Topic: Audio Playback Stutters in 31.0.84 (Read 1797 times)

MarkArk · « **on:** November 17, 2023, 07:41:51 am »

Hi, I've noticed, since upgrading from MC29 a week ago, that with MC31 i get stuttering when playing songs and video. Is anyone else noticing this? It doesn't happen straight away ,but it does start after around a dozen songs and it is so bad i have to close MC31 completely and restart it. It makes it not possible to listen to music or movies for a decent period of time.

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2023, 09:10:51 am »

HDMI?

MarkArk · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2023, 10:08:32 am »

yep, HDMI..... nothing has changed except update from MC29 to MC31
System is Windows 10 Pro 64bit. GPU is Asus ROG STRIX RTX3090. CPU is a 32 core Ryzen Threadripper 3970x TRX40, RAM is Crucial Balistix RGB 4x64GB DDR4-3200MHz
A friend of mine has noticed the same thing on his system.
I am going to see if it is repeatable on a couple of different playlists and report back here

I just played the same music playlist twice, restarting MC31 each time. On each occasion MC31 started stuttering at song 11 which was between 43min38sec and 47min 17sec into the playlist.
I decided to see what happened if I played a different music playlist with different songs. I restarted MC31 each time. In this playlist the music locked up for the last quarter of song 11 with no sound at all until the song finished. The visual display also locked up during this with the song progress bar and graphical equaliser not moving (between 34min37sec and 38min31sec). Then it started playing song 12 as if nothing had gone wrong. Everything working again. I clicked on the interface again while song 14 was playing and the whole interface had frozen again but this time the music continued to play (45min59sec to 49min50sec). Then it kept playing until 18seconds from the end of track 16 when it froze completely for what seemed like a full minute before resuming as if nothing had gone wrong. At song 19 the interface froze again but the music kept playing. At this point I stopped observing.
I will try playing some movie video’s over the weekend to report what happens to them.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2023, 12:23:22 pm »

It's probably the video driver.

markf2748 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2023, 03:29:07 pm »

@MarkArk: There have been updates to Win 10/11 in the last couple of days. Have you installed them, rebooted, and checked for updates again?

MarkArk · « **Reply #5 on:** November 18, 2023, 06:14:01 am »

Quote from: markf2748 on November 17, 2023, 03:29:07 pm

@MarkArk: There have been updates to Win 10/11 in the last couple of days. Have you installed them, rebooted, and checked for updates again?

All windows updates have been installed, Graphics card driver is current, rebooted.... just to re-iterate, there was no issue with MC29 at all.... only since upgrading to MC31 have problems started.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** November 18, 2023, 08:10:25 am »

The latest driver isn't always the best. Please read this: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,24031.msg952624.html#msg952624

Investigate power modes for the driver. It's may be going into a low power state too soon.

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #7 on:** November 21, 2023, 11:32:19 am »

Yes, not just stuttering, actual seizures (chang-chang-chang-chang) forcing me to terminate MC - had this with builds 78, 80 and 84, so I have reverted back to last year's final release, 30.0.96 which works fine.

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** November 21, 2023, 11:38:22 am »

A recent Windows update solved someone else's similar problem.

Did you investigate NVIDIA's power settings?

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #9 on:** November 21, 2023, 12:16:31 pm »

All my drivers, including NVIDIA Quadro P2000, are up to date, I have just checked.

MC 30, MusicBee, MediaMonkey, Winly, iTunes, VLC, Media Player Classic are all behaving just fine.

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2023, 01:05:35 pm »

It's not something we're seeing, other than the ones that were OS and driver related. I believe that's what you're seeing, and the fact that other programs don't show the problem doesn't mean otherwise.

More details might help. What types of files, what device you're playing to, etc. Narrow it down if you can.

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #11 on:** November 21, 2023, 01:23:50 pm »

Not just other programs, MC 30 is fine too.

I have tried thrashing MC 30 hard (file library rescanning while playing regular 320 kbps mp3/m4a tracks), but not a hitch. MC 31 is where I get the problems.

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** November 21, 2023, 01:26:07 pm »

Did you configure Windows Defender? https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #13 on:** November 21, 2023, 01:33:53 pm »

Yes, Defender has an exclusion rule for my entire music collection.

I'm still not hearing from JRiver why MC 30 is unaffected, but MC 31 is?

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** November 21, 2023, 02:05:37 pm »

Quote from: WhiteWereWolf on November 21, 2023, 01:33:53 pm

Yes, Defender has an exclusion rule for my entire music collection.

I'm still not hearing from JRiver why MC 30 is unaffected, but MC 31 is?

That's how things work. A minor change may be rejected by antivirus. One build may be allowed and another not.

I don't know what your problem is. More information?

The antivirus software must also allow the executables. Read the thread.

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #15 on:** November 21, 2023, 05:53:12 pm »

I just want a version of MC able to handle my music library flawlessly, and in fact I am now minded to revert right back to good ol' 27.0.85 which doesn't require MS WebView2 Runtime if I remember rightly.

Actually, tomorrow, I will do some benchmarking with v27, v28, v29 and v30 and see how fast and stable they are relative to each other. MC 12 was my all time favourite, but lacked internal support for AAC etc if memory serves.

JimH · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2023, 06:15:56 pm »

I've asked some questions you didn't answer. What file types, for example. You mentioned m4a. Do other file types also behave badly?

What are you playing to? Did you try another device?

Did you read and follow the Windows Defender thread recommendations?

Windows 11? Version?

More information, please.

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #17 on:** November 21, 2023, 06:27:14 pm »

If you look at my previous post, I said 320 kbps mp3 and m4a.

My laptop is an HP ZBook G5 with a Xeon processor, 32GB RAM and of course SSD drives. Playing to wired speakers.

Windows 11 Enterprise 22H2 Build 22621.2715.

And yes, I know how to configure Windows Defender, I'm a retired software engineer.

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** November 21, 2023, 06:39:44 pm »

Do both MP3 and M4A files exhibit the same behavior?

Did you read and follow the Windows Defender guide?

Windows Enterprise is not a supported OS, and it's unusual here. This is the only time I remember hearing it mentioned in a while: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137464.0.html

And that had a certificate problem.

Could you make a quick test on another machine/OS?

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #19 on:** November 22, 2023, 03:30:49 am »

The problem (in MC 31) arises when playing music at the same time as rescanning the library.
I don't get this behaviour with earlier versions of MC or with any of the other media programs I mentioned.
I would suggest that the devs look into lowering the priority of the scanning threads when music is being played.

> Do both MP3 and M4A files exhibit the same behavior?

Yes.

>Did you read and follow the Windows Defender guide?

Yes, it's a good guide, but it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or do.

> Windows Enterprise is not a supported OS, and it's unusual here.

There's nothing special about Windows Enterprise, it's just Windows Pro with less bloat. I was allowed to keep my laptop when I retired recently as a goodbye present.

> Could you make a quick test on another machine/OS?

Unfortunately I can't, but I will carry out a performance comparison between MC 26/27/28/29/30/31 to see how they respectively handle my 35,000 track library, which I consider large but not unusually so.

[ Edit: So, over the last few weeks I have carried out exhaustive audio playback tests on MC 25/26/27/28/29/30/31 and have finally decided to stick with MC 26. It does everything I want (I don't use any of the other MC features) and appears to be stable and flawless, at least for playing my music.

MC 31.0.87 is certainly better behaved than .84, but even .87 stutters every now and then.

I am tired of messing about; MC 26.0.107 is just perfect for my needs, so I see no need to upgrade to MC 32 or later. ]

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** November 22, 2023, 07:25:32 am »

Quote from: WhiteWereWolf on November 22, 2023, 03:30:49 am

> Could you make a quick test on another machine/OS?

Unfortunately I can't, but I will carry out a performance comparison between MC 26/27/28/29/30/31 to see how they respectively handle my 35,000 track library, which I consider large but not unusually so.

You could do that and you might find a major difference with the last version on your machine, but it's not a problem we've created. We're not reading files differently in this version. Testing on another machine would prove that.

WhiteWereWolf · « **Reply #21 on:** November 22, 2023, 07:52:49 am »

OK, it may be of no interest to you, but after my performance tests, I will simply choose the best performing legacy version that has sufficient bells and whistles and stick with that.

I can't see any point in paying for v32 if this problem is not going to get fixed; I only wish I hadn't bothered paying for the v31 upgrade.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** November 22, 2023, 08:00:16 am »

Quote from: WhiteWereWolf on November 22, 2023, 07:52:49 am

OK, it may be of no interest to you, but after my performance tests, I will simply choose the best performing legacy version that has sufficient bells and whistles and stick with that.

I can't see any point in paying for v32 if this problem is not going to get fixed; I only wish I hadn't bothered paying for the v31 upgrade.

You have a problem on your machine. It is similar to what you'd expect if the antivirus was overly aggressive or a driver was causing trouble. Lately, we've seen problems caused by NVIDIA drivers going into a low power state, just as an example. Why would it do that for one version of MC and not another? I don't know, but that sort of thing happens all the time.

You've chosen to believe otherwise. OK. But since you're a retired technologist, approach it scientifically. Change each part of your system and test. Don't assume you know where the problem originates.

Since it's audio related, try changing audio settings first. One at a time.

terrym@tassie · « **Reply #23 on:** November 22, 2023, 06:10:00 pm »

If MC 30 is working OK for you why not try the following:
Take a backup of your MC30 library.
Restore the Library AND Settings to MC31. Test.
This should eliminate any setting/library differences between MC30 and MC31.
Good luck
Terry

MarkArk · « **Reply #24 on:** November 25, 2023, 01:32:14 pm »

I am still having problems with MC31 freezing and stuttering. Tonight i did an hour of playing tracks one by one and searching through the library to play each next song. Zero problems. Then i sat down for dinner and put a playlist on.... almost immediately it froze when left to itself to play songs. MC29 had no problems on my machine.

JimH · « **Reply #25 on:** November 25, 2023, 04:42:09 pm »

Power cycle everything.

Windows 11? Update.

NVIDIA drivers have been going into a low power state and causing stuttering over HDMI.

MarkArk · « **Reply #26 on:** November 26, 2023, 11:38:49 am »

i will revert to MC29 which had no problems rather than updating from Win10Pro to Win11.

JimH · « **Reply #27 on:** November 26, 2023, 02:52:54 pm »

Read this (manni's post):
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137375.msg953465.html#msg953465

Then roll back your NVIDIA driver. If you're using Windows 10, it's probably the driver.

Hendrik · « **Reply #28 on:** November 27, 2023, 12:14:46 pm »

Which audio device are you using in Media Center? WASAPI? DirectSound? (Settings -> Audio -> Audio Device)

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Author Topic: Audio Playback Stutters in 31.0.84 (Read 1797 times)