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[Spike1000]

This has been annoying me for a while now so it's certainly reproducible.

The scenario:
So working from home under 'lockdown' I've been listening to old recordings of a radio show I enjoy as I wasn't able to listen to them live.
The recordings are 3 hour long MP3s.
I'm using fully patched Windows 10 and MC 24.0.78
I've been listening to them in sequence for months.
They are all in the same folder, when one ends the next one starts playing.
I typically hibernate the PC running MC every day (typically with MC paused) and only reboot it once a month when it's been patched.

The problem:
Sometimes when playback is ~1 hour 40 minutes in to a 3 hour recording MC jumps to the next track all by its self. There's no input from me, it jumps to the beginning of next track. It's *really* annoying and reproducible.
It ALWAYS does it at the same point (~1 hour 40 minutes in) on every track (when it does it) just when the guest is being interviewed.

I'm suspecting some form of issue with an internal 'timer' as it happens at the same point (~1 hour 40 mins in) on every track when it occurs.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Truncated Log file attached:
This file was being played until ~01:40:00
M:\Media\Radio\Prog\2011 10 20 Prog Thursday - with Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe.mp3
Start and end shown in the logs

Then it jumped to M:\Media\Radio\Prog\2011 10 21 Prog Friday - with Billy Bragg.mp3
The start of this playing (and the end of the track above) shown in the logs.

Spike

[RoderickGI]

I'm not sure what is causing the track change at 1 hour 40 minutes, but I would suspect the [Duration] on these recordings is either missing or incorrect.

One thing that may be directly affecting this though is your practice of hibernating MC while playback is paused. It would be better to stop playback before hibernating the PC, but of course you would then lose your place in the program. Bookmarking would be the answer, but as we know, Bookmarking doesn't work on ordinary Audio files... but it does work on Audio files that are Podcasts or Audiobooks.

I suggest that you tag these files as Podcasts and begin Stopping playback before hibernating. You could set up a View that displayed "Unwatched" podcasts in chronological sequence, so that all you had to do was open the View and hit play on the first file, and you would be back to where you were previously.


I noted from your log that there was nearly 100 hours between beginning playback of the first track and the second track. That is a longer time for MC to be in a paused state, and makes any real diagnosis quite difficult. I can also see MC seems to think it has reached End Of File, and then validates it position, then updates it to the next track. But I don't know if any of that is wrong or not.

[Spike1000]

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and reply. It's much appreciated.

The duration on these recordings looks OK. They are all 03:02:00. It also doesn't happen every time I pass ~01:40:00; although it did happen again this morning which is rare to see it two days running. It's only the file that was 'hibernated' is affected it plays the next file all the way through every time.

It happened this morning and I was able to pin the time at more like 01:41:00 which is 6000 seconds + maybe a 60 sec poll interval or something. . .

I strongly believe it's related to the 'hibernation' effect but that's not usual with many people using laptops and just closing the lids 95% of the time and only rebooting when nagged by windows. I hibernate as there is no bookmarking by default . . .

So I guess that's the heart of the issue. The Files are tagged as Audio | Radio. I could re-tag them as podcast but then it messes up other views as they would mingle with my legitimate podcasts (or audiobooks). It would be better if MC knew where it had got to in any audio file and maybe give you the option to 'resume' playback.. .  but I don't see that changing any time soon in MC.

There may be 100 hours of 'pause' time in the logs but the PC was 'off' (well hibernated) for the vast majority of that and it shouldn't really matter. It does seem to be possibly related to that somehow (but I've just seen it happen 2 days running so maybe a 15 hour overnight hibernation time) but it's the ~01:40:00 into a file that's curious to me.

Reading what you've said and then reading the log files again, they make more sense, but offer no clue to me as to why it decided to end one track and start the next. If any of the developers are interested and want more logs/details I'm happy to provide them (but I don't suspect they'll be any take up of that either).

I've stayed on an old version of MC as I was spending too much time 'chasing a utopia' with MC. Upgrading to new version only to find out it was still quirky and needed a lot of tinkering time to be happy with it; rinse and repeat for a few years. I have something that sort of works; sort of does what I want; but takes no tinkering as I haven't upgraded. I now spend the 'tinkering time' on other projects. I may revisit newer versions at some point to see if anything has changed :-)

Spike

[JimH]

If you think it could be related to hibernating, try setting that limit higher.  Two hours, say.  Look at other power settings, too.

[Spike1000]

Jim, I choose to hibernate the PC at the end of the day; it's not a powersaving setting, it's how I turn my PC off. It's the same process as shutting the lid on a laptop I just have a short press of the power button hibernate the PC rather than shut it down. I do it because otherwise MC would lose my place in my 3 hour long audio file that I'm part way through as it doesn't bookmark audio files unless tagged as podcast or audiobook.

Spike

[RoderickGI]

Oh silly me. I am forgetting, you can set whether Bookmarking is used on a file by file basis.

So the solution to try is to select all your radio recordings and change the [Use Bookmarking] field to "Yes", then from now on just Stop playback before hibernating your PC, then when you wake it, just start playback again, and it will start from where you left off.

I just tested using a 2:40 hour Audio track and that works fines.

Of course, it may not change the behaviour you are seeing, but it is certainly worth a try.

===========================
I was thinking this was an opportunity for improvement.

There are some other Media Sub Types that might benefit from using Bookmarks by default. Most are Video Media Types, but some could be Audio, such as Workouts, Book, Concert, Educational, Entertainment, and Sports.

Maybe MC should have a setting that allows a user to select which Media Sub Types will use Bookmarking by default, and apply the "Resume playback using bookmarks" setting that already exists. Jim?

[Spike1000]

:-) You say 'silly me' but MC does still hide its features under a very large Bushel !! I was pretty active on the Form in the past but I had no idea that was even an option (ie enable bookmarking per file) MC does owe an awful lot to their customers who are MC enthusiasts. I hope you get free copies for life! Jim may have choked on his cornflakes at this point :-)

So, unsurprisingly, enabling bookmarks on the file writes bookmarks to the database and allows the file to be picked up where I left off after stopping MC. That's a significant step forward! Many thanks!

I need to work out how best to use this feature (ie find the partly played file amongst many files) but you've hinted that a new 'unwatched' view will do the trick. I use a remote player (client) to play from a MC server so I will have the usual fiddling to get the client to look the way I want without having a unique config as that just adds to the MC tinkering overhead.

Time to clear the MC log file (it's a million lines now!) and see how we get on. . .

Cheers

Spike

[Matt]

I was thinking this was an opportunity for improvement.

There are some other Media Sub Types that might benefit from using Bookmarks by default. Most are Video Media Types, but some could be Audio, such as Workouts, Book, Concert, Educational, Entertainment, and Sports.

Maybe MC should have a setting that allows a user to select which Media Sub Types will use Bookmarking by default, and apply the "Resume playback using bookmarks" setting that already exists. Jim?

I'm making a coming build of MC27 allow setting a search and any matching files will switch to "On" if "Use Bookmarking" is set to default.

Thanks for the idea

[RoderickGI]

Neat.

I was sort of hoping you might take up the opportunity.