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Author Topic: Long buffering  (Read 3180 times)

lazy

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Long buffering
« on: April 14, 2009, 01:22:22 pm »
Since 13.0.136 (I think) I've had problems with playback of music from my library. MC uses very long time to buffer the tracks. But when it has it buffered it plays ok. This means that there is a long pause between tracks. The display and player controls also flashes during this buffering. Anyone seen this ?

Lazy

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Media Center 13.0.145 Registered -- C:\Programfiler\J River\Media Center 13\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Intel Core 2 2127 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2094 MB, Free - 1026 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.13 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0002) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright ﾩ 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0002)

Ripping /   Drive Z: Optiarc DVD+-RW AD-5540A  Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive Z: Optiarc  DVD+-RW AD-5540A   Addr: 0:1:0  Speed:9  MaxSpeed:9  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices: NEW VOLUME (V:)


Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)
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Matt

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2009, 02:08:37 pm »
Double-check Options > Playback > Audio > Prebuffering

We recommend 6 seconds.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2009, 04:29:39 pm »
Thanks for the quick response, Matt.

However, pre-bufferng is set to 6 seconds, unforunately. And the flashing of the controls indicate that there is something else going on. BTW, I've noticed two other things as well: the amount of delay between song seems to be proportional to the length of the song. And the "control-flashing" occurs when I'm using netremote also, ie. the pause/play flickers on my mobile as well.

Lazy
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Alex B

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2009, 04:38:21 pm »
What are your other settings in Playback Options?

Maybe a log file could reveal something. You can activate logging in Help > Logging...
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2009, 05:12:35 pm »
Excuse me for my ignorance, but how can I attach a log file ? It's too big to inline...

Lazy
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Alex B

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2009, 05:25:56 pm »
Reset the log and immediately after that play only a couple of tracks to reproduce the problem.

You should also disable the last.fm plugin because it creates a huge amount of logged events (if last.fm is causing the problem you'll notice the difference).
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Matt

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2009, 08:35:54 pm »
To test, disable third-party plugins like Netremote that might perform other work when playback starts.  Let us know if it makes any difference.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Listener

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2009, 09:58:25 pm »
Quote from: lazy on April 14, 2009, 04:29:39 pm
However, pre-bufferng is set to 6 seconds, unfortunately. And the flashing of the controls indicate that there is something else going on. BTW, I've noticed two other things as well: the amount of delay between song seems to be proportional to the length of the song. And the "control-flashing" occurs when I'm using netremote also, ie. the pause/play flickers on my mobile as well.


A reminder about public enemy number one: anti-virus s/w.  If your A/V software scans every file that MC opens, that could produce a delay proportional to the length of the file.  You should be able to set your A/V software so that it doesn't check each file as it is opened.

Bill
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2009, 11:32:56 am »
Thanks for all the suggestions, but my question was how do I attach the logfile to this thread ? I cannot find a "attach file"-button anywhere in the editor....

Lazy
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2009, 11:40:01 am »
BTW; how do I disable the netremote plugin ? By not starting the mediabridge ? Or should it be done from inside MC ? I could not it in the list of plugins. (Tools> Plug-in Manager...)

Lazy
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Alex B

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2009, 04:58:48 pm »
Quote from: lazy on April 15, 2009, 11:32:56 am
Thanks for all the suggestions, but my question was how do I attach the logfile to this thread ? I cannot find a "attach file"-button anywhere in the editor....

You would need to host it on an external server and paste only a link.

However, you can include a small log in the message body -- disable last.fm, reset the log in "Help > Logging > Click to reset the log file" and play a couple of tracks. Stop playback immediately after the problem has occured and copy the created log entries from "Help > Logging > Current log: View".

Also, I have no idea if a log can help at all. Possibly it shows some abnormally slow events, but doesn't give any indication of the possible cause. It's worth of trying anyway.
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2009, 02:21:49 pm »
Ok, thanks Alex.

I've tried to upload the log here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhb3shbq_0g85d2mfk

Maybe I should also mention that the library is solely .ape songs, and it has some 32 000 entries. But the size has never been a problem before.
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Matt

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2009, 03:12:13 pm »
The log shows APE files being streamed using Library Server over your LAN (192.168.*).  What speed network do you have?

Also, can you make sure it's not pulling down the whole file to read the tag on playback start?  Look at the bandwidth in Task Manager.  The APE code _should_ skip tag analysis when playing from a remote source, but perhaps this isn't happening for some reason.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2009, 04:58:59 pm »
Hi Matt,

The LAN is a wireless 54 Mbps link. But I've streamed over this for some 2 years now without a problem, and before that I also streamed without problems over an even narrower bandwidth. This is a problem that occurred after MC 13.0.136, but I'm not quite sure about the minor number...

But you're quite right it seems that MC is pulling the whole file at start as the it occupies about 10 % of the bandwidth for 20 - 40 secs at startup. So it might be that. Is this an .ape specific thing ? Would this not happen for a .flac file ?
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Matt

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #14 on: April 16, 2009, 05:37:43 pm »
Quote from: lazy on April 16, 2009, 04:58:59 pm
Hi Matt,

The LAN is a wireless 54 Mbps link. But I've streamed over this for some 2 years now without a problem, and before that I also streamed without problems over an even narrower bandwidth. This is a problem that occurred after MC 13.0.136, but I'm not quite sure about the minor number...

But you're quite right it seems that MC is pulling the whole file at start as the it occupies about 10 % of the bandwidth for 20 - 40 secs at startup. So it might be that. Is this an .ape specific thing ? Would this not happen for a .flac file ?

Let us dig more on our side.  It sounds like the APE code to not load the tag for remote files isn't working.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Matt

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2009, 09:15:20 pm »
It looks like a recent APE error handling change can cause it to want to read the tag on file load.  This is a problem for remote files.

Look for a fix in the next week or two.
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #16 on: April 18, 2009, 03:59:08 am »
Great ! Thanks, Matt.
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lazy

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Re: Long buffering
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2009, 02:45:35 pm »
Yepp, now it works like it used to. Great !
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