Print

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

[StFeder]

I recently bought a new laptop in the hope to get rid of some playback bugs that are driving me crazy for more than a month now (ok, not the only reason for the new one ). I was sure they were caused by something outside MC and had no time and no motivation for more investigation. So I invested some money in a new laptop just to find the bugs still around me As some of you might know I'm using MC earning money (dance school) so it's causing some real trouble for me...
So, what are the bugs?

• starting a new song often but not always leads to a ~5 second gap where MC only shows a blank screen (I've set MC to switch to a vizualisation on playback start) before the playback starts.
• when the last song of a playlist is played, it stops ~7 seconds before reaching the end of the song. After ~5 more seconds it plays the remaining song before playback stops as excpected.

What's the same between both machines?

• same OS
• library backup restored on new PC
• I tried playing files from RAM and not from RAM
• only Windows Defender

Whats the main differences between both machines (new vs old)?

• AMD vs Intel
• complete fresh windows installation vs a at least 5 years old one
• internal soundcard (onboard) vs cheap external DAC
• Windows Defender using standard settings vs optimized for MC
• Flight mode vs online
• all data on SSD vs library on SSD, music on HD

Any ideas?

[JimH]

Configure Windows Defender.  There's a thread on it here.

[StFeder]

tl;dr: The interruption happens when the remaining songtime roughly equals the prebuffer. No idea why the break at the beginning happens.

As written in my first post it happens as well with a "tamed" Windows Defender as with a untamed one. But to be sure I configured the Defender as awesomely described by Awesome Donkey here and it didn't change a thing. I also disabled the visualisation as I guessed it might be connected to this but it's not, it also happens without a visualisation showing.

I could figure out when the interruption at the end happens. Within the last 5 to 7 seconds the display info changes to "waiting" for the remaining seconds and some a few seconds after the song stops. When the display changes to "waiting" the playback sometimes stops for ~5 seconds. And I am now able to adjust the remaining time after the interuption happens: it is roughly the amount of seconds set as "prebuffer".

I regularly use WASAPI and tried Direct Sound instead. No silent interuption then but even worse: ~5 second stutter.

I have no fancy DSPs settings or plugins. Memory Playback has no effect.

[Matt]

What if you install MC as a portable install so all the settings are fresh.  Then import a couple files and play.  Is the problem still there or gone?

I'm guessing there's a setting or two causing trouble.

Thanks.

[StFeder]

Hm, you are right. Guess I have to find the settings...

[Matt]

So it doesn't stutter on a portable install?

That's good news!

Dig through the audio settings first.

[StFeder]

Yes, no problems with the portable install.
Kind of good news. So it looks as if I did something... strange. All the obvious settings I already tried. Now I have to look at the not so obvious once. I'll - of course - report back, if I find what was causing this weird stuff.

[Matt]

You could also add a new zone because that will reset a lot of the settings as well.  Try a new zone in the stuttering application and see.

It would be easier if it was just zone specific.

Thanks.

[StFeder]

Ok, it's a bit tricky because the bug appears often, but not always, so I never can be absolutely sure if it is gone for real or if I just had winning streak.

Here is what I found:
Deactivating Output Format in DSP Studio does the trick. No idea why. Perhaps I'll find the time to dive even deeper to see if one specified setting there causes the bug, but for now it's time to turn off and find some sleep

Or can anyone else find a "mistake" in the settings I chose at first glance?

Thanks Matt for guiding me to the fastest path and as always: thanks for taking the time to read and answer! Finally I'm able to present uninterrupted music to my clients again 

[Matt]

It's probably resampling to 48K.  Test that and let me know.  It could be how your hardware handles it?

[StFeder]

Did some testing this morning before leaving and found that indeed the resampling looks like the cause for all the hassle. I cannot say it for sure, but looks like setting it to 44.100kHz makes everything smooth again. Turning off resampling completly however disables crossfade between songs of different bitrate - that was one of the reasons (beside this one) to enable resampling.
Both of my laptops have some kind of Realtek onboard soundchip, but as said, I had the same using a cheap external USB DAC (Behringer U-Control UCA222).