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[Mike Foran]

I have a media PC connected via HDMI to my receiver, which is in turn connected via HDMI to my TV. I control my Media Center media PC almost exclusively with the JRemote app. However, if my HDMI chain doesn't have the available hardware to play what has been selected, a pop-up window reports an error with the DSP settings. This can happen in a number of easy ways, like:

- If someone tries to play music before the receiver is turned on
- If someone tries to play video before the receiver + TV is turned on,
- If someone tries to stream remotely and forgets to switch zones to 'this device'
- If someone forgets to switch zones from a DLNA audio-only device, like a powered speaker, before playing video

These errors can happen frequently, almost always accidentally, especially in a house with users who aren't super tech-savvy. While it's completely understandable (if frustrating) that this error would occur, the presence of this error window halts all playback operation on the media PC until the user manually turns on the TV and closes the window using a keyboard and/or mouse. It is not acknowledged by the JRemote app, which presents a confusing situation for a user if they don't have the TV on to see the error message. And for a more experienced user it is annoying to have to dig out keyboards and mice when trying to play something easily, especially after the HDMI devices have become available and the error message is obsolete.

I would like to ask that the error reporting behave differently:

- Can the error window have a timer that automatically closes the message (with no changes) after a period of time?
- Can Media Center become aware when the HDMI hardware has become available and automatically close the error window and proceed with playback?
- Can Media Center report this error to JRemote (or other remote app), so when users are trying to play music on a system with no monitor, they are aware of the error and can address it?
- Can Media Center give an audio response for situations where audio is present but video is not present?

This has been an ongoing usability problem in my household for a few years now, and is one of the main reasons my wife and children simply don't use Media Center unless I am around to manage it. And even myself, as an experienced user and familiar with the tech, often forget to switch a zone before playing some media and then have to stop everything I'm doing to turn on the TV, dig out the remote keyboard, and close the error window. I would love to have a better option here.

[Matt]

What's the error text on the messages?  We might be able to make them have a timeout.

Thanks.

[mattkhan]

The way remotes are not informed about server errors is a real useability fail in this house also, would be nice to route errors to the remote in such cases rather than the windows UI

[JimH]

Or dismiss them with the Enter key (OK on the remote).

[Mike Foran]

What's the error text on the messages?  We might be able to make them have a timeout.

Error attached.

[Matt]

Next build:
Changed: Made the "Playback could not be started..." error message timeout after 15 seconds and just cancel.

[Mike Foran]

Next build:
Changed: Made the "Playback could not be started..." error message timeout after 15 seconds and just cancel.

Thanks Matt, that change will be very helpful on it's own. If I could have an option to set the timeout duration that would be even better. For my house, it's almost always immediately rectifiable, so I would prefer a timeout of 3 seconds. But that wouldn't fit everyone's situation.

[RD James]

This has been an ongoing usability problem in my household for a few years now, and is one of the main reasons my wife and children simply don't use Media Center unless I am around to manage it. And even myself, as an experienced user and familiar with the tech, often forget to switch a zone before playing some media and then have to stop everything I'm doing to turn on the TV, dig out the remote keyboard, and close the error window. I would love to have a better option here.

For what it's worth, I found that it's better to work around problems like these in ways that prevent the error from occurring in the first place.

For example: playing music to Bluetooth headphones is a bad experience in Media Center, but not really through any fault of its own.
The problem is that if you want custom DSP set up for your headphones, you need to set up a separate zone for them, and play audio to the headphone device exclusively.
But in Windows when you connect/disconnect a Bluetooth audio device it "disappears" from the system.

• So if your headphones aren't switched on first, there is no device for them to play to, and playback either starts on the wrong device, or errors out.
• If your headphones were switched on, but then you walk out of range and come back, playback will be broken because the device disappeared and you have to reconnect & restart playback.
  

This is a horrible experience. So my solution was to decouple Bluetooth audio playback from the computer. I now play to a sound card's optical audio output, which is connected to an Avantree Bluetooth audio transmitter.
Since Media Center is playing to a sound card inside the machine, it doesn't matter when I switch on my headphones, or if I walk out of range (though the transmitter extends that significantly) because that device is not going to disappear based on the state of the headphones.
It also has a passthrough, so you could have it set up so that you play to one audio device and you get sound out of headphones or speakers depending on which device is switched on.
 
I would be looking into a solution like that for your AV setup.
I don't know the specifics of what might work, because it depends what your display capabilities are, but there are HDMI splitter/switcher devices with EDID control which will always appear as a 7.1 device to the PC regardless of what the display/AVR are doing. And that is the ideal in my opinion.
This is one example of these devices that I see people recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0755TB82Q - though I have not used it myself.

[Mike Foran]

...there are HDMI splitter/switcher devices with EDID control which will always appear as a 7.1 device to the PC regardless of what the display/AVR are doing.

I have looked at similar devices in the past for this issue. Usually they were priced higher than the one you linked to. Still, spending $63 + adding another device to my system isn't something I generally want to do unless I have no other option. Hopefully the upcoming change to the software will be enough.