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[blgentry]

In MC 26.0.82 for Mac, any time something is highlighted, a line is left behind.  So, if you move your mouse over album covers in a visual Albums view, about 30% of the covers will have lines under or over them.  Moving the mouse more creates more and takes some away.

Or, in Playing Now, move your mouse up and down the list of songs.  30% of the songs will have a line under them when you are done.

This appears to be a "left over" from highlighting the item as the mouse moves over it.

Tested this with my default Skin (Black and Blue SB HC) as well as Black on Black and Modern Cards Dark edition.  All exhibit the same behavior.  MC25 does not exhibit the behavior.

Thanks,

[HaWi]

I am seeing the same thing. My skin is Blue Steel
many thanks for any fix!
Hans

[RichM]

Same here.  It's been that way for me for awhile; around the time of the Catalina OS compatability modifications.

MacOS Mojave / MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) running JRiver MC 26.0.73

[bob]

It has been an issue with scaling that I've seen on my 4k monitor but we haven't found the issue yet. Oddly enough I can't reproduce it now. I don't know if the difference is that I installed the latest Catalina update or the build of MC that I'm testing (which is newer than the release) doesn't have the issue.

If you have a simple reliable way or reproducing this let me know, I've tried the skins above and 1920x1080 scaling mode.

[HaWi]

The 1920x1080 scaling, do you do that in MC or is it set on your Mac?
many thanks,
Hans

[bob]

The 1920x1080 scaling, do you do that in MC or is it set on your Mac?
many thanks,
Hans

On the Mac with a 4k monitor.

[HaWi]

Thanks Bob! I now don't see the lines anymore but have no clue why. It seems to happen only sporadically. I'll pay closer attention to what I did before, should it happen again.
EDIT: boy did I jinx this. The lines are back. They are left behind when I click on one track in pane view and move the mouse up (un-clicked). No lines are left behind if I move the mouse down.
EDIT2: When I quit out of MC (have to also stop the server) and re-open the mouse doesn't leave any lines, for now.
EDIT3: Short lived. After scrolling the screen up and down a bit, the lines are back, somewhat inconsistently. Not on every try but 90% or so.
EDIT4: Sorry about all the edits. I changed my display resolution down two notches (I don't see and option to select a numerical resolution in /System Preferences/Display) and the lines are still there. However, the scrolling is now smooth, and not jerky, as it is when I am on Default resolution.
Best wishes,
Hans

[blgentry]

If you have a simple reliable way or reproducing this let me know, I've tried the skins above and 1920x1080 scaling mode.

Presumably you mean in Preferences > Displays > Display > Resolution > Scaled
I'm not sure what a 4k monitor on Mac defaults to, but I would run it at the default since that's... the default.  My setup, produces these lines every time.  5k iMac (default display settings), OS X 10.14.6, MC26.0.82 in Retina mode.  Turning off retina mode in MC makes the effect go away.  But it makes MC cartoonishly swollen.

Brian.

[bob]

Presumably you mean in Preferences > Displays > Display > Resolution > Scaled
I'm not sure what a 4k monitor on Mac defaults to, but I would run it at the default since that's... the default.  My setup, produces these lines every time.  5k iMac (default display settings), OS X 10.14.6, MC26.0.82 in Retina mode.  Turning off retina mode in MC makes the effect go away.  But it makes MC cartoonishly swollen.

Brian.

I run my 4k scaled to 1/4 size since the monitor isn't huge and it gives me a much sharper display than running in 1080p mode.
On my MacBook Pro 13" the retina display can ONLY be scaled, it doesn't even have the option of running in non-scaled mode.

When  I run the 4k monitor in either non-scaled or scaled mode I don't see any white lines.
I used to but something seems to have changed.
I'm going to put up a new build shortly, perhaps you can test it...
Thanks.

[roller]

I can't see why it won't be fixed.
It's really a very ugly thing and I don't feel like using media centers anymore because it happens all the time.
It is a problem that has been known for a long time. I use a normal Macbook pro from 2014.

[blgentry]

Bob, I apologize but I can't figure out what you're saying.  I only have access to my one Retina based Mac, so I can't test it on another.  I have other non-retina Macs, but the problem only occurs in Retina mode so...

If you're running at "1/4 resolution" are you in Retina mode in MC?  I wouldn't think you would be since 1/4 of 4k is certainly not super high dot pitch (or Retina in Mac speak).

If you issue a new build, I'll certainly test it.

Brian.

[bob]

Bob, I apologize but I can't figure out what you're saying.  I only have access to my one Retina based Mac, so I can't test it on another.  I have other non-retina Macs, but the problem only occurs in Retina mode so...

If you're running at "1/4 resolution" are you in Retina mode in MC?  I wouldn't think you would be since 1/4 of 4k is certainly not super high dot pitch (or Retina in Mac speak).

If you issue a new build, I'll certainly test it.

Brian.

Sloppy speech by me.
I'm in 1/4 screen size, full resolution.
So my 4k monitor is at 1920x1080 1/4 of the native size of 3840x2160.

Now for some reason I can see the lines on my Macbook Pro 13" that's scaled in the black on black skin (apple prevents this device from doing native resolution or 2560x1600 it only allows scaled resolutions of 1680x1050, 1280x800 or 1024x640). So at least I can see it now.

[blgentry]

Keep in mind that most (all?) retina displays are scaled by default.   My 27" Retina iMac with a native 5k display defaults to 2560x1140 .  I can bump it to 5120x2280, but everything gets itttttty bittttty tiny if I do.  It's pretty much unusable.  You probably know this; just making sure.

Brian.

[roller]

Doesn't it matter how big or small any user sets his retina display?
I don't know any other program that shows such ugly errors on my 21 inch iMac and on my Mackbook pro.
It is neither due to specific computers nor to ignorant users. It's a software problem.
And I don't quite understand why JRiver obviously had to be brought up to it by users here in the forum (you should know your software and the bugs) and why it hasn't been solved yet.
I haven't used Media Center for months because of this. It bothers me a lot.
And, yes, if I pay for an update every year, I expect these things to be solved faster.

[Awesome Donkey]

In order to fix issues like that, the devs need to be able to reliably reproduce them. Sometimes it's not easy and is very time consuming to try to reproduce issues like that.

I personally haven't seen this issue.

[HaWi]

Surely, they have an iMac for testing? With default display settings, they should see this. I also don't recall it being like that in MC25.

[tyler69]

If I am not mistaken, this issue exists at least in MC25: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,123089.0.html

[blgentry]

I just read that thread, then tried MC25 with 4 different skins.  I did not see any hint of this particular bug, on my system, with MC25 and the different skins I tried.  I have never seen this behavior in any version of MC other than MC26.

Brian.

[Awesome Donkey]

I still can't reproduce it at all, and I tried every skin included with MC26. Any tips?

Surely, they have an iMac for testing? With default display settings, they should see this. I also don't recall it being like that in MC25.

They could have 10+ Macs for testing and not encounter the issue. That's the nature of the beast with software development, sometimes developers can't reproduce the issues reported.

[HaWi]

I still can't reproduce it at all, and I tried every skin included with MC26. Any tips?

They could have 10+ Macs for testing and not encounter the issue. That's the nature of the beast with software development, sometimes developers can't reproduce the issues reported.

I understand. Maybe the next step could be to provide as much information about my set-up (hardware, software) as possible so an attempt can be made to recreate that. To that end, would it help if I sent you a complete system report? Also, what files from my MC installation would help reproduce my installation? Thank you for looking into this!

[blgentry]

I still can't reproduce it at all, and I tried every skin included with MC26. Any tips?

1.  Use MC's Retina Mode under View > Size > Retina Mode .  It only appears in Retina Mode.
2.  Use a real retina display with the default settings.  A 4k display may or may not do this; I have no idea because I don't know why this is happening.  I just know it happens on Retina displays in Retina mode.
3.  Move your mouse around the Playing Now view, especially in the track listing.  This is the easist way to reproduce the lines.

I believe that everyone that has reported this is using an Apple display, whether it is an iMac or a macbook pro.  Testing with non-Apple displays is probably not a great way to reproduce this issue.

Brian.

[Awesome Donkey]

2.  Use a real retina display with the default settings.  A 4k display may or may not do this; I have no idea because I don't know why this is happening.  I just know it happens on Retina displays in Retina mode.

Yep, that's probably why I can't reproduce it. Because I use a Hackintosh and my monitor is 1440p (Gigabyte Aorus FI27Q-P) I can't reproduce the issue.

[bob]

Still the only way I see it is on my macbook pro and ONLY with the black skins.
I can make it happen in MC26 and the problem appears to have begun when we started using the updated Xcode development environment after apple mandated notarization of apps (which probably affect the last few builds of MC25 too).
It's on the list but since it's not a show stopper there are higher priorities right now.

[blgentry]

As far as I can tell this happens on all Retina displays.  That's every Macbook pro since 2012.  That includes a large number of the popular iMacs also; including mine and Hans'.   I'm disappointed that this UI problem doesn't rate a fix.  But ok.

I'll go back to MC25.

Thanks,

Brian.

[JimH]

Please be patient.  This may be an Apple problem.

[bob]

As far as I can tell this happens on all Retina displays.  That's every Macbook pro since 2012.  That includes a large number of the popular iMacs also; including mine and Hans'.   I'm disappointed that this UI problem doesn't rate a fix.  But ok.

I'll go back to MC25.

Thanks,

Brian.

Or just use a grey or light skin until we figure it out.

[blgentry]

Or just use a grey or light skin until we figure it out.

I've been using the same skin for about 3 years.  I could switch, but I don't have a good reason to.  Unless MC26 comes up with something that I find to be better than MC25. 

But for the record, you should know (and maybe you already do) that this behavior appears in Modern Cards (white, grey, and dark), as well as Noire.  It's not nearly as noticeable in the lighter skins.  You have to look for it really.  But it's there.  It's just hidden by the light backgrounds a bit.  I'm trying to illustrate (again you probably already know), this isn't a skin specific problem or a "skin authoring issue".  It's happening on all skins.  It's just hard to notice white lines on a background that's almost white.

Thanks,
Brian.

[bob]

I've been using the same skin for about 3 years.  I could switch, but I don't have a good reason to.  Unless MC26 comes up with something that I find to be better than MC25. 

But for the record, you should know (and maybe you already do) that this behavior appears in Modern Cards (white, grey, and dark), as well as Noire.  It's not nearly as noticeable in the lighter skins.  You have to look for it really.  But it's there.  It's just hidden by the light backgrounds a bit.  I'm trying to illustrate (again you probably already know), this isn't a skin specific problem or a "skin authoring issue".  It's happening on all skins.  It's just hard to notice white lines on a background that's almost white.

Thanks,
Brian.

Yeah I figured that was the case.
It's pretty weird that nothing I can do will get it to show up on my Mac Mini w/4k monitor in any scaling resolution but I can see it on my Macbook pro 13" with the same OS etc.

Seems like it's got to be an interaction between the SDK and MC since it happened when we moved to XCode 10 but no matter which version I use newer than that it's still there on my Macbook.

[tyler69]

I just read that thread, then tried MC25 with 4 different skins.  I did not see any hint of this particular bug, on my system, with MC25 and the different skins I tried.  I have never seen this behavior in any version of MC other than MC26.

Brian.

Please find an animated GIF attached. It shows two issues with "lines". Is one of these the issue you see? This is MC25 on macOS.

[roller]

Video

[Awesome Donkey]

Honestly seeing that makes me wonder if it's just a skin issue related to using retina mode with scaling via skin size, one that possibly could be fixed in the skins itself.

If I had to guess, it probably happens on the light skins too, but since those lines are light, you probably would never notice them.

Grrrr, if only I could reproduce it, I've got an idea or two to try. I'll try again to reproduce it here in a few...

[Awesome Donkey]

Actually, I do see a version of this happening with faint black lines. Okay, groovy, will try a few things.

[Awesome Donkey]

FINALLY got it to go all white lines too, nice! And also like that, I got it to stop by removing Tree_Selection.png from the skin's folder so my idea that it's related to the tree selection image seems to be right thus far. You *can* workaround this by making sure MC26 is fully closed then moving Tree_Selection.png from the skin's folder (located in ~/Library/Application Support/J River/Media Center 26/Skins/Standard View) and in the skin folder move Tree_Selection.png to the desktop and reopen MC and see if it's still there.

Okay, does anyone know of a skin where this issue doesn't occur? A dark skin would be preferred since it looks like it happens with light skins too but it's very hard to notice. If there's a dark skin where this doesn't happen, I'd like to compare and see how they're different and see if it can be fixed.

[Awesome Donkey]

It's definitely related to the Tree_Selection.png file (along with retina mode + skin size/scaling), because once I add back the file to the Modern Cards: Dark Edition's folder and reload the skin, I can see the white lines again.

That said, I added marko's Tree_Selection.png from his modified Modern Cards: Dark Edition skin (located here) to the skin, it seems to completely fix it. If anyone else confirms this fixes it for them, looks like this issue can be easily fixed, at least for the Modern Cards: Dark Edition skin.

I've attached marko's Tree_Selection.png file for you guys to try.

EDIT: Believe it or not, this issue also happens in the list (e.g. Artists/Albums list in panes view) as well, it's very hard to notice though. Seeing if marko's changes in List_Selection.png fixes that too.

EDIT 2: Yep, looks like marko's List_Selection.png fixes that issue too. Okay, so this issue exists with both List_Selection.png and Tree_Selection.png so I've attached marko's List_Selection.png to this post for you guys to try too.

EDIT 3: Looking at tyler69's GIF above, it also happens with the stoplight button images, which I think is a similar but a little bit different issue that's related to skin size/scaling with retina mode enabled. So that's something else I'll have to see if I can reproduce since that most definitely looks like a skin issue too. What you might try since it looks like you're using around 100% scaling is to go up one level in skin size/scaling (e.g. from 100% to 110%) to see if that changes anything. If so, it's most definitely related to the skin and using retina mode + scaling. So, tyler69 what's your screen resolution and what is your MC skin size setting set to? Also does disabling retina mode 'fix' it?

For the other main issue, going to need some confirmation on this and if the two fixes work for you guys. If so, the devs can probably import marko's changed files into the main skin and call that one fixed.

[HaWi]

Unfortunately, I am still seeing the lines even after swapping in the alternative Tree_Selection.png

[Awesome Donkey]

Are you testing with the Modern Cards: Dark Edition skin? MC is fully closed when replacing the file, right? If not, you may need to reboot the Mac. It may not and probably won't work for any other skins (e.g. Blue Steel like you mentioned above). Does it help if you remove Tree_Selection.png completely then reload MC? Also what skin size/scaling setting are you using?

[HaWi]

Yes, Modern Cards: Dark Edition. Fully closed MC26, renamed Tree_Selection.png to __Tree_Selection.__png, then I restarted the iMac just to be sure. Still seeing the lines.
EDIT: I'm using 100% scale in Retina Mode
EDIT2: If I un-select Retina Mode, no lines

[blgentry]

Please note that this happens all over the place in most skins, including Modern Cards Dark.  For example:

1. Frames around album covers in an albums view.
2.  Underneath the tabs in a straight horizontal line
3.  Under the top area where track information is display in a straight horizontal line.
4.  Inside the tab titles as vertical lines.
5.  In the track listing in Playing Now.
6.  In the track listing in albums.

There are more.  The point is that this isn't some weird skin issue.  It's a drawing issue.  It's all over the place.
 
Oh and my main skin, Black and Blue Too SB HC, was written by Marko and it does it.

Brian.

[HaWi]

Another curious thing I noticed is that when in Panel View in the track list, which is split into albums, the lines show up only for some albums but not all. Some albums never show the lines when moving the mouse over the tracks.

[bob]

Another curious thing I noticed is that when in Panel View in the track list, which is split into albums, the lines show up only for some albums but not all. Some albums never show the lines when moving the mouse over the tracks.

Does it matter where they are in the list?
How about names with descenders?

[HaWi]

I have been trying to figure out the 'rules' determining the appearance of ghost lines. Here are some I discovered (probably not exhaustive):
1. If several albums are displayed in the track list there is at least one that does not show lines.
2. If at least two albums are displayed in the track list and one shows lines then the one below does not.
3. When scrolling around up and down in the track list, albums that in a previous view did (didn't) show lines can show (not show) lines when they are in a different position.
4. When several albums are displayed it is always the first one tested that shows lines. Then the one above and below do not show lines

Sorry, I do not understand what "descenders" refers to.

[bob]

This is fixed in 26.0.94.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,125865.0.html

[Awesome Donkey]

I'm curious, what's the technical details about the bug? What was causing it?

[blgentry]

Tested here with 26.0.94 on my retina iMac.  Seems to work exactly as it should now.  No left over lines that I can detect.

Thank you. 

Brian.

[bob]

I'm curious, what's the technical details about the bug? What was causing it?

It was a really low level drawing routine involved with scaling and rounding of rectangle size calculations which is why it took so long to find.
It seems like something changed in the SDK for MacOS some time after Xcode 9.4 (13.x) which exposed the issue (Xcode 9.4 builds work fine even now without the change but we can't distribute builds made with Xcode 9 any more).

[RichM]

This fix is awesome!  Thanks for the fix; it's been buggin' me for a long time.

[HaWi]

Indeed, great fix! Thanks much!