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[glynor]

Now this is a really weird one...

Last night while I was away from home at work, my wife called to tell me that the music wasn't "working" from our Office computer.  Video files played fine, and the sound worked, the system sound worked fine, but the music wouldn't play through MC.

When I got home, I investigated a bit more.  She was right.  No music would play.  No local or network files.  Nothing in the Audio View Scheme, but like she reported, video and system sound was fine.  Also, if I opened up one of the same files that wouldn't play through MC in another player, they worked fine.  When you tried to play the files through MC, it looked like it was working... Sort-of.  There were no error messages at all.  G-Force would load, but not "respond" to any music.  The progress bar would slowly go across like normal, and you could seek and skip tracks and everything.  The "spectrometers" in MC also didn't appear.  So... it seemed like MC thinks it was playing the file, but as though the file was "blank".

Then I discovered something extremely odd.  This only happens when I play the files from the top-level Audio View Scheme completely unfiltered (so showing essentially all of my audio files, except those few that are filtered out by the scheme -- mostly CDA files).  If I "drill down" the list in any way (by selecting something from the panes, or by using a sub-filtered child View Scheme) the audio files (the same exact ones) play just fine.  I didn't have much time to investigate the situation (I got home around midnight last night), but that's what I came up with.  I suspect that my other machines are unaffected, but I'm really not sure as I didn't have time to check.

I'm using build 383 on that machine now, but one of the first things I did after initially confirming the issue (but before making any of the other discoveries) was update to that build (which I happened to have easily accessible).  The build on that machine was probably a week or two old, since we only use it for music occasionally and I only update it every so often.  The machine certainly did work fine before though... This is something new.  I'm completely baffled, and don't even know what to try.

Any ideas?

[Alex B]

 ?

Are you saying that when you send a file to Playing Now from the root level of the audio branch it behaves differently than when you send it from elsewhere?

I don't think the Playing Now list has any kind of connection to the view in which the file was browsed before sending it to PN.

Have you checked which replay gain correction value is used during playback? (DSP Studio > Volume Leveling)

Do you use zones?

[glynor]

Yes.  That's correct.  And, yes, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Double clicking on a song from the top-level Audio View Scheme (unfiltered) works differently than double clicking on the same song when the list is sub-filtered (via panes, search, child view schemes, or whatever).  (Differently in that it plays in one case and doesn't in the other.)

I should mention, my Double Click settings are set to Send to Playing Now (if has Display), which doesn't apply for music, and Play All.  About the only thing I could think of was that it has something to do with the number of files added to playing now.  If I double click to play a file on that machine from the top-level, it adds about 16,500 audio files to playing now.  When I sub-filter the list, obviously the number is different (and lower).  I didn't have a bunch of time but I did try with one huge sub-filtered view scheme I have (called "Everything But the Sink" which simply excludes audiobooks, classical, podcasts, interviews, and other similar things) which has over 12,000 files in it and that worked fine.

DSP Studio is completely disabled on that machine (no Volume Leveling or EQ or anything).

I didn't think to try Right-Click --> Play from the top-level (which would only add the one file), unfortunately, so I don't know the answer to that question.

EDIT:  I really, really think the DSP is all disabled, but I will check that when I get home.  Perhaps that is the culprit, though wouldn't the MC spectrometers still work even if it was "volume leveling" everything away... Or do those show "actual" output, post-DSP?

[glynor]

Do you use zones?

I forgot to answer this... Yes, I have two zones defined on that machine, but they're identical other than Crossfade settings (just an easy way to switch from Crossfaded to Gapless).  I tried from both zones, and they both worked identically.

[Alex B]

You may want to try the following file in a PN playlist when the replay gain option is set to use automatic correction. (Automatic based on current playlist)

15secondsofsilence.ape.zip (1 KB)

 

[JimH]

You didn't try a reboot, did you?

[glynor]

You didn't try a reboot, did you?

I did.  That was the first thing I said to my wife on the phone.

[Alex B]

Jim, try the file I linked. You'll see what I mean.

I think glynor has the automatic replay gain correction option enabled and one or more of his files has a similar extreme replay gain tag value as my file has. As he said, the options he uses load his complete audio library to Playing Now when a track is double-clicked on the top level of the audio branch.

(I don't know why he uses such a setting. Mine is configured to add a double-clicked track to end of the PN list. If I want to instantly play a track I use right-click>play. If I want to play all visible files I select them first.)

EDIT

glynor posted while I was writing this.

[Matt]

This will be more nicely handled in build 385 and later.

[glynor]

(I don't know why he uses such a setting. Mine is configured to add a double-clicked track to end of the PN list. If I want to instantly play a track I use right-click>play. If I want to play all visible files I select them first.)

Because I never, ever want to add to the end of Playing Now.  It's just not the way I work.

For music, I have a lot of Smartlist-like-View Schemes pre-built (with complex percentage based rules), which I generally just play with Shuffle turned on.  This way, I select whatever song I want to hear first and just double click (or hit okay on my remote).  The playlist continues for me without interruption.  If I get a special request or if I want to build a few songs up to play manually, I usually Add (As Next to Play) to accommodate it.  That way, when my manually built list ends, it automatically continues with my "shuffled" playlist.

I very rarely manually-build a list more complex than 4-8 songs in Playing Now "on the fly" under normal circumstances.  If I do (usually DJ-ing a party or whatever), I just start with a completely clear playing now and add my songs via right-click "add" or "add as next to play" (as desired).

Also, I've explained my rationale for this setting when it comes to video watching repeatedly.  When I watch one episode of Lost (or whatever), via double-clicking, I want it to continue to the next episode (and the next and the next) without user interaction.  Same goes for Movie files split into multiple parts and all sorts of other video uses.  Manually selecting multiple tracks isn't even an option at all.  Shift-or-Control-Selecting isn't easy on a HTPC when the keyboard isn't easily accessible.  Besides... Why should I have to, considering that the other method would only very, very rarely be what I want?

[Alex B]

Now I know. 

Back to the topic...
Did you try the file? It causes the problem with a playlist of any size.

[glynor]

Now I know. 

Back to the topic...
Did you try the file? It causes the problem with a playlist of any size.

I haven't really had the opportunity.  I'm at work and somewhat crazy today...

I can guess what it does, though!  That probably explains it.  I imagine the DSP Studio Volume Leveling somehow got turned on on that machine, and there's some random file that is either silent or absurdly quiet (or bad) that gets filtered out when I play my "Everything But the Sink" playlist (probably a bad Podcast).

I'll check it when I get home tonight, but that won't be for quite some time still (I have another get-home-at-11pm-type-night tonight).

Glad to hear that 385 should help this in some way (if indeed that is what it is).  The Volume Leveling should never eliminate all the volume (or increase it absurdly either).  It should really exclude any extreme outliers from it's calculations.

[glynor]

I just tested here at the office with your "evil file" and with the Volume Leveling turned on, and it reproduced essentially exactly the same behavior.

I think we found the culprit.  Thanks, Alex!

Matt... You said the next build would be better.  Does it do it by (a) preventing volume leveling from completely turning the volume all the way down, or (b) ignoring "outliers" when calculating the volume adjustment (or both)?

[Matt]

Matt... You said the next build would be better.  Does it do it by (a) preventing volume leveling from completely turning the volume all the way down, or (b) ignoring "outliers" when calculating the volume adjustment (or both)?

Neither.

A peak level of 0% was being incorrectly handled like a peak level of 100%. (i.e. it was being treated like an unanalyzed file)

Basically, replay gain was saying "turn it way up", but the peak level was saying "that's not possible without clipping, so turn everything else down instead".

[glynor]

Neither.

A peak level of 0% was being incorrectly handled like a peak level of 100%. (i.e. it was being treated like an unanalyzed file)

Basically, replay gain was saying "turn it way up", but the peak level was saying "that's not possible without clipping, so turn everything else down instead".

Ahhh.... Makes perfect sense.  Great!

[glynor]

Just thought I'd mention... That was it.  Volume Leveling somehow got enabled on that machine.