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Author Topic: Weird bug (I think)  (Read 2667 times)

frepp

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Weird bug (I think)
« on: February 15, 2011, 08:46:28 am »

Hi there!
I've been using Media Center 15 for quite some time now, and I'm generally very happy with it, I think it's an awesome program.
However, I do get a strange bug on both my computers (I have MC15 installed on both); If I leave my computer on with Media Center playing for a several hours, MC crashes.
The time it takes for it to crash varies a bit, but it's usually after 5-6+ hours.

The only thing I've been able to really conclude is that memory usage rises more and more the longer I leave MC on (seems to me to be some kind of memory leak), and when my memory (2Gb on one computer and 4Gb on the other) is more or less full, MC crashes and gives me an error message saying something along the lines of "Media center has encountered an error". If I at that point check memory usage, it's always very high, like 90-95% most of the time. If I restart MC it works as it should again, and efter several hours the same thing happens.

I don't have any scheduled operations running on my computer, and if I don't run MC, memory usage never rises that high. The weird thing is that when it crashes, the Media Center 15.exe process doesn't use THAT much memory, usually something around 100 MB at the most, usually a lot lower. To me (with limited knowledge of programming modern PC's) it seems like MC is using memory that it then doesn't 'release' properly, so to speak, making system memory usage increase all the time.

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit on an Intel Quadcore 9550 processor, LynxTwo soundcard and 4Gb of DDR2 memory on my main computer.
Any idea how to remedy this?
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JimH

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2011, 08:53:50 am »

You could take a look at the link called "Stability" in my signature.

Make sure you're using the latest build from our download page.

What type of files are you playing?  MP3?  Any Apple files?
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WinoOutWest

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2011, 10:24:22 am »

hmmm... quite possibly not related but I've been having frequent shutdowns as well.  I just haven't had the time to look into it or do any trouble shooting yet.  MC runs and plays music in my house from 6:30am till the wee hours of the morning and lately its been randomly shutting down throughout the day.  Now warnings or error messages on my part though.  It just stops playing and is gone.  I restart it and it plays fine again.  This happens once or twice though the day. not every day.
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JimH

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2011, 10:33:37 am »

What build?  Any Apple files?
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WinoOutWest

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2011, 10:45:44 am »

How dare you suggest I own anything Apple in my house!! >:(

Seriously though... its highly unlikely I was playing any Apple content - I may have "inherited: a track or two along the way but my music is 98% mp3 with newer stuff being flac

I was on .172 so I just grabbed .174. 

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JimH

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2011, 10:51:51 am »

... its highly unlikely I was playing any Apple content - I may have "inherited: a track or two along the way but my music is 98% mp3 with newer stuff being flac

I was on .172 so I just grabbed .174. 

Eliminate the Apple tracks from your playback for testing purposes if you can.  We've found and fixed a problem that could cause a crash.
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WinoOutWest

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2011, 10:54:14 am »

Will do - and forgive me but I am not much of an Apple fan so...

Apple tracks would be... what?

aac files?
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JimH

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2011, 10:56:14 am »

Will do - and forgive me but I am not much of an Apple fan so...

Apple tracks would be... what?

aac files? 
Try just playing a single filetype, like MP3.  You could set up a test library for this purpose if you wish.
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frepp

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2011, 12:17:31 pm »

You could take a look at the link called "Stability" in my signature.

Make sure you're using the latest build from our download page.

What type of files are you playing?  MP3?  Any Apple files?

I've just checked the Stability link, and as far as I can see, my viruschecker is the only possible explanation of the ones described there. I'll turn it off and see if it helps.
I'm using the latest version of MC. I mostly play FLAC files, then some mp3's. I don't think I have any Apple files but will double check to be sure.

The apple file bug you were talking about, does it happen happen if the apple files are just in the playlist or library, or does it happen at the moment you try to play those files?

I just saw that I have been unclear in my original post, and would like to clarify that this problem only appears when the computer has been unattended for several hours. If I use the computer, it works fine for what seems to be an unlimited amount of time, but if I just leave it on without doing anything with it except playing music (like I usually do during sleep) it has invariably crashed and needs to be restarted when I wake up. Since I sleep about 6 hours per night, I can conclude that it crashes in less than six hours.

I'll try turning my virus program off and see if it helps. Thanks for the suggestions.
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frepp

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Re: Weird bug (I think)
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2011, 09:29:26 am »

I've upgraded to MC16, and now the program never hangs or gives me an error, so problem solved ;)
It might be that some inactive VST plugin was causing the error with MC15, but I just don't have the patience to check the ones I had installed. With MC16 I'm not using any plugins, at least not so far.
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