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[sync]

I've been trying out a lot of different MP3 players. I really like the MJ interface. If I right-click a track it takes seven seconds to get a menu.  If I move the track position indicator it takes about five seconds to respond.

I checked the CPU usage of MJ and it's usually zero. I have a 2Ghz P4 with 640MB of ram and I'm running XP Pro. I followed all the steps in the FAQ to improve performance and that didn't help.

I also don't have any way to control volume. If I use the volume shortcuts I see "Volume:N/A".

[SomeOneWho]

I'm experiencing the same sluggishness problems under XP Home Edition.  

Right-clicking an object takes many seconds to respond.  If a song is playing, the visualization freezes where it is until the context menu is displayed.

I have a reasonably large library with about 3,000 songs and 180 playlists.  I tried deleting all the playlists and restarting, but it didn't help (thought it might be dynamically creating the context menus).

Problem seems to be intermittent... I first loaded MJB two nights ago.  I was playing around with it to learn what it could do and I didn't think any right-click functionality was enabled (nothing seemed to happen).  I used it last night and it seemed to work fine.  When I started using it tonight I experienced very slow response to clicking an object and extremely slow response to right-clicking an object.

I have a very beefy Dell machine with plenty of memory.  Memory and CPU utilization are fine and all other applications seem to respond fine.

Please help.. I love the program (just what I was looking for!) but I won't be able to tolerate the delays in getting to the context menus!

[xen-uno]

Obviously this is not normal behavior so....are you guys sure you have the latest video drivers, XP service packs (SP1), MJ ( B398 ), etc? Copy & paste your sys info from MJ>Help>System Info.

10^-27

[sync]

Here's my sys info:

Media Jukebox  8.0.394
Install Path: D:\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1992 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 654 MB, Free - 412 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2800.1106
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145
wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

[JimH]

The volume control is probably a driver problem.  The speed issue may be OS related.  Here are some examples of things you can find on the Microsoft site:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?Catalog=LCID%3D1033%26CDID%3DEN-US-KB%26PRODLISTSRC%3DON&withinResults=&QuerySource=gASr_Query&Product=winxp&Queryc=system+is+slow&Query=system+is+slow&KeywordType=ANY&maxResults=25&Titles=false&numDays=90

[sync]

If this speed issue is OS related, then it only affects MJ. A right-click in any other app brings up a menu immediately. In MJ it takes about 6 seconds.

[JimH]

That a problem occurs only with a single application does not rule out the possibility that the problem is elsewhere.

Example:
Application A uses disk access.
Application B does not.

What happens if the disk is "broken"?

Just such a case is documented in the link I gave you above -- the one about "performance monitor".  Any application that calls this broken Microsoft OS function won't look very good.

[sync]

I understand your point. If the problems are OS-related then it will impact other potential users also. Perhaps you could consider coding these functions in a more 'standard' manner.

Although the volume control may be a driver issue as you say, it also isn't a problem in any other MP3 player.

[SomeOneWho]

I'm not at home right now to pull the configuration, but I'm up-to-date on all XP patches, drivers, etc. and have the latest version of MJ8.

I also do not see any similar behavior in any other application.  The only exception are programs like Roxio and Audiograbber that intentionally grab a higher process priority.  

I'll try some testing later tonight, but my suspicion is that the problem is related to process/thread priorities.  I'm not familiar with the MJ code architecture, but do you adjust process priority in various areas of the application (which would not be uncommon for software doing CD reads/writes, etc.)?  I suspect the code segment responding to the right-click event is getting out-prioritized by the rest of the application.  I don't have my books with me but I seem to recall that XP handles thread priorities a little differently than Win2K, etc.

Also, do you know if MJ does a disk read whenever the context menu is populated (e.g, to get the 'send to' menu items) or is it all done in-memory?  I'm not seeing any other system latency that seems to be related to disk reads, but it would be nice to eliminate disk reads from the list.

Thanks...

[JimH]

I'm not at home right now to pull the configuration, but I'm up-to-date on all XP patches, drivers, etc. and have the latest version of MJ8.

The problem reported a few days ago by another user was that a Microsoft patch was bad and caused slower performance.  MS had another fix available.

[SomeOneWho]

I saw a reference to a Q815411 patch on the Media Center beta board posted by Spiffy on 3/30 -- is this the one you're referring to?  

I read the KB article about the patch and it was only recommended to fix a specific problem so I probably didn't install it.

If I do find it installed, I'll try backing it out tonight and see how things go.

Thanks...

[SomeOneWho]

Wow, this took quite a few hours but I finally found the culprit.  I won't bore you with all the other things I looked at, but the problem was caused by Microsoft patch #811493.  A description of the patch is here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811493#WinXP

Everything worked fine once I uninstalled the patch.  It's supposed to be a "security" patch but it doesn't appear to be much of a vulnerability if it's left uninstalled.  

One thing was kind of interesting... when I uninstalled the patch it popped-up a message box saying that the following applications may not work correctly if the patch was uninstalled.  Media Jukebox was the only application listed (and I have dozens).  MJ must use some system library call that's not commonly used by other applications.  Based on the patch description it may be related to debugger use.

Now, back to my music!

[SomeOneWho]

The problem has returned!!  It's actually somewhat worse now because it's taking about 15 seconds after a right-click for the context menu to appear.

The only system change that's been made is that I applied an automatic update for MusicMatch.

I completely uninstalled MusicMatch and MJ then reinstalled MJ.  Still no luck.

Please help -- I love this program when it works!

[SomeOneWho]

To make a really long story relatively short... I'm now reasonably confident the problem is caused by the CD-RW drivers, but I don't yet fully understand what's going on.  

Once I started using my CD-RW drive (a brand new Plextor PX-W4824A) I discovered that I had two problems: the original problem of a 7-second delay in bringing-up the right-click context menus (which is really annoying) and, whenever I would click on the "CD, DVD, and Handhelds" object or a CD drive object, I would get an "Analyzing Devices" message that would last about 7 seconds.  I also noticed the problem (previously reported) where, under the "CD Writer Settings" the "Use Generic Driver" setting was greyed-out and checking/unchecking the aspi setting seemed to have no effect.

I updated my aspi drivers, etc. and it didn't seem to help.  I discovered in the Interact forums a message indicating that newer CD-RW drives might not be supported by the generic GoldenHawk drivers used in MJ8 and the only resolution is to upgrade to Media Center 9.

So... I (reluctantly) upgraded to Media Center 9.

Under MC9 the right-click problem (mostly) goes away.  I still get about a 7-second delay and the "Analyzing Devices" message when clicking the "CD, DVD, and Handhelds" object.  The right-click context menu appears immediately under MC9, however, there is about a 7-second delay when you hover over the "CD, DVD, and Handhelds" submenu option.

I think this all implies that the right-click delay under MJ8 is caused by delays in accessing the CD-RW drive (which is likely dynamically populated in the MJ8 right-click context menu).

In addition to MJ8/MC9 I also have MusicMatch and Roxio installed (masochistic). Both of these products add CD-RW drivers to the stack. My suspicion is that there may be conflicts in the drivers that causes
MJ8/MC9 to take several seconds to work through whenever it tries to access the device.

Question: Is it normal behavior for MC9 to take several seconds to "Analyze Devices" whenever a CD drive is selected?  I hope not.  I would think that "Analyzing Devices" once should be sufficient.

What I still don't understand is:

- Why did the right-click problem go away for two days between when I uninstalled the MS patch and when I installed a MusicMatch update? These seem to be completely unrelated.

- Why didn't updating my aspi drivers fix the problem under MJ8?

- Is the constant "Analyzing Devices" behavior normal under MC9?

I'm, frankly, somewhat perturbed to have to pay to upgrade to MC9 to (partially) fix my problems, when I didn't need need the additional features.  I'm also disappointed not to have received any meaningful
follow-through to my original problem (no respose to my last post).  I would have much rather focused all these hours on music, and not my usual job of resolving system problems.

[JimH]

Can you post your system info from MC Help?

Are you mapping any network drives to machines that aren't on?

Are there any drives missing?  (C,D,F, for example).

No reply sometimes means we don't know.

[SomeOneWho]

Here's my system info:

Media Center 9.0.170 -- C:\Programs\Music\Media Jukebox\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1772 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 308 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929) / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

Ripping /   Drive D:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive E:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive E: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W4824A   Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: No /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

The PC is not networked with any others and there are no gaps in the drive letters.

I haven't learned much of anything new tonight but am still working on it.

Thanks!

[SomeOneWho]

Success!!

I completely uninstalled Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 (all the latest patches had been applied) and the response time delays in MC9 with clicking the "CD, DVD, & Handhelds" object and send-to context menu item have gone away.  I assume this would also fix the problem under MJ8, but I'm too tired of doing uninstalls and re-installs to give it a try.

fwiw, uninstalling Roxio (completely) is a non-trivial exercise. Uninstalling via Add/Remove Programs does almost nothing.  It took almost a half-hour to find the real uninstall instructions on their web site.  A complete uninstall involves deleting files from all over the file system, deleting several registry entries, and rebooting at least three times.

After following all their instructions, XP would not recognize either of my CD drives and would not re-install them as plug-and-play devices. After searching Microsoft's support site I discovered two other registry entries that needed to be deleted (with another reboot).

After all of that, you're finally down to the native XP CD/DVD drivers -- and MC9 works fine.

I've never been happy with Roxio, but I have been continuing to use it for copying CDs and UDF CD data file drag-and-drop.  I understand that Nero is a strong product for these capabilities, but I'll be out another $49 to get it.  Anyone know of any good, cheap products for CD copying and/or data file CD management?

Thanks!