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[Grendel]

Hi,

I have used MC for a couple of years now. I like it, because it plays most formats and video's as well.
Now I have always had stability issues. Especially if you change between songs too fast, MC will hang. This gets worse when files are large like high res FLAC's.
At home I run MC on my laptop. Library is on my laptop and music is on a NAS. (ca 3T). Now when the collection increases, problems get worse. At the moment, I can play 3 songs before it hangs and windows will ask me if I want to wait, but that is no option as it will still hang after 15 minutes. When at work, I use an external drive with my music collection and that will cause MC to hang as well.
My son is using MC from his computer hard wired to the NAS and his will hang as well when he shifts between songs too fast and on other occasions.

I have upgraded to newer versions a couple of times, hoping things would improve, but unfortunately it hasn't.

Other problems I run into is that tagging sometimes does not result in changes in the library. I have changed ACDC several times into AC/DC, so all the albums stick to one single artist, but without results. If I open the tagging window of the ACDC album, it shows AC/DC in the tagging window, even after restarting MC, but it keeps being shown as a different artist called ACDC.
Sometimes one song of an album shows up as a different artist, but tagging is all the same. (I tagged the album in one go).

Another thing is that if I import say 3000 songs in one go, running auto import, MC does not import them all at once. Sometimes I have to run auto import about 3 times before they all show up.
Last time my collection contained 88489 files. I added another collection, running auto import and it went to 90157 the first time, 92820 the second time and 96723 the last time.

Does anyone else run into problems like this? At the moment I can't use MC at all because it will hang almost immediately.

Thanks,

Hubert

[Awesome Donkey]

I have changed ACDC several times into AC/DC, so all the albums stick to one single artist, but without results. If I open the tagging window of the ACDC album, it shows AC/DC in the tagging window, even after restarting MC, but it keeps being shown as a different artist called ACDC.

Try changing both the Artist and Album Artist tags. Then select all the AC/DC files in your library, right click on them and select Library Tools > Update Tags (from library).

All my AC/DC albums are displayed under AC/DC, as they have the correct Artist and Album Artist tags.

[JimH]

Antivirus software is the most common cause of a problem like this.

[Grendel]

Antivirus software is the most common cause of a problem like this.

I understand that, but what is the solution?
What anti virus software does work with MC?
All programs work fine with my anti virus software with MC being the sole exception.
I think they should fix this and in the meanwhile make a list of anti virus software programs that are compatible with MC.

[Awesome Donkey]

Well, the solution would be adding Media Center's folders, executables (EXE files) and DLL files to the antivirus' exceptions list. What antivirus application are you using? There's really no antivirus that 'works', in my opinion, all them likely need some level of taming (depending on how good their heuristics are, which *can* cause issues with false positives), including Windows Defender.

Honestly, a lot of antivirus applications these days are 'terrible' as they really can cause more harm than good. BitDefender is an excellent example of a 'terrible' antivirus app, which does some questionable stuff like injecting DLLs into applications, which creates an instability and causes systems to crash with a ntdll.dll error.

Then there's that whole Microsoft Windows patch for Meltdown/Spectre debacle, which fails to install on some systems due to some antivirus applications doing some 'naughty' things on the user's system.

[JimH]

You could read about the many problems caused by antivirus software:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86096.msg588759#msg588759

[Grendel]

Well, the solution would be adding Media Center's folders, executables (EXE files) and DLL files to the antivirus' exceptions list. What antivirus application are you using? There's really no antivirus that 'works', in my opinion, all them likely need some level of taming (depending on how good their heuristics are, which *can* cause issues with false positives), including Windows Defender.

Honestly, a lot of antivirus applications these days are 'terrible' as they really can cause more harm than good. BitDefender is an excellent example of a 'terrible' antivirus app, which does some questionable stuff like injecting DLLs into applications, which creates an instability and causes systems to crash with a ntdll.dll error.

Then there's that whole Microsoft Windows patch for Meltdown/Spectre debacle, which fails to install on some systems due to some antivirus applications doing some 'naughty' things on the user's system.

Hi, thanks for the input.
I use trend micro
I have just put both the MC folder and the folder that holds the library in the exception list.
Tried MC with a couple of files and had no freezes.
I really hope that this solves the issues.

Thanks a lot,

Hubert

[Grendel]

So, after trouble with stability I exempted the MC folder and Library from my virus scanner.
Everything worked well and the program behaved better than it had done before. No freezes last night.

Now today I ran the auto import and when it was finished, MC freezes after 2 minutes.
MC will show a pop up window that MC has stopped working.

I'm getting a little bit annoyed by all this.
The program has cost me quite a bit, including all the updates and it just doesn't work.
Also if you contact JRiver, it's always you. Your computer, your virus scanner, your setup, your network whatever.
I think JRiver should get their act together and fix this, like all other developers have done.
I run quite a lot of demanding programs on my computer, several use large databases and all work fine.
No trouble whatsoever. The only program that does not work is MC.

[JimH]

Uninstall your antivirus,  just as a test.

[Grendel]

Hi Jim,

Did that just now.
Will get back with an update.

Cheers,

Hubert

[Grendel]

Trend Micro removed, but unfortunately had the same thing happen again.
MC was working fine for a while, but it just stopped working again.
MC Popup telling: "MC 22 has stopped working. There is a problem causing the program not to work correctly. the program will be shut down and you will get a message when a solution is available". (Translated from Dutch).

Well I don't think its a good idea to hold my breath until I get a message that a solution is available,.......

[JimH]

What is the full version of MC?

Can you tie it to playback of any certain file type?  What kinds of files are you playing?

You might take a look here:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_Guide

and here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,24031.0.html

[Grendel]

Hi,

Version is 22.0.110
I play 80% FLAC, the rest is other formats APE, mp3 dsd etc.
The crashes can not be tied to certain file types. Very large files sometimes cause MC to buffer, but that is only occasional and takes a few seconds after starting that file. No problem for me whatsoever.

Thank you for the links, but there is so much info there that it will take me more than a day to sort things out.

Mediacenter is a paid application. Searches on the internet and facebook unfortunately show clear that there are more than a few people that encounter problems. Some learned to live with crashes and a lot of people have given up on MC.
I paid for a couple of updates hoping things would improve, but honestly they have only gotten worse.

I think that JRiver is the one that should sort this. That is what I have paid for.
It is unacceptable that they put the troubleshooting in the hands of the end user.

Another thing that is unacceptable is that JRiver lets you no choice but to run your computer without anti virus software. I know no other software developer that does that. It is completely ridiculous.

[Grendel]

I just downloaded MC 23 64 bit version.
All tagging problems that MC22 had are now solved.
No crashes yet.................

[Awesome Donkey]

Another thing that is unacceptable is that JRiver lets you no choice but to run your computer without anti virus software. I know no other software developer that does that. It is completely ridiculous.

Okay, this is completely wrong. What Jim suggests is to test with the antivirus uninstalled to see if the issue(s) still occurs. This is because antivirus applications have been the source of issues over the last couple years, but especially this last year. I've never seen Jim or anyone else from JRiver recommend to remove all antivirus and keep it removed - to be frank, they wouldn't do this. They always recommend to uninstall it as a test (to rule out the antivirus being the cause of the issue(s) experienced) which means it could be added back after testing if the user desires to do so.

No two antivirus applications/brands are the same. Some may work better than others, but I ALWAYS recommend regardless of antivirus used to add exceptions for Media Center and its directories, executable files and DLL files. Not sure where the exceptions is in Trend Micro though, but it's worth exploring.

[Grendel]

Okay, this is completely wrong. What Jim suggests is to test with the antivirus uninstalled to see if the issue(s) still occurs. This is because antivirus applications have been the source of issues over the last couple years, but especially this last year.

Yeah that is nice, but there seem to be so many issues with anti virus programs, that you don't really have a choice now do you?
It would be a good idea if these problems were solved by JR, as we can't do this.
At least it would be a good idea to list anti virus software that is known to work well with MC. That would be really helpful for a lot of people.

[JimH]

At least it would be a good idea to list anti virus software that is known to work well with MC. That would be really helpful for a lot of people.

Not possible.  They have all caused problems at times.  Consult your AV company on how to use the AV software.

[Awesome Donkey]

Yeah that is nice, but there seem to be so many issues with anti virus programs, that you don't really have a choice now do you?

This is incorrect. You should read the documentation of your antivirus application on how to add exceptions. Usually once this is done (correctly, with everything added as an exception including Media Center's folder(s), Media Center's executable files, Media Center's DLL files, if you're using Media Network/Server then MC23.exe located in System32 or SysWOW64 if running the 32-bit build of Media Center, J River folder in %APPDATA%, etc.) antivirus applications *shouldn't* cause anymore issues... unless they're doing something else like DLL injection like BitDefender does.

It would be a good idea if these problems were solved by JR, as we can't do this.

They can't be, as they're not a JRiver problem, but a problem with the antivirus applications themselves (e.g. false positives, blocking executable files due to HIPS, DLL injection causing crashes, etc.), depending on the antivirus.

[Grendel]

I reinstalled Trend micro and again put the JR folders in the exception list.

That seems to work, but MC 22 will freeze after a couple of  songs and it will also freeze when you try to exit the program. It ignores several tag changes and refuses to add several songs to it's library. Running auto import will add songs, but will loose some as well that were previously in the library. Next time you run auto import they might reappear.

As mentioned before, this afternoon, I have installed MC 23 - 64 bit.

-Tagging problems solved
-All files imported correctly
-It has been running all afternoon and remained stable.

So there you go. The only problem I have with this is that I have to buy the very same program again in order for it to work properly.

[JimH]

You have a problem caused by your antivirus software.  I'm sorry that you don't understand that.  You're not alone:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86096.msg588759#msg588759

MC requires a stable, working system.  The OS has to work.  Memory, disk, video, etc.  If you don't have that, you will have a bad experience.

[Grendel]

No, if you had read my previous posts, you would know that I completely uninstalled my AV program.
This made things better, but MC22 still crashed. So my AV is not the problem.
Also, I am running MC 23 now with my AV running, without issues.

Kind regards,

Hubert

[JimH]

I reinstalled Trend micro and again put the JR folders in the exception list.

That seems to work, but MC 22 will freeze after a couple of  songs and it will also freeze when you try to exit the program.

I did read your posts although it was hard to find the facts among all the complaints and advice about antivirus software.

This quoted text led me to believe that MC22 wouldn't work when you had antivirus software installed.

If you need further help, please state just the facts.