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[MusicHawk]

In the days of plastic records, a scratch or gunk could cause the needle to get stuck, repeating a section of the song endlessly.

That's now happening on my MC system, strangely. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts...

It always happens near the end of a playing a song, the last few seconds. MC starts to repeat a 1 to 3 second segment, often looping for several minutes. Usually it will eventually continue on its own and finish playing the track. But a few minutes of looping is a tad too much so I usually go the computer and skip to the next song.

It only happens just before the END of the song, never beginning or middle. Other than that I haven't seen a pattern.

BUT, the short segment it repeats is often MUSICAL in nature, almost as if MC is "choosing" what to loop based on the audio pattern. Since the looping is so often similar to what musicians might do, we often don't realize it for many seconds. Then we realize it's driving us crazy! Verrrrry odd.

The music files are almost entirely .mp3 (a few .flac), and most of the .mp3 are at highest quality VBR. If the nature of the file could be a factor, I can start to make notes on which tracks got stuck. But, of course, when I retry a sticking track is plays perfectly.

The "stuck" playback happens maybe 1 song out of 20, but sometimes three in a row, then not for hours.

It's been happening for a few weeks at most, maybe since mid-July, whatever MC versions that might span. It just happened three times in 10 minutes, which prompted me to post this. MC itself is "fresh", installed .530 this morning, but it also happened with .529, .528, etc.

I'd suspect the computer except there are no other symptoms. It's a robust HP with WinXP, 2ghz CPU, 1gb RAM, MC running on C:, and all the music on M:, a 750gb drive about half full. It's a computer used only for MC playback (not recording, not tagging) so it's as pure as possible.

For Jim: There's no firewall, virus checker or anything similar installed.

I looked everywhere for gunk to flick off, like in the old days...

The playback sticking is not a show-stopper, but it makes it tough to start MC on a long playlist then walk away.

[JimH]

Try switching between DirectSound and Wave Out in MC's playback settings.

Is M: a local drive?  Or a NAS drive, etc.

[glynor]

Only time I ever get anything like that is on those rare occasions when my router crashes (and all my media lives on network drives).  This happens maybe 1-2 times a year, max.  I get repeats for a while and then it is always followed by a message that none of the files could be played (because it figures out the network drive is gone).

For your problem... The "drive" somehow isn't feeding MC new data, so it is repeating what is in it's cache.  Apparently, it then "catches" and carries on (probably the drive restarts).  If it is a network drive, your network is being flaky.  If it is a local drive, then the drive or the system is.  Either way, not good and you should figure it out.

[MusicHawk]

Playback was via DirectSound, switched to Wave Out, we'll see..

Both drives are IDE/PATA in the box, not external.

[MusicHawk]

Yes, a drive problem could explain it.. But how could a drive ONLY do this during the final 10 seconds of a track? That seems to spin the mystery sideways...

[JimH]

Matt will probably have more to say, but I believe the problem is with the sound card driver at that point.  If MC doesn't give it more data, the card will merrily sing "Row row row your boat" until you stop it or it gets more data.

Updating the driver might work.

[glynor]

Yes, a drive problem could explain it.. But how could a drive ONLY do this during the final 10 seconds of a track? That seems to spin the mystery sideways...

So it NEVER happens in the middle of a song?

That would not match what I'd expect if it was a drive problem.  Odd.  What breed of sound card do you have?

[MusicHawk]

Yes, it ONLY sticks just before the end of a track, and not very often, just enough to be annoying. (I listen to MC almost all day every day, so think I would have noticed it sticking somewhere other than at the end.)

The sound "card" is on the HP motherboard, the ever-popular Realtek AC'97 Audio for VIA Sound Controller. It shares RAM from the motherboard. But with a 2ghz processer and 1gb RAM and only MC running I wouldn't expect it to be stressed.

This system board sound card actually sounds great feeding a Sony amp into JBL100 speakers, but if there's solid reason to think it's the problem I can add a separate card.

But, I've run MC heavily on lesser systems including a couple of older X-series ThinkPad laptops with system board audio and much slower drives, and never experienced the "sticking" problem.

I realize it's not likely an MC-caused problem, UNLESS there's something that goes on near the end of a track related to cross-fade/segue/overlap, silence-sensing, cueing up the next track, locating the next track's cover art, etc.

[JimH]

I realize it's not likely an MC-caused problem, UNLESS there's something that goes on near the end of a track related to cross-fade/segue/overlap, silence-sensing, cueing up the next track, locating the next track's cover art, etc.

That's the point where the next file is opened, and if that hesitates (virus checker, drive bug, etc.) you might get what you have.

[hit_ny]

That's now happening on my MC system, strangely. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts...

It only happens just before the END of the song, never beginning or middle. Other than that I haven't seen a pattern.

Are you sure this only happened in the last few builds ?

..as I've noticed this, over the yrs, over several versions, now & again.

I try not to initiate any heavy database activity, when a track is near its end (<10 secs) preferring instead to wait after the next one begins.

Basically, its ok if...

time to render the viewscheme or smartlist < time remaining till track end

This is the only way i know how to avod that hiccup problem, and i've always thought it was cos my PC is underpowered.

I don't run any virus checker, never installed one.

On XP, Direct Sound appears to me, to consume less resources than Wave Out.