in order for the library to get the album art. Once it's imported you then have to rename (or delete) folder.jpg to stop the slideshow lock up.

[Guernsey]

Mines been doing the same for a while now

It's like it searches Google / Last FM / HT Backdrops and then your song playing folder

If it finds an image it shows it and the next until it runs out then it locks

I have emptied my recycle bin then searched all my audio folders for pictures (very easy in win 10) and deleted them to the recycle bin

If it goes wrong it should be easy to restore them back from whence they came....

So playing now for about 2 hours and touch wood so far so good

I have got JR version 21.0.80 to install if all else fails but I don't want to go back in time as I have just purchased the upgrade and want to move forward

Steve

As an aside is there any way to turn off completely the showing of the album art I know it fades but I have no need of it showing

[Guernsey]

Ok, here's an update

After deleting all the image files in my audio files except of course the album covers embedded in the tags

It's better in that it still quite often brings up a full screen version of the album cover when it should find a image from Google images
and the other sites it connects to

But it does NOT lock up and when the next track in a playlist or album starts it re-finds images, but if it shows the album cover early in
the track you are stuck with it till the end of the track

And of course it shows the art full screen, if your art is low res it looks a mess

So as per suggestion above I have downgraded to JR 21.0.80 from 21.0.90

It's been going next to me for the last 20 minutes as I type this (I'm a slow typer) and the only cover art I see is between tracks then it fades out after about 12 seconds

How do you turn that off?

Also haven't seen the "stock" photos of the piano or guitar strings for a while

That's it for now

Steve

[Dawgincontrol]

Well, I know for sure that in my situation Media Monkey will not display album art once I rename the files. I think that might be the case with VLC as well.

In any event in my case without having the cover in a tag in the file, when importing an album into MC you have to leave the file named folder.jpg in order for the library to get the album art. Once it's imported you then have to rename (or delete) folder.jpg to stop the slideshow lock up.

Davelr, I don't know what type of files you are using, but Media Monkey will put the art in the tag by either "Auto-tag From Web" or using "Properties"> "Artwork".  I still use Media Monkey for organizing and updating my library.  There are some file types that won't (WAV), but FLAC files will.

Media Monkey's weakness is updating files modified by another program after it has added them.  It doesn't review the complete metadata after that point, unless you delete and rescan them.  If you do so, make sure you don't delete them from the computer, just the library.

[Guernsey]

Well done IanH

Went back to Version 21.0.80 and it all works fine

No problems at all

Hope somebody at JRiver can look into this soon and find the place where this glitch happened
As I have purchased the "upgrade" to Version 22 but....

21.0.83 is the "stable" version at the moment perhaps it should be put back to '80

On the plus side I now have freed up 4.35GB on my external hard drive where my audio is stored
by getting rid of all my unwanted / unused artwork - amazing amount!

 * Well sort of, I found that when on Win 10 you delete from an external hard drive in my case (M:) for Music
It creates a recycle Bin in the (M:) drive itself and not on the main (C:) drive although it is reachable from the desktop icon

 * There you go useless tip of the day #1

Steve

[Matt]

I still haven't been able to reproduce this.  I put a Folder.jpg in my Abba folder, play the Abba, and it just rolls images in Theater View's Playing Now.  Every once in a while the image is the Folder.jpg, but normally it's just an online image.

Any hints?

Thanks.

[Dawgincontrol]

Maybe try a folder.jpg image that's a different cover than the album cover in the file. Put the folder.jpg in the album sub-directory and not the artist.  Are you using tags with the cover in the metadata plus the folder.jpg?

I can't say any of these are the exact cause, but these were where I ran into the problem.

[Matt]

Maybe try a folder.jpg image that's a different cover than the album cover in the file.

I picked a folder.jpg from my images collection.  I think it was a cabin we've stayed at.  Definitely not related to the music!

Put the folder.jpg in the album sub-directory and not the artist.

I put folder.jpg right next to the music files.

[Guernsey]

Not sure if it's connected now to having images in the audio folders

It seems to me that the "Stock" photos - the black & white ones of the piano keys and the guitar strings
have gone awol

So when no image is available on the internet MC finds the album covers instead ?

Where are the stock images stored ?

When I play music now on 21.0.80 the stock photos appear and it all works fine, but on later builds I get my album covers
Which are in the tags

ABBA would probably be ok because there are thousands of images out there but some less well known older groups with less images on line could
be a problem


Steve

[davelr]

Matt,

I'm not sure what to suggest. Like others, it seemed to me that artists that had smaller image collections out on the internet would lock up more quickly and predictably. To test that I picked two artists - Blossom Dearie, Arlo Guthrie - which I knew had less than around a dozen images that would display in the slide show.

I renamed the folder.jpg.xxx files in these directories to folder.jpg and then ran play all on the associated albums.

I never got the Blossom Dearie slide show to lock up even though I let it run through 10 to 12 cycles. The first time I played the Arlo Guthrie album, it locked up on the cover image almost immediately. I then went to its directory and changed the folder.jpg to folder.jpg.xxx and, sure enough, the slideshow would not lock up.

Just to be safe, I then changed the Arlo folder.jpg.xxx back to folder.jpg and now could not get it to lock up over 10 to 12 cycles through the images. Go figure.

At this point I'm at a loss as to anything to try. If you can think of something that you'd like me to try to test, just let me know.

[CountryBumkin]

Perhaps creating a Log after a lockup would show something useful.

[davelr]

Perhaps creating a Log after a lockup would show something useful.

OK, I won't be able to interpret the log, but when I get a little time, I'll see if I can get one created and post it here.

[davelr]

Davelr, I don't know what type of files you are using, but Media Monkey will put the art in the tag by either "Auto-tag From Web" or using "Properties"> "Artwork".  I still use Media Monkey for organizing and updating my library.  There are some file types that won't (WAV), but FLAC files will.

Media Monkey's weakness is updating files modified by another program after it has added them.  It doesn't review the complete metadata after that point, unless you delete and rescan them.  If you do so, make sure you don't delete them from the computer, just the library.

Dawg, sorry missed your suggestion. I am using flac files, just too lazy or something to go through and reset the tag on all my albums since I already had the folder.jpg files anyway. Since I can rename all of them with a single command right now, I just decided to do that until the JRiver folks can figure out what's going on. Thanks.

[davelr]

Ok, got a log file of a lockup on folder.jpg stored in album directory.

Action sequence was:

start MC (starts in Theater view)
Ctrl-1 to exit Theater
enable logging
Ctrl-4 to reenter Theater
navigate to Music item (comes up in Artist view)
navigate to Arlo Guthrie, select
navigate to Play All
start playback
after 3 or 4 artist background images were displayed, the folder.jpg file was loaded and the slideshow locked up
stop playback
navigate back out and exit Theater
process log file

The 'previous log.txt' file is just a record of a false start where I forgot to rename folder.jpg.xxx to folder.jpg before starting.

Hope this helps.

[Matt]

Right now www.htbackdrops.org is dead.

I wonder if that's part of the problem?

We had always counted on them for some of the artwork.

By the way, maybe let me know if it's dead for you too.  It doesn't resolve coming out of JRiver.

Thanks.

[Awesome Donkey]

Dead here too.

[Dawgincontrol]

Before I found the work-around, I had tried using various combinations of scrubs including htbackdrops.org on and off to no avail.  So, I don't think its availability is part of the problem; though it was a good art site.

I have had no problems since removing the folder.jpg files.  The slideshow runs smoothly now and the cover art never resurfaces.  It has to be something where the slideshow uses the file in the music folder for some reason that happened during an update since 21.0.80 (though I personally never went back to that version to verify).   

Appreciate your attention to this Matt.  We know that bugs are so hard to catch sometimes. 

 

[Matt]

Is it possible you're playing an artist where we just can't find any art?

I play my Abba test and it just rolls through art from online and stops on my folder.jpg every once in a while.

What's the name of an artist where you have the problem?

[Matt]

And if I rename the artist for one of my Abba tracks to:
"Abba Matt Was Here!"

Then when I play in Theater View it shows only the folder.jpg because it can't find any online images.

[davelr]

Is it possible you're playing an artist where we just can't find any art?

I play my Abba test and it just rolls through art from online and stops on my folder.jpg every once in a while.

What's the name of an artist where you have the problem?

While it would seem that no art would be a problem, I don't think it's limited to that. I've very few if any artist fields for which there has not been any online imaging. I've experienced the lockup on the folder.jpg file on lots of artists for which online images have been found.

That being said, I can't explain situations like I've run into with "Blossom Dearie" where I know I've cycled through the online images multiple times without getting the folder.jpg image loaded.

Anything I can do to help just let me know.

[Guernsey]

Seems to work OK in MC 22

Has anybody else tried ?

Steve

[abozo]

No improvement on this issue for me using MC22.

Deleting folder.jpg works in some cases.  But slideshow still sticks on some artists even when there is no folder.jpg.

[Guernsey]

Well I guess developement of MC 21 has come to an end

Lets hope they sort it on MC 22

Saying that I seem to be ok, had it playing for many hours and MC 22 did not lock up at all

When it could not find an image it showed the old "stock" photo again

fingers crossed

Note: I have deleted every image in my music folders except the art embedded in the tags

Steve

[Cryptographer]

Have now installed MC 22, and the fault is still there.
After having shown each slide once,
it stops with a foreign album art.

[Matt]

I think I finally figured this one out.

We just stop the slideshow when we got to a sidecar image.  I don't know why, so I'm just going to comment it out.

So please test the next build once it's available (22.0.15).

Here's the history:
Fixed: Theater View slideshows would stall on the cover art in the folder.

[Cryptographer]

Just for your confirmation:
Since 22.0.15 the slideshow works well again.
Thank you.