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[Grenache]

When switching from Theater View to Standard View MC suddenly crashed out of the blue. Both the program itself and Media Server was shut down with an error message that MC needs to close.

I'm sorry that I can't provide more detailed information.

Logfiles send to logs at jriver dot com.


PS: To answer the standard questions I list my setup below. However, this crash wasn't related to my client/server setup. It happened on my main PC, and the client wasn't in use.

Setup:
Main PC (Library Server): MC 18.0.78
Client: MC 18.0.78
Windows 8
Intel i7 - 3.40 GHz
16GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
All drivers up to date

[Matt]

Thanks for the log.

It doesn't show that Media Center is doing much of anything, and it doesn't log the crash.  It just goes away while playing television, after leaving Theater View (which appears to complete).

When it crashes, is it silent or do you get a crash dialog?  If you get a dialog, what's the faulting module?

Is the crash always right after you leave Theater View?  Does it matter what view Standard View is showing?

[Grenache]

It doesn't show that Media Center is doing much of anything, and it doesn't log the crash.  It just goes away while playing television, after leaving Theater View (which appears to complete).

I'll try to reconstruct the scenario in more detail as I remember it: earlier on I had been watching TV on another monitor using Theater View. Then I wanted to use MC on my desktop monitor, so I - as I usually do - tapped Ctrl+1 to get MC into Standard View and then pressed my keyboard shortcut to bring the program to the current monitor. When I clicked at the top of the program window it went "unclear" and Windows' spinning "waiting-symbol" appeared. In this case I know that I should stay away from clicking again, an I didn't. Sometimes, when this happens, MC survives this brief crisis, but this time it crashed with a Windows dialog. Unfortunately I didn't register the exact message, but I think it was something along the usual lines "...error... blablabla... MC needs to close".

So to answer your question: it's much more frequent that MC crashes in Theater View (maybe because I'm spending 90% of the time there), but this time MC was completely out of Theater View and showing Standard View when it crashed.

Sorry, that's all I got...

[glynor]

It is possible that this particular crash could be from your monitor switching application misbehaving.

Not sure what you're using (or if you're just using the built in Win 7 stuff), but I've personally had issues with Ultramon crashing all sorts of applications, including MC.

I switched to DisplayFusion a few months ago, and wished immediately that I hadn't waited so long.

Also, where is the Library stored for your main machine?

MC really, really wants the Library to be in a fast location.  It doesn't matter if the media files are on high-latency storage, but if you move your Library files over to network storage with high (or even medium) latency, you're going to get lots of "frozen UI" issues.  Bear in mind, when Windows says an application is "not responding" that DOES NOT mean it is crashed.  It could (and often is) just be busy waiting for something (usually disk).

At the office for a long while, I was trying to store my Library files on our Enterprise-class SAN and connect to it via UNC paths (I actually put //san.mycompany.org/share/MC/Library/ in the Library Manager to set up the Library in MC).

It worked, but MC was constantly locking up on me, and becoming non-responsive.  I learned over time if you just hit the "keep waiting" button in the Windows non-responsive dialog, that it would eventually "come back to life".  But this was very troublesome, and it would happen frequently.  Eventually, I gave up, and moved the Library to local storage on my Mac's hard drive.  Immediate differences.  Presto-chango, instantly MC was perfectly responsive (even though it is running in a VM).  And, as I mentioned, this is high end SAN stuff, with enterprise-class switches and network infrastructure.  That stuff isn't always better than what you get in a small LAN setup at home (where load is lower so trouble is less frequent), but the caliber of hardware is certainly better.

In any case, putting MC's Library on a Network Drive may seem like a great idea, and it can be handy to connect to from a Client in a pinch if you need to do something, but your PRIMARY Library should absolutely be stored locally.  And, if you have the choice between a SSD and a 5200 RPM spinner, pick the SSD.  The Library isn't huge, especially if you move the Thumbnails.  Databases want low-latency disk.  Period.  And MC's database is no different.

[Matt]

it crashed with a Windows dialog

If it happens again, take a close look at the dialog and see if it lists a faulting module.  I'm trying to figure out if the crash is in Media Center, a plugin, or a system driver.

[Grenache]

It is possible that this particular crash could be from your monitor switching application misbehaving.

Not sure what you're using (or if you're just using the built in Win 7 stuff), but I've personally had issues with Ultramon crashing all sorts of applications, including MC.

I switched to DisplayFusion a few months ago, and wished immediately that I hadn't waited so long.

Aargghh... that was the last thing I was hanging on to. I do indeed use a multi-monitor application, but it's... DisplayFusion. And even if I've tried to remove it before (when I was running Windows 7) to see if that was causing problems for MC, I just removed it again 10 minutes ago to give it another shot. And now you're telling me that this is in fact working well with MC. Oh well, I don't know if I should be happy or sad, because it's indeed a very good multi-monitor application that I would greatly miss. I've been using both the betas and more stable releases, but I haven't seen any difference in relation to MC. What version are you running?

Also, where is the Library stored for your main machine?

Just on a local hard drive (fast and thoroughly checked for any disk errors). I've also have a NAS, but I now only use it for backup.

[glynor]

Aargghh... that was the last thing I was hanging on to. I do indeed use a multi-monitor application, but it's... DisplayFusion.

I'm running whatever the latest version they've pushed out is (or maybe the one before that, if I was too lazy the last time it prompted me).  I run it on a whole PILE of machines, all of which use MC, and they're all fine.  I don't think it is DisplayFusion causing it, unless it is something weird with the beta.

Probably not.  Something else is going on, if it is crashing regularly.  Don't worry, they'll get to the bottom of it...