Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BrownBear]

Hi Guys,

I upgraded to High Sierra last night and experienced some issues with video playback  ?. Every time I tried playing a video/movie it starts to play and then JRiver freezes (picture and sound stops playing). Pressing any buttons does nothing. Eventually the OS puts me back on the login page and I need to log in again. Tried updating from build 41 to 52 (clean install) but still get this problem. Playing music works fine, it is only videos.

After some additional testing it seems to affect MP4 and MKV files assuming it might be something to do with H264? Videos with other encoding seems to work. Any idea what could be causing this? Everything worked prior to the update.

Thanks in advance for any help/guidance.

[blgentry]

I thought your earlier report indicated that your movies were on a NAS share.  Have you tried with a local file (on internal or USB disk) ?

I assume your computer rebooted at least once during the OS installation process.  Have you tried rebooting again?

What kind of Mac are you using?

Brian.

[BrownBear]

I have tried with a some local files (copied over from NAS) and it still gives the same problem. Tried a few MPG and AVI files with XVID and MPEG-2 encodings and they work. MKV or MP4 seems not to work. Tested with a view videos downloaded from youtube as well with no success.

Yes it did reboot during installation and I have rebooted a few times afterwards during testing and after reinstalling JRiver.

I am on a Macbook pro 15" late 2013 model.

I am able to play these videos using quicktime and VLC.

[blgentry]

Interesting.  I did a little bit of reading and found that some people are experiencing high CPU utilization after the upgrade to high sierra.  You might open the Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) and switch to the CPU view and see how much CPU is being used and how much is free.

A "normal" system will typically have at least 80% CPU free (only 20% being used).  Mine is generally not even that busy.  It's usually around 90% free (only 10% being used).

I saw reports of a process called trustd taking up lots of CPU.

Brian.

[BrownBear]

I can see there are 4 instances of the trustd process but they are all idle. My machine is 90% idle. Usually the fans will kick in if the CPU load is high.

The strange thing is that the videos start to play for 3-4 seconds before my machine freezes. I did change the config so that the app does not jump to the display view when the video starts, so I see it starts in the bottom left window. This only happens when trying to play videos through JRiver.

Does video playback work for you on High Sierra? Hope I am not the only one with this issue.

[blgentry]

I have not installed High Sierra yet.  My current plan is to skip it and wait for the next major OSX version before upgrading.

I'm not sure what to advise.  Maybe try reinstalling MC23?  Make a library backup first, just in case.  File > Library > backup library .

Maybe someone else has some better ideas.

Good luck.

Brian.

[BrownBear]

I have done some additional testing and reinstalled everything from scratch and still have JRiver hang the system when trying to play videos. I tested on an older iMac as well which I upgraded to High Sierra and it did not have the problem. The main differences are that the iMac does not used the new apple filesystem yet and it also does not have a dedicated graphics card. I see there is also a kernel log indicating a graphics card reset. I have attached some of the logs.

[bob]

I have done some additional testing and reinstalled everything from scratch and still have JRiver hang the system when trying to play videos. I tested on an older iMac as well which I upgraded to High Sierra and it did not have the problem. The main differences are that the iMac does not used the new apple filesystem yet and it also does not have a dedicated graphics card. I see there is also a kernel log indicating a graphics card reset. I have attached some of the logs.

Can you verify that the system that's crashing has APFS?
You started with a blank disk? From what I can see the upgrade will not try to change the filesystem of the drive in a running system.

[aliciaviola]

I installed High-Sierra and have no problem with video playback. All formats are playing without any problem.
May this be a problem: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/18/apple-files-system-no-fusion-drive-support/

Frank

[bob]

Can you verify that the ystem that's crashing has APFS?
You started with a blank disk? From what I can see the upgrade will not try to change the filesystem of the drive in a running system.

However I see that on our dev system with a ssd upgrading from Sierra DID convert the running driver to APFS. It still works fine.

[Awesome Donkey]

Yeah, AFAIK it'll only convert to APFS if it's a SSD.

[BrownBear]

I will confirm the file system tonight. Its a 2013 macbook pro 15" with a 500GB flash storage and dual GPU.

I have read that other people are also experiencing some issues with Nvidia graphics cards on High Sierra, so maybe a driver issue with Nvidia cards.  As per the logs it seems the graphics card resets when something is trying to access it. I also saw Nvidia released new drivers which potentially addresses the issue a few days ago, so I will test again tonight. I will also try other apps which will trigger the Nvidia card to see if they cause the same problem. So far it has only been JRiver which showed the issue but will try a game tonight.

[BrownBear]

I can confirm my macbook is running APFS: (File System:   APFS)

I have also tried disabling the automatic graphics switching and installed the new Nvidia driver (http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/125379/en-us) but still get the issue where playing a video through JRiver crashes the system. I have seen many people experienced this issue a few years ago with some of the Adobe applications, however non of the suggestions seems to work for me. Since this seems to affect the GPU, I suspect not everyone will get this issue, depending on the machine they are using?

This is the snippet from the crash report indicating the problem:

Process:               Media Center 23 [539]
Path:                  /Applications/Media Center 23.app/Contents/MacOS/Media Center 23
Identifier:            com.jriver.MediaCenter23
Version:               23.0.41 (230061)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ? [1]
Responsible:           Media Center 23 [539]
User ID:               501

Date/Time:             2017-10-02 20:15:25.735 +0100
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.13 (17A365)
Report Version:        12
Anonymous UUID:        F83D9CDE-12B1-0380-605B-295E0E101371

Time Awake Since Boot: 170 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        24

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
abort() called

Application Specific Signatures:
Graphics hardware encountered an error and was reset: 0x0000002b

Thread 24 Crashed:
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib           0x00007fff69291fce __pthread_kill + 10
1   libsystem_pthread.dylib          0x00007fff693cf150 pthread_kill + 333
2   libsystem_c.dylib                0x00007fff691ee32a abort + 127
3   libGPUSupportMercury.dylib       0x00007fff5a2bf165 gpusGenerateCrashLog + 168
4   com.nvidia.web.GeForceGLDriverWeb   0x00000001123c944f 0x112065000 + 3556431
5   libGPUSupportMercury.dylib       0x00007fff5a2c06ae gpusSubmitDataBuffers + 540
6   com.nvidia.web.GeForceGLDriverWeb   0x00000001123c48ee 0x112065000 + 3537134
7   com.nvidia.web.GeForceGLDriverWeb   0x00000001123c45d9 0x112065000 + 3536345
8   libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113cc9494 CJRVideoGLRenderer::Receive(JRVideoFrame&) + 1356
9   libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113ccc104 CJRMediaStreamVideo::Deliver(AVFrame*) + 1010
10  libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113ccbb87 CJRMediaStreamVideo::Filter(AVFrame*) + 4719
11  libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113cca536 CJRMediaStreamVideo::Decode(AVPacket*) + 126
12  libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113cca1a4 CJRMediaStreamBase::Thread() + 278
13  libJRPlayer.dylib                0x0000000113d69950 JRThread::StaticThread(void*) + 110
14  libsystem_pthread.dylib          0x00007fff693cc6c1 _pthread_body + 340
15  libsystem_pthread.dylib          0x00007fff693cc56d _pthread_start + 377
16  libsystem_pthread.dylib          0x00007fff693cbc5d thread_start + 13
 
This is not a hardware issue since I am able to use other applications which uses the graphics card, including games (Diablo 3 runs with both the updated NVidia driver or OSX default driver).

I do not know what to do anymore. Hope a future OSX or MediaCenter update fixes this.

[Hendrik]

This particular crash seems to affect quite a bunch of 3D applications on 10.13. It looks like the graphics driver crashes for unknown reasons. Usually I would recommend to update the driver, but OSX probably doesn't give you any such choices, huh.

[Awesome Donkey]

Looks like it's running the Nvidia Web Driver? In that case, I'd wait for Nvidia to update it (they have to soon, as Apple released a supplemental update today fixing some issues and the Nvidia Web Driver doesn't work with it).

P.S. I don't think this is a hardware, macOS or Media Center issue. It looks to be a Nvidia driver issue in this case?

[Hendrik]

Its not exactly clear, libGPUSupportMercury.dylib is a OSX component, which might as well be causing the crash. Or its the driver. I don't see anything wrong in what we're doing, we're only uploading a texture in pretty standard means.

[BrownBear]

I don't think this is the Nvidia driver. This crash happened before I had the driver installed.
I only installed the driver as some people in the past indicated it solved similar issues for some of the Adobe applications.

I did the OSX update today and still get the crash. Also updated the NVidia driver again after testing and it also still occurs. Thus, the Nvidia driver does not seem to be the issue or have any effect. I also tried with the new build 65 and still get the problem.

[BrownBear]

I managed to find a workaround for the video issue at this stage. With this utility (https://gfx.io/) I set the macbook to always use the Internal (Intel) graphics card and not the dedicated (Nvidia) and then video playback works fine.

Setting it to Nvidia only causes the system to crash, thus making me believe there is an issue with JRiver on High Sierra (Worked on Sierra) and Nvidia (GT 750M in my case) graphics cards? Using the Nvidia card with other apps and games works well so not a hardware issue.

[Awesome Donkey]

I still think it's the Nvidia Web Drivers causing it. Reading various posts about it, there seems to be various issues with it on High Sierra.

P.S. There was an update to the Nvidia Web Drivers yesterday for High Sierra.

[BrownBear]

Thanks, I will try the updated driver tonight then.
I will also remove it if it still gives the issue and get back with some updates. As mentioned before, this happened to me before installing the web driver.

[cktse]

FYI I am getting exactly the same frozen -> login screen symptom on Sierra 10.12.6, *not* High Sierra, using NVIDIA Web Driver (most up-to-date version available for Sierra).

I can reliably reproduce the symptom as follows:
- Switch to full-screen Theater View
- Select Audio
- I am shown the screen full of album covers (I got only <300 albums as I am still testing JRiver, so this is not even that much of a stress test) At this point, the system is still responsive.
- Start to quickly scroll down the album covers... after a page or two worth of very smooth animated scrolls, it freezes.
- Eventually (maybe say 5 mins) it bumps me back to the OSX login screen.

[David593]

Hi I just upgraded to High Sierra tonight and have exactly the same problem as brown bear. I have the same MacBook Pro model with the same Nvidia graphics card and it freezes and then resets . Also, thanks brown bear, the work around, er, works. Set to integrated card and all is fine, switching or discrete and it locks up.

Anyone know if an updated driver will be produced or any way to upgrade it?

Issue applies to jriver22 and 23 and all was working fine before the upgrade.

Big cheers to brown bear - thanks buddy, you saved my bacon!!

[Hendrik]

The display driver crashing and basically taking your OS with it is not exactly something we have direct influence on. I would recommend to report this to Apple in the meantime.

[David593]

Thanks I will. This is a major problem as the discrete graphics chip work around couldn’t be used with an external monitor and I use the computer as my main source for tv and films in the living room. I had to restore the Mac back to Sierra which works fine.

[BrownBear]

Glad it worked for you David593.
Was also thinking of restoring my machine back to Sierra, however this can cause issues further down the line with other apps and features requiring High Sierra or the next version.

[David593]

Hi Hendrick

I just thought, if this issue affects a whole class of Mac as it appears to and is either a basic issue with how the driver works or with JRiver, wouldn’t it be better for a complaint/issue log was made by you as JRiver with Apple rather than isolated users? At the end of the day now I can’t upgrade my machine because one programme fails. Does VLan not work etc? Has anyone from JRiver looked into this or reported it? Do we have a clear chain to understand what the cause is, what is at fault and how it can be fixed? I can’t scrap a £2.5k machine! I would really appreciate it if you could let us know what is happening.

[JimH]

Oddly, I don't think Apple would give JRiver the time of day.  You could post on their site.  Users are probably more important to them than developers.

[David593]

I have reported this to Apple Support and a senior support advisor by phone and e-mail. He will take my information and brown bear’s crash report to the OS team. Thankfully due to the notes on the JRiver site and crash report the advisor is very clear on the issue but unsure what form a resolution will take or when. I have his direct number and e-mail so it is being taken seriously.

The advisor suggested anyone who has experienced this to make a formal support request as the more users affected the higher priority the fix! Please everyone affected, and JRiver, contact Apple to help get this resolved. All I know for sure is that at some point I will have to upgrade to High Sierra to fix the vulnerabilities identified and I have no good alternatives to JRiver but don't want to have a £2.5k paperweight.

I understand that Apple may respond to consumers more than developers but it is your software that fails under High Sierra and unless VLC, Plex etc also cause this issue I think you do have some responsibility to help resolve this issue so your software works. I have invested quite a lot of my time into this so would appreciate some help and think this is a reasonable request.

[tjobbins]

To add another "me too": I just started using MC on my 2010 Mac Pro running 10.13.3, initially using NVidia graphics - an NVidia 760 2GB in a PCIe slot.

With this config, MC would cause the entire system to lock up - the only time I've ever known my MP to do that - almost immediately when I tried to play a 1080P video.  It also happened in Theatre Mode when I went to Videos->Shows, when it was displaying the thumbnails (as others report.)

I tested with both Apple's native and NVidia's Web drivers with identical results.

Luckily I was already planning to replace the NVidia with an AMD Radeon 7970, and with this in place MC is running fine.  1080P videos playing fine, Theatre View scrolling through thumbnails very smoothly with no crashes.

So I can confirm it's purely related to NVidia, and applies equally on desktop systems with no internal GPU.

[bob]

I have reported this to Apple Support and a senior support advisor by phone and e-mail. He will take my information and brown bear’s crash report to the OS team. Thankfully due to the notes on the JRiver site and crash report the advisor is very clear on the issue but unsure what form a resolution will take or when. I have his direct number and e-mail so it is being taken seriously.

The advisor suggested anyone who has experienced this to make a formal support request as the more users affected the higher priority the fix! Please everyone affected, and JRiver, contact Apple to help get this resolved. All I know for sure is that at some point I will have to upgrade to High Sierra to fix the vulnerabilities identified and I have no good alternatives to JRiver but don't want to have a £2.5k paperweight.

I understand that Apple may respond to consumers more than developers but it is your software that fails under High Sierra and unless VLC, Plex etc also cause this issue I think you do have some responsibility to help resolve this issue so your software works. I have invested quite a lot of my time into this so would appreciate some help and think this is a reasonable request.

Have you heard anything back from them at all?
Do you have a developer contact you could PM me with so we could find out from them if there is anything that can be done to mitigate the problem?

[David593]

Just looked back at this topic after a break as no response had been received for so long. I have sent Bob a pm with the support reference and contact (thanks Bob). I can confirm that I have had no response from Apple and will contact them later today. I will post any update, though I guess from others with similar issues there is no fix as yet.

[Awesome Donkey]

Well, I wouldn't hold my breath on Apple giving any assistance, especially if the issue is only happening for Nvidia GPUs. They don't officially support Nvidia graphics cards (except some older Nvidia GPUs that were in some older Mac products) and Nvidia actually releases their own drivers for Mac, which has had MANY issues with High Sierra. Rumor is Apple had a falling out with Nvidia several years back, hence one of the reasons why they only support AMD cards now.

You might try contacting Nvidia instead, though I doubt it'd do much good. Rumor was Nvidia was looking to drop support for their Mac drivers with the Pascal series of cards, but a very vocal group of individuals (Hackintoshers) were able to change their mind they released their Mac Web Drivers for Pascal cards.

Personally, if it wasn't for the darn cryptocurrency mining craze and the RAM shortage, I'd of replaced my Nvidia GTX 970 with a AMD 580 by now, since I do use a Hackintosh partition on this PC. That and I'd actually like to use Wayland sessions under Linux without the terrible performance issues with the Nvidia proprietary drivers.

[David593]

Hi everyone

My NVIDIA card is in a high end MacBook Pro from late 2013. Being an official Apple product I don’t believe I can update drivers directly but it is supported by Apple.

I have spoken to Apple support who suggested that they have no other programmes affected with this issue they are aware of. They would very much welcome the JRiver developers contacting them so they can obtain more logs and details of jrivers interaction with the file system etc to track down the issue. They confirmed they would take you seriously and that there is a developer channel to feedback issues. I have even obtained the phone number for this and will pm it to Bob.

Now please can JRiver contact Apple directly to sort this out as they said directly that they would help?

I sense you can feel my frustration but whoever is to blame it isn’t me, I just want to be able to use the programme on the computer, preferably upgraded. As I have said before this is a genuine Apple pc that cost over £2.5k and works perfectly in every other respect. I paid for the software and the hardware and just want them to play together. Apple have said they WILL talk to you JRiver. Let me know if they don’t and I will contact them again.

[JimH]

I sympathize, but from your description, and from the response at Apple, this sure looks like a video driver problem, and this is not something we can fix.  Nor is Apple likely to fix it.  We'll talk to them, but your only hope is that a future driver fixes the problem.

[David593]

Thanks Jim.

They wondered if it may be something to do with the changes made to the file system. Thanks for agreeing to talk with them, that’s all I wanted and all you can do. Fingers crossed.....

The 15” Microsoft surface book looks good..... 

[Hendrik]

24.0.18 has some video rendering changes that so far seem to help this issue.

[David593]

Thanks Hendrik

I’ll upgrade to High Sierra, download a trial of 24.0.18 or 19 and see how it goes. I will let you know 

[David593]

Worked then high Sierra did a security update without asking and it’s broken. Now it crashes out with a crash report. Moved my comments to jr24 thread now