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[bob]

This is the latest build of MC30 for Linux.  Please post bugs here.  Please start a new thread for anything requiring discussion.  Non-bug posts will be deleted.

Download:
Linux AMD64: https://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/test/MediaCenter-30.0.55-amd64.deb
Linux ARM64: https://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/test/MediaCenter-30.0.55-arm64.deb
Linux ARMHF: https://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/test/MediaCenter-30.0.55-armhf.deb
Linux i386: https://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/test/MediaCenter-30.0.55.deb

Also in the beta repo.

30.0.55 (1/26/2023)

1. Fixed: Picking Import All in the Tag window customize dialog then cancelling would corrupt the display.
2. Changed: Update Library (from tags) & Update Tags (from library) are no longer available on Library Server and DLNA Clients, as direct file access is required.
3. Changed: Locate on disk is no longer available on Library Server and DLNA Clients, as direct file access is required.
4. Changed: Disable some functions which won't work with DLNA connected libraries. Fix one that should.
5. Changed: Reworked the year calculation (y) in CompareDates to be based on the years and days apart.
6. Changed: The reverse sync when building library server sync uses the copied library as well to avoid lags.
7. Changed: Cancel of the library server sync thread was not working nicely.
8. Changed: When building deltas for library server sync, the library is copied to avoid lags.
9. NEW: Added "yd" to the CompareDates expression function to output the number of years and days between dates.
10. Fixed: The string "Unrated" could not be translated.
11. Changed: Updated Czech translation (thanks Jan Boháč).
12. Fixed: The title of the OSD commands could not be translated.
13. NEW: Added a CompareDates expression function to compare by year, days, or calendar years.
14. Changed: Date lookup from Google was no longer working.
15. NEW: Windows are created with the background color to eliminate white flashes.

30.0.51 (1/20/2023)

1. Changed: Values in parenthesis are removed during lyrics lookup (just like we were doing with braces already).
2. NEW: In Theater View television Guide, the TV channel on the left side of the guide grid will be marked as selected when a corresponding program is selected.
3. Changed: Updated Chinese (simplified) translation file (thanks YanJun Sun).
4. Changed: Updated all translations to the latest strings from the code.
5. Changed: Updated German translation file (thanks Bytestar).
6. Fixed: The extra channels selection would not be used when filling the channels for the Parametric Equalizer.
7. Fixed: M4A files using audio codecs handled by the video engine did not play.
8. Fixed: The Tag menu had an incorrect spelling of "Refresh".
9. Fixed: The "Edit Image" command (possible because of the MRU menu items) will disable when images are not selected.
10. Fixed: Installing a license running a portable install was not working.
11. Fixed: Volume names for DVD's and BD's for makemkv ripping are taken from the block device since distros and desktops are inconsistent about mounting optical volumes with regards to mount path.
12. Fixed: We were refreshing Optical volumes unnecessarily in some cases.

30.0.48 (1/9/2023)

1. Fixed: The start time column was not correct for sunrise or sunset scheduled tasks.
2. Fixed: The "Link To Playlist" menu would draw & characters in playlist names as underlines.
3. Fixed: "Get Movies & TV Info" failed to save cover art image if the file has a long path.
4. Changed: If XMLTV file specifies that a TV program is a "series", but does not provide a series name in addition to an episode name, the episode name will be copied into "Series" field, instead of leaving it empty.
5. Changed: When running "Get Movie & TV Info" tool, a TV Show that has no Series name but its Keywords field contains the word "Series", the show name will be copied into "Series" field so that "Get Movie & TV Info" can proceed.
6. Fixed: PostData was being discarded when cross platform databases were being used. This resulted in being unable to play SACD tracks > track 1 when a client and server MC instance were not of the same OS when one of the OS is Windows.

30.0.47 (1/5/2023)

1. Changed: Gridlines were showing in places they were not meant to so reverted the global change.  Please report any place not showing gridlines that should.
2. Changed: Updated the image preview zoom and unzoom images (thanks Harley).
3. NEW: MJP files support an INSTALLTRACKINFO action so there is no need to copy files manually.
4. Changed: Zooming into an image will stop the animated zooming at start since that could fight with the zoom command.
5. Changed: The 3D image viewer no longer changes images on big scrolls off the screen.
6. Changed: The list group box header image is no longer drawn in the image editor toolbox for the bottom controls.
7. Fixed: The image editor better updates on skin changes.
8. NEW: Sunrise and sunset times can be used in the scheduler for events.
9. NEW: Added an Adjust Dates/Times dialog that modifies the Date tag of multiple files at once.
10. NEW: MJP files can have a list of packages to install and Package Installer will install all of them.
11. Fixed: Opening the image editor in a locked view would switch to a new tab, then show the start page when closed.
12. Fixed: The magnifying glass on image thumbnails would not size with scale nicely.
13. Changed: When loading EPG from an existing XMLTV or Perc Data file in a setup wizard or EPG loading wizard, the loading is done in a background worker thread and the progress is shown in the wizard window.
14. Fixed: Editing a cover art image and doing a cancel could save the changes anyway.
15. Fixed: The gridline setting is applied a little more widely.
16. Fixed: The first and last image commands were not working during image playback.
17. Changed: Left and right scroll an image instead of change images (use Page Up / Page Down to change).
18. Fixed: The scroll commands in the image playback right click were not working.

30.0.45 (12/22/2022)

1. Fixed: PNG files using a color palette with transparency did not display properly.
2. Changed: In Theater View "Tuner Status" is now only accessible in Guide view, and no longer available in other video views.
3. NEW: During television setup, there is a checkbox to optionally download channel logo files (if available online) in a background thread after setup is complete.
4. NEW: CDText lookup supported (if the CD contains it).
5. Fixed: On systems with no optical drive we won't query for status (avoid log spam).
6. Changed: Better detection of different types of optical media leading to more efficient handling.
7. Changed: More logging info for optical disc detection.
8. Changed: More control functions added to MC's linux CdIo library to bring it into line with windows and Mac supported functionality.

30.0.44 (12/20/2022)

1. NEW: Added an MCC (MCC_LIST_TOGGLE_FILES / 26033) to show and hide files in a library view.
2. NEW: Added a toolbar button to allow showing and hiding files the same way.
3. Fixed: Tabs would not use the active tab text color after the change a few builds back.
4. Changed: Changed how TV program logos get loaded and displayed in Standard Television View.  This possibly fixes the issue of hanging while trying to load a TV program logo.
5. Changed: Updated Greek translation (thanks Panagiotis).
6. NEW: Initial Cloudplay page shows shortcut links to New and Popular playlists.
7. NEW: Added a status message on the XMLTV ID to channel map window that is updated during the auto match process.
8. Changed: Playlist icons with different colors are used for Cloudplay recent playlists when cover art cannot be found.
9. Fixed: Tile style lists didn't honor the selection color from the skin like other lists.
10. Changed: The view header above library views uses the same color as the "Close" link on the right.
11. NEW: Skins can specify a ListOverText color for the ACTIONWINDOW to specify the color on mouse over.
12. Changed: Ran all the translations through the tool to update to the latest strings from the source code (also added sorting of the commands and source files).
13. Optimized: When setting up IPTV channels and XMLTV guide, the downloading of TV channel logos is deferred to speed up the setup.
14. Changed: Updated the Korean translation (thanks Junghwan).
15. Fixed: When loading XMLTV guide auto-matching could create fake matches when the XMLTV file contain channels with empty XMLTV IDs.
16. Changed: Improved IPTV xmltv ID to MC TV Channel auto matching.
17. Fixed: Spotlight would not properly handle &'s in titles.
18. Changed: Missing thumbnail image in Spotlight Artist page no longer has a border.
19. Fixed: Stop After X Tracks could stop early (merged three stop after pieces, so please report any issues).
20. Fixed: Double-clicking an image in a mixed media playlist view would not show the Image Preview when the new option was enabled.
21. Changed: Tag on import rules now replace list type fields instead of appending to them.
22. Changed: The Channel-To-XMLTVID Auto matching in the TV guide program loading is done in a worker thread so the GUI will remain responsive, and a "Cancel Auto Match" button is added to allow canceling.
23. Optimized: IPTV channel setup is much faster.
24. Fixed: TV logos for IPTV channels might have been downloaded hundreds of times during TV setup.
25. Fixed: Adaptive Volume would not reload nicely with DSP Presets.
26. NEW: Skins can tell options to not draw borders (<Entry Name="OptionsList" ><Data DrawBorders="0" />).
27. Fixed: The CD insertion and removal detection for ripping should be working properly now.
28. NEW: CD Ripping (single device only, linux default /dev/sr0).
29. NEW: Can play audio CD's (single device only, linux default /dev/sr0).

30.0.40 (12/8/2022)

1. NEW: Add option to open Image Preview when double-clicking an image.
2. Fixed: Image Preview would show GetFile as title for every image when using a library server client.
3. Fixed: Current selection would sometimes not be visible when showing or closing Image Preview.
4. Changed: Ran all the translations through the tool to update to the latest strings from the source code.
5. Fixed: Remote Control page and other borders could be back unintentionally for a few builds.
6. Improved: More reduction of the amount of time for TV guide loading and displaying.
7. Changed: Switched the VST flush of silence from five second to three seconds to make stopping a little faster with slow filters.
8. Changed: The text "Press escape to exit Display View" could show incorrectly in Playing Now Overview.
9. Changed: Turned the test tone generated by Room Correction down a little because it could clip.
10. NEW: Add Spotlight search for Artists to main search box.
11. Improved: Reduced the amount of time for MC to load TV guide programs.
12. Changed: Spotlight uses skin image for missing audio thumbnails.
13. Fixed: Some Artist images for Spotlight were broken.
14. Changed: Updated to WavPack 5.6.
15. Changed: Options that are disabled no longer respond to mouse-over.
16. Fixed: The Playing Now overview view would not size the duration column correctly when running with scale.
17. Changed: Zone presets will be sorted by name.
18. Changed: Updated the Catalan language (thanks Josep).
19. Fixed: The new smooth progress bar could cause problems during DLNA playback.
20. Changed: Windows that are not popups will no longer have window borders (applies to the remote options page for example).
21. NEW: Add Spotlight search for Actors/Directors to main search box.
22. Fixed: Artwork could be sized incorrectly in some cases.
23. Fixed: When playing a TV channel using Transport Stream time-shifting (the new time-shifting), the OSD program info text stayed forever unless another OSD came along to replace it..
24. Changed: The position slider is smooth at the end of a track instead of jumping to a slightly different position and moving less smooth.
25. NEW: Add Spotlight search for Movies and TV Shows to main search box (see entries at the end of the dropdown).
26. NEW: Added the ability to export and import all Theater View templates.
27. Fixed: The transport stream time-shifting did not clean up buffering files properly when viewing of a TV channel was stopped (.jrts and *.jrts.cnk files were left in folders).
28. Changed: Removed the 4k logo from Theater View.  Different changes to come later.
29. Changed: The installer no longer allows installation into the root of the program files folder.
30. Changed: "Legacy method" (as referring to program stream time-shifting method) is renamed "original method".
31. Changed: Default time-shifting method is changed to the original method, instead of "Use Transport Stream Time-shifting for bda tuners in addition to ...".
32. Changed: The skin name hash is stored along with the view header images so changing skins will not require a restart for custom artwork to populate.
33. Fixed: Increased the internal buffer in the non-DirectShow video engine to improve playback of files with bad interleaving.  This includes fixing the issue with live TV played in non-DirectShow engine (new time-shifting for bda and OpenCABLE, DMS) of some TV stations.
34. NEW: A 4k bubble is shown in Theater View when zooming into a 4k movie.
35. NEW: View header images can be customized by the skin (Image > ViewHeaderDrivesDevices, ViewHeaderServicesPlugins, ViewHeaderDownload, ViewHeaderPlaylist, ViewHeaderPodcast, ViewHeaderDLNA, ViewHeaderExplorer, ViewHeaderScheduler, ViewHeaderWebMedia, ViewHeaderHandheld, ViewHeaderCD, ViewHeaderLibrary, ViewHeaderLibraryInactive, ViewHeaderReporter, ViewHeaderTelevision).
36. NEW: The transport stream time-shifting method is now also optionally available for OpenCABLE and Sat>IP TV devices.
37. Fixed: The extra channels selection could unintentionally grow when picking other settings.
38. Fixed: Playing audio with more then 8 channels could result in extra channels being silenced if the output would not exactly match (now channel are copied as there is space, and then cut off).

30.0.32 (11/17/2022)

1. Fixed: The links toolbar could crop some buttons since the addition of Spotlight even when there was space for more.
2. Fixed: The option at the top of smartlists to expand links was not working properly.  Now it changes the visible files.
3. Changed: Links are expanded when adding files to a playlist (instead of when viewing since the view should map exactly to the actual files).
4. Changed: Pulled in the Modern Cards Dark updated frame borders from Marko (thanks!).
5. Changed: Updated German translation file (thanks Bytestar).
6. Changed: Play Doctor does not play a local file first when Include Files From Cloudplay option is set to 100%.
7. Fixed: Play Doctor would fail to get any Cloudplay files in some circumstances.
8. Fixed: Video files (and audio files using the video engine, eg. MKA) with more then 8 audio channels did not work.
9. Changed: Removed TV option "Save on stop" since it has not been implemented.
10. Changed: Removed TV option "Start analog devices in time-shifting mode" since analog tuners are not supported on Mac and Linux.
11. Changed: Removed TV option "Start digital devices (including CableCARD devices) in time-shifting mode" since TV always starts in time-shifting mode on Linux and Mac.
12. Fixed: The new chevron drawing did not change color on mouse over.
13. NEW: MCWS PlayDoctor command adds option to select/play all files from Cloudplay.
14. Fixed: If the mouse was held down on the art at the top of the program it would keep opening Spotlight over and over.
15. Fixed: The note in the Customize Display dialog was stating to click the display instead of right-click.
16. Fixed: A different fix for changing the sorting for library views not applying properly.
18. Changed: The chevron draw on toolbars when there are more items than fit scales nicely with UI sizing.
19. Fixed: Thumbnails were unconditionally erased when the image filename was changed whether they should have been or not.
20. Changed: Spotlight and loading web pages use "LIST" skin background colors.
21. Fixed: Switching from Standard View to full-screen Display View would not reliably switch to the configured full-screen monitor.
22. Fixed: MCWS calls to SetInfo would not return that the data had not changed when setting some data types.
23. Fixed: Incorrect color was being used to draw chevron for Links bar overflow.
24. Fixed: Changing the sorting for library location type views would not always propagate properly.
25. Changed: Updated Greek translation (thanks Panagiotis).
26. Changed: Updated Czech translation (thanks Jan Boháč).
27. Changed: Updated borders in the Modern Cards Dark skin some more (thanks HPBEME).
28. Fixed: The rating field could require more space to draw on the right than needed.
29. Changed: Clicking a link on the streaming page will go to the page even if you have that page off so it doesn't show in the tree.
30. Changed: Spotlight hides blue focus rectangle on page load.
31. Fixed: Skins with BorderResizeForText set could get a strange titlebar text.
32. Fixed: Mixing 7.1 to 5.1 with two extra channels would result in the rear channels missing.
33. NEW: (AMD64 build only) supports DVD/BD ripping if you install makemkv.

30.0.27 (10/31/2022)

1. Changed: Updated Czech translation (thanks Jan Boháč).
2. Changed: Updated borders in the Modern Cards Dark skin some more (thanks HPBEME).
3. Fixed: The rating field could require more space to draw on the right than needed.
4. Changed: Clicking a link on the streaming page will go to the page even if you have that page off so it doesn't show in the tree.
5. Changed: Spotlight hides blue focus rectangle on page load.
6. Changed: Spotlight for TV shows uses the TMDB ID for lookup if tag is set.
7. Changed: Spotlight for TV shows also tries leading 0 to search for matching seasons and episodes in the library (e.g. "01").
8. Changed: Added a timer to the SSDP utility to indicate how much time is remaining in the scan.
9. Changed: Hide Spotlight button in Files list header.
10. NEW: Linux and Mac clients can play live TV with digital TV tuners (bda) on a Windows server.
11. Changed: Added the MakeMKV backup option to the new media dialog.
12. Changed: Moved the MakeMKV backup button from the disc header to the rip action window.
13. Fixed: Searches could include fields not marked as default search fields.
14. Changed: Included updated borders in the Modern Cards Dark skin (thanks HPBEME and Marko).
15. Fixed: Using the new deinterlacing mode in JRVR would disrupt seeking in the video.
16. Changed: Updated Hungarian translation (thanks Gyula).
17. Changed: Minor visual tweaks to the main Streaming page.
18. Changed: Updated the new features link in the help menu for v30.
19. Fixed: Album sets with more than 32 albums would not be marked as complete (now the cap is 256).
20. Changed: Clouplay checks multiple tracks for recent playlists cover art.
21. Fixed: URL for Icecast Streaming was updated.
22. Changed: Increased accuracy of font size calculation in custom tooltip templates.
23. Fixed: Spotlight related artist link wasn't working.
24. Fixed: Getting a file over the network could crash if it was being closed and read from different threads.

[bob]

This is beta because there were some pretty fundamental changes to the library server client sync to solve speed issues with large libraries and sync (UI lockups were the most noticeable).
If you are running this in a client server setup be double sure you have a backup of your server library and media files (of course you always have this, right?)

[RemyJ]

15. NEW: Windows are created with the background color to eliminate white flashes.

YAY!  Thanks for this Bob!  Makes using dark skins much easier on the eyes.

[bob]

YAY!  Thanks for this Bob!  Makes using dark skins much easier on the eyes.

Thanks for reporting back!

[mwillems]

This is beta because there were some pretty fundamental changes to the library server client sync to solve speed issues with large libraries and sync (UI lockups were the most noticeable).
If you are running this in a client server setup be double sure you have a backup of your server library and media files (of course you always have this, right?)

bob is it useful to test this with mixed versions?  That is to say, should I ensure that the server and all clients are updated to 55 to test, or is it ok to do piecemeal updates for testing?  It looks like the main changes are client side, so I'm tempted to test on clients before updating the server, but if that won't expose the new functionality I'll move everything up together.

[bob]

bob is it useful to test this with mixed versions?  That is to say, should I ensure that the server and all clients are updated to 55 to test, or is it ok to do piecemeal updates for testing?  It looks like the main changes are client side, so I'm tempted to test on clients before updating the server, but if that won't expose the new functionality I'll move everything up together.

All of the changes are client side so you shouldn't have to do anything with the server.

[mwillems]

All of the changes are client side so you shouldn't have to do anything with the server.

Good to know, I'm testing on a client and will report back.

[mwillems]

After two-ish hours of playback, I'm seeing normal behavior and good performance.  For the past several builds I had been getting frequent but brief UI freezes on clients (five seconds freeze every five or ten minutes or so).  They mostly didn't interfere with playback, and I couldn't figure out how to repro them so I hadn't reported a bug.  I also was getting an intermittent playback hang on clients after an hour or so of continuous playback where the track would seem to advance on the UI but sound playback would halt and not recover until I stopped and restarted playback (I wasn't sure if that was a new issue as I'm mostly an album listener, so I mostly run into the issue when putting on a playlist once in a while). 

I have seen neither of those issues with the new build after well more than an hour of continuous playback, so I suspect the changes are working.  I also greatly appreciate the new window drawing method.  Much nicer!   

The only "downside" is that MC's memory usage seems noticeably higher than usual (about 50-60% more memory five minutes after launch), but I suspect that's an unavoidable side effect of keeping another copy of the library in memory?  Not a big deal in any case, just reporting in case it's unexpected.

I'll report back if I see any actual issues.

[bob]

After two-ish hours of playback, I'm seeing normal behavior and good performance.  For the past several builds I had been getting frequent but brief UI freezes on clients (five seconds freeze every five or ten minutes or so).  They mostly didn't interfere with playback, and I couldn't figure out how to repro them so I hadn't reported a bug.  I also was getting an intermittent playback hang on clients after an hour or so of continuous playback where the track would seem to advance on the UI but sound playback would halt and not recover until I stopped and restarted playback (I wasn't sure if that was a new issue as I'm mostly an album listener, so I mostly run into the issue when putting on a playlist once in a while). 

I have seen neither of those issues with the new build after well more than an hour of continuous playback, so I suspect the changes are working.  I also greatly appreciate the new window drawing method.  Much nicer!   

The only "downside" is that MC's memory usage seems noticeably higher than usual (about 50-60% more memory five minutes after launch), but I suspect that's an unavoidable side effect of keeping another copy of the library in memory?  Not a big deal in any case, just reporting in case it's unexpected.

I'll report back if I see any actual issues.

Thanks for the report. I'll ask about the memory usage.
How large is your server library (# of media files)?

[mwillems]

Thanks for the report. I'll ask about the memory usage.
How large is your server library (# of media files)?

I've got about ~135k files (75k audio, 50k images, and 9k video).  A zipped library backup sans-thumbnails is about 20MB.

[whoareyou]

I have the beta installed on an rpi4 and also old 386 laptop.
Each device has significantly better performance.

Before Beta I experienced freezes with UI (similar to @mwillems).  Thought it was just because the hardware was just not up to the task, so I never reported it.  So far, these freezes have not occurred.

Also, before this beta neither device would properly stream video, converted from 4k to 1080p with variable fps on RPI4 and 720 on the laptop.  Was always too choppy and/or froze up.

I gave up on this 4k streaming a while ago, but for whatever reason it now works.  Until I switch back to pre-beta and compare results, I'm crediting the beta with this improvement.

Regarding memory usage I never really paid attention, however the same library loaded on windows client machine uses about 30mb.  On the linux installs it's around 300 - 400mb.

If it were up to me, I'd trade the extra memory usage for the better performance.

I had one weird thing happen first time using the beta.  When I was navigating around on the client's UI, I had a couple of audio playback stutters on the server zone.  In this case, client was being used as remote control in same room.  Never had the server machine stutter before during playback. 

I haven't been able to duplicate this, but it seemed like client somehow caused stutter when interacting/controlling server. 

So far this beta seems pretty solid.

[mwillems]

So after a weekend full of (mostly audio) playback I've detected no misbehavior from the beta and my halting/freezing issues haven't recurred, so I think the beta is (apart from the higher memory usage) a clear win! 

Thanks again for all the incremental improvements, especially for making larger libraries work nicely.  Story time: long ago and far away I was a Windows Media Player user and found that once my library got to be over 20k files WMP started freezing and struggling.  I started looking for a media player that could handle larger libraries and saw a recommendation for JRiver Mediacenter and tested it out.  20k Files was no struggle for JRiver.  Of course JRiver Mediacenter was, even then, much richer in lots of other ways too (DSP, network features, etc.), so I bought in.  But the ability to nicely work with larger libraries was the "killer" feature that originally got me to try out JRiver.  Now my library is about 6x bigger and things are still pretty great thanks to the team's tireless efforts over the last decade or so

[bob]

So after a weekend full of (mostly audio) playback I've detected no misbehavior from the beta and my halting/freezing issues haven't recurred, so I think the beta is (apart from the higher memory usage) a clear win! 

Thanks again for all the incremental improvements, especially for making larger libraries work nicely.  Story time: long ago and far away I was a Windows Media Player user and found that once my library got to be over 20k files WMP started freezing and struggling.  I started looking for a media player that could handle larger libraries and saw a recommendation for JRiver Mediacenter and tested it out.  20k Files was no struggle for JRiver.  Of course JRiver Mediacenter was, even then, much richer in lots of other ways too (DSP, network features, etc.), so I bought in.  But the ability to nicely work with larger libraries was the "killer" feature that originally got me to try out JRiver.  Now my library is about 6x bigger and things are still pretty great thanks to the team's tireless efforts over the last decade or so

Thanks so much. We really appreciate the feedback and kind words.

[ixne]

After two-ish hours of playback, I'm seeing normal behavior and good performance.  For the past several builds I had been getting frequent but brief UI freezes on clients (five seconds freeze every five or ten minutes or so)...

Don't know if this is applicable, but through several build iterations I had a similar issue when sending music from my main PC to my Debian box for playback.  It was random. Sometimes it would happen after an hour, sometimes after days, but ot always hung in the last 5 seconds of a song. Went away completely when I disabled my USB DAC in PulseAudio, I suspect PulseAudio was randomly locking the device, or intermittently locking the device and the problem only cropped up if it happened to be locked when MC was trying to spool the next song.