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[qazwsx]

I've been using MC 10 for probably about a year and suddenly it's started using 100% CPU, all the time, from when I start it up to when I close it down. Everything in MC 10 and all other programs run at a fraction of their normal speed, but everything *does* seem to work.

Any ideas where I should be looking?

[KingSparta]

remove\turn off all and any plug-ins that does not come from J River. in the plug-in manager, turn off visuals to see if that helps

[qazwsx]

The Plug-In manager doesn't make it clear whether some plug-ins are JRiver plugins or not. I've deleted the only one I even vaguely remember installing, which was the FLAC input plug-in. It didn't make any difference. I don't use any visualisations.

I've just noticed that ZoneAlarm is showing upload and download traffic while MC is running. It stops immediately I exit MC. The MC option to check for updates on start-up is unchecked. I tried unchecking "Run Remote Server" on the Startup tab but when I clicked OK, MC locked up completely and I had to kill it with Task Manager.

[JimH]

It may be a problem with something else you have running.  A pop-up stopper?

You could also try uninstalling and re-installing the latest version.

Please copy your system info from MC help and paste it here.

[JimH]

Are you running MusicLobby?

[qazwsx]

I'm not running MusicLobby - I did try it once but I uninstalled it some months ago.

The only popup blocker I use is the one in Internet Explorer.

I uninstalled and reinstalled MC. BTW if you try to install without having Administrator privileges, as I did, you get a meaningless error message. The 100% CPU problem persists.

Media Center Registered 10.0.173 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2384 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 199 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0002) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0002)

Ripping /   Drive E:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive F:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: No /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  No burners found.
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

Windows firewall?

[Matt]

I'd uninstall, reboot, then reinstall.

Maybe check for spyware / viruses too.

[qazwsx]

Windows Firewall: Never used here.

Viruses: None, according to eTrust. This PC is protected with real-time monitoring plus daily full scans and signature updates.

Spyware: None, according to Ad-Aware.

Uninstall/reboot/install: Done that, problem persists.

[JimH]

Windows Firewall: Never used here.

Double check that it didn't get turned on when you updated to SP2.

You said that MC worked fine before.  What changed?

[Stupid User]

I've been using MC 10 for probably about a year and suddenly it's started using 100% CPU, all the time

Are you logging in as the same user you always have, and does that user have Administrator rights?  I once had a similar issue, caused by MC continually hammering some registry keys it didn't have access to while logged in as a limited user on WinXP.

[qazwsx]

I don't use MC very often so I had a lot of changes to reverse. Eventually I found it - "Stupid User" had it right, it was the privilege level of the Windows User. I had downgraded myself from "Administrator" to "Limited". When I put myself back to Administrator, MC stopped misbehaving. Then I returned to Limited and MC started misbehaving again.

Just to be sure I switched the User type again and this time after going back to a Limited user, MC is working just fine! I can only assume that whatever MC had wanted from the registry, it had found, and wasn't looking any more.

But how long will this last? I think it's is a problem that needs to be looked at, as a matter of some urgency, along with the unhelpful message that you get if you try to install the product as a Limited User. More and more authorities are recommending that you *don't* log on as an Administrator day-to-day, in order to give yourself a free extra level of protection against malware.

Thanks for all your help and I hope these problems can be properly resolved in a future release.

[LonWar]

I think this was resolved in MC11



11.0.12 (7/2/04)


8. NEW: Media Center runs without power user / administrative priveleges.

[Stupid User]

I can't find the old thread that gives the info you need on this.  It is possible to remedy the problem by altering the permissions on the registry key(s) that are giving the problem, but the secondary problem becomes finding which keys those are.

I would just log in as Administrator, open Regedit, navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JRiver

And then change the permissions on that whole key so that Limited Users had full access to it.  To do that, right click the key in Regedit, select Permissions, find the Users entry in the list that appears, then check "Full Control" and click OK.

Then, log in as Limited User again, and see what happens.  Hopefully, that will be enough.  But if I'm wrong, and the affected key(s) lie elsewhere, it will take more digging.

At that point, you could download and run Sysinternals Regmon, and try using it, while running MC, to see which registry key(s) MC is hammering.  But this poses yet another problem--Regmon normally requires Administrator privileges to run, but you need to test as a Limited User.

If you're running Win2K or WinXP Pro, you can go into the "Local Security Settings" applet (find and run secpol.msc), and give the Limited User the ability to "Load and unload device drivers", and then reboot.  (Be sure to undo this security policy change later, if you make it.)  Then, Regmon should work, I believe.  With WinXP Home, I don't think there is any way to accomplish this so easily.

Sorry, I can't remember exactly how I solved this, but hopefully the first idea above will suffice.

[qazwsx]

Thanks for the information. I've saved this entire thread and placed a shortcut in my Start Menu. I'll refer to it if the problem reappears.