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[baniels]

I originally brought this up in the MilkDrop2 thread, since that is where I first noticed this behavior (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=99526.msg709914#msg709914), but I now feel it needs its own thread.

The Problem: Whenever I use any visualizations (the built-in's or Milkdrop2), I get periodic screen freezing/repeated frames. The frequency is around every 10-20 seconds and it lasts for .25 to .5 seconds or so.

When I first noticed this, I was using my integrated GPU (Intel 4600 with my i5-4670K), outputting native resolution to my then 1366x768 display. I recently purchased a 4K screen, and for a while was outputting a 1080p signal to it via my old receiver.

Yesterday I installed a GTX-1060 and am now outputting native 2160p. The visualizations now look incredible - particularly MilkDrop, but no matter what I do to the settings, I still get the periodic stutter - the condition has not changed.

I think it is fair to say my hardware is capable. In fact I think it was capable all along... I could run Milkdrop in Foobar with the integrated GPU at 1080p with no sweat.

What's odd... I just now thought to test out the performance of the built-in visualizations on my other install. I have JRiver (22) running on my Surface Pro 4, outputting to a 1440p monitor. I can tell that with some of the built-in visualizations I get a reduced framerate, but never the same micro-freeze that I get on my other installation. [10 minute break from typing] And now I just installed Milkdrop2 on my Surface Pro 4 and it plays in JRiver perfectly fullscreen at 1440p.

Well, at least I talked my way into some investigation I hadn't done when I started typing. But where do I go from here? Full uninstall/reinstall of JRiver on my HTPC? Any ideas on what could be causing this problem?

Thank you.

[baniels]

Bumping for ideas (left field ideas welcome). If none, I'll uninstall and reinstall I suppose. But since this has persisted over several versions (major and minor), I'm not holding my breath.

[JimH]

Antivirus?

[baniels]

I'm running Microsoft Security Essentials. I will disable and give it a try this evening.

Thanks!

[baniels]

I added the usual antivirus exclusions. No difference.

And this evening I decided to put a stopwatch to the occurrences. It happens every 12.65 to 12.85 seconds, with the variation probably due to my reaction time. I tested it with multiple visualizations - each had the same rate of occurrence.

Maybe to the right person that'll make it easier to diagnose. ?

[baniels]

Some more developments.

I noticed that even the little spectrum analyzer that appears in regular view mode by seek bar hangs every 12.65 seconds.

Next I set audio device to Null Output. Played a song and watched the spectrum analyzer. It continued to pause at the same interval.

I then rebooted into safemode and did the same thing. In safemode there is NOT a hang in the spectrum analyzer. Perhaps I have an errant process or service to hunt down.

[CountryBumkin]

Sounds like your doing some good detective work on this. Maybe try running with Windows Performance-Resource Monitor open so you can watch disk activity and CPU/Mem activity. Maybe you'll catch a spike at the same time as the hang.

[baniels]

Resource monitor/perfmon wasn't any help. Nothing spiked to correlate.

I tried running JRiver on individual processors, each alone. Each tested, no difference. I've eliminated all obviously non-essential processes running in the background. Disabled unneeded windows features. No dice.

Also, I realized that it is the whole JRiver user interface that hangs. The seekbar hangs. And I hovered my mouse back and forth between two files during playback, the little ghost selection that follows the mouse also hangs at the same time.

Taking any and all troubleshooting ideas. Thank you.

[JimH]

Have you looked for similar problems in this thread?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,24031.msg664411.html#msg664411

[baniels]

Thanks, Jim. I just read through all five pages and followed the road down those that seemed remotely close. Nothing I could find to address this.

Next I guess I will try updating the bios for the motherboard... grasping here I think.

After that I will try a fresh installation of JRiver (seems unlikely though given the many versions through which this has persisted)

Beyond that... clean install of windows, though I'm not eager to do that.

Have you looked for similar problems in this thread?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,24031.msg664411.html#msg664411

[baniels]

No dice on the bios update and clean install of JRiver.

Is it not peculiar that when I get no such hiccups or dropped frames when I'm watching a video? If the whole JRiver interface is hanging every 12.6 seconds, how is video playback not disturbed?

Next I guess I will try updating the bios for the motherboard... grasping here I think.

After that I will try a fresh installation of JRiver (seems unlikely though given the many versions through which this has persisted)

[CountryBumkin]

I added the usual antivirus exclusions. No difference.

What exclusions did you add? I'm not sure what the usual exclusions are.
Did you exclude the folder "C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 22" or C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\J River" ?
Or the folder(s) where the media is stored?
Or the individual files (such as JRWorker.exe) or something else?

[baniels]

I followed this guide:

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

By the way, I bit the bullet. Creating Windows 10 install media as I type.

[baniels]

Adventures in troubleshooting!

I performed a clean installation of Windows 10 after backing things up off the C drive.

After getting my drivers in order, the first thing I installed was JRiver. Before I did much of anything with it, I copied over the appdata files which had thumbs and other images. Then I restored my library and settings.

Played a song... tick tock tick tock... HANG! 12.65 seconds go by... HANG!

I kept my cool. I realized I should have played a song with the default settings intact. I reverted to the backup that was auto-created before importing my previous backup. I overwrote the settings. Played a song.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock... NO HANG. No hang at all. I pulled up some of the built in visualizations and tested them. No hanging at all.

So somewhere in my settings there is a gremlin. I took a bunch of screenshots of the default settings, then restored my previous settings. Not surprisingly, the hanging occurred again.

I will now go through and revert settings one by one to their default state in search of the culprit.

[JimH]

Podcasts?

[baniels]

Podcasts are enabled by default. But I had that feature turned off.

Podcasts?

[baniels]

Once I realized that restoring a library but not the settings will still preserve my theater view layout and library categories, I decided the better approach was to start from scratch, import the library only, then go about adjusting my settings in small batches, checking on the status of the issue as I went.

So far, I have not turned the problem back on, and I'm getting close to having everything back to normal.

Rebuilding my auto-import rules is cumbersome, but at least I'm feeling hopeful now. I do wish I could have isolated the issue. I have reverted all of my audio settings, video settings, dsp, buffers, etc. back to my old way, and still the problem hasn't come back.

[baniels]

Well... I have now restored every mission-critical setting in the new installation and the problem has remained at bay.

I was due for a clean installation anyway, and was bound to upgrade to Win10 on this machine eventually. Though I suspect if I had started with the default settings on the old install, it probably would have gone away. But it's too late to test that.

I did for the heck of it restore my "bad" settings to the JRiver installation on my other machine (Surface Pro 4), and I wasn't able to reproduce the issue. So, still some questions marks hovering around this, but I'm calling off the investigation now.