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Author Topic: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing  (Read 3261 times)

jfl97

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MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« on: February 17, 2013, 05:46:48 pm »

Using MC18.0.106 in Theater Mode on Windows 8 Acer Iconia W6465 tablet feeding WASAPI output to Audioquest Dragonfly into my car AUX-IN from a USB 500GB Seagate External HDD.  I initially had a problem with Windows 8 Power Plan settings causing USB power to shut off after a few minutes.  I figured that one out after awhile and everything worked perfectly for a couple of weeks.  Usually I select an album to play and hit the road.

New issue that just cropped up is random play periods ranging from a few minutes to a few tracks after which output stops (I am quite sure playback is continuing - I just can't hear it) but if I pause the track and un-pause it sound output resumes for a similarly unpredictable period of time after which the situation repeats itself.  Pretty frustrating.

I noted in the following post/response where it was suggested to "disable display from turning off" but this is not what was happening originally and I'm not losing my display.  In fact, everything seems to be running fine except the output from my tablet.

Audio settings of MC18 or PC?


Has anyone else encountered this weird behavior?  Or can you suggest possible solutions?  I am, of course, going to try the one suggested, but do not know the outcome yet.




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glynor

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Stops Playing Randomly
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2013, 10:40:54 am »

Are you in WASAPI mode or WASAPI Event Style?

You should be in the latter, probably.
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jfl97

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Stops Playing Randomly
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2013, 02:04:47 pm »

glynor,  Thanks for your reply.  I'll give it a try.  I was in WASAPI and after trying the suggestion to "disable display from turning off" I thought things were fixed - for about 30 minutes - then the random stopping began again.  There does not appear to be any periodicity to the interruptions such as I might expect with a timing event in the hardware.

Is there something fundamentally different between WASAPI and WASAPI Event Style?

If your suggestion does not fix it I'll try "Play files from memory instead of disk".
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jfl97

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2013, 09:16:38 pm »

I have tried several more things to get stable playback.  I should add that the HDD I am using as the source for my library files contains only *.wav and *.flac audio files and *.jpg album art.  The file structure is really simple - D:<artist>\<album title>\<file1.wav, file2.wav, etc.> so I am sure there's not a structural issue.

I was not able to get any output from WASAPI - Event Style.  So, I have WASAPI output that randomly stops with no apparent periodicity and WASAPI - Event Style that will not even play.  What might I try next?  I really do not want to use any of the other output modes that use signal processing.

One other note is that although nothing related to audio was contained in a pack of recent Microsoft Windows 8 Security updates, I am starting to wonder if there was something unstated that has screwed up either my MC18 installation or the audio signal path (which is supposed to be from HDD to my Dragonfly DAC then to the car audio AUX-IN on my head unit.)  I may try restoring my tablet OS to a point prior to the update and see if that has an impact, but I would think that MC18 would be stable enough to deal with MS Security updates.

Is there anything about Theater View that would cause signal routing to be different from other playback modes?  Can anybody point me to an updated installation guide?  Any comments about how I have set up my MC18 interface with the associated components?  The single USB computer port is USB3 with a 4-port USB2 hub and the Dragonfly and HDD are USB2 and using that 4-port hub, so I do not think there should be any USB timing conflicts.  It seems as though MC18 maybe 'forgets' to tell the HDD to send data.  Is there any way to check this out via system logs?  Windows Event Viewer shows a couple of errors communicating with the HDD when I initially start music playback, but there are no errors shown during the repeated interruptions.

I also tried the "Play files from memory instead of disk" and that initially seemed to prolong the play time but that also ended up randomly stopping, too.  The progress bar seems to stop when output stops almost as if one was hitting "Pause".

Any ideas will be appreciated and tried.  I would like to actually use my MC18 installation to play music.

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jfl97

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing (Log File Attached)
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2013, 08:26:57 pm »

Sorry to bump my post, but I would really like some help.

I have attached a logfile that includes 4 or 5 instances of the random stop error I am encountering.  I've tried every playback mode, so I know that the problem is not related to WASAPI, WASAPI - Event Style, Direct Output.

I would appreciate some help if anyone has clues.

Where should I send log files if not here?
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Matt

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2013, 09:25:29 am »

I'm not sure what's happening from looking at the log.

What if you play only a single album of 44.1 files (no SACD stuff)?

Also, what if you turn off monitor sleep an the screensaver in Windows?  A couple of the stops in the log are right after Windows asked to turn off the display:
75059078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Start
75059078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Change: 1; UI Mode: -999; Playing: 1
75059078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Disable change for user option to keep display on
75059078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Finish (result: 0) (0 ms)
75089078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Start
75089078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Change: 1; UI Mode: -999; Playing: 1
75089078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Disable change for user option to keep display on
75089078: 6056: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Finish (result: 0) (0 ms)

Thanks.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

jfl97

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2013, 09:42:05 pm »

Matt,  Thanks for posting.

I neglected to post a play-by-play of what exactly was occurring as I created the log file because I wasn't sure anybody was going to help, but the sequence of events is roughly:
1)  Reset Playback to WASAPI, 24 bit, 2 ch, 44.1kHz.
2)  Turn on logging
3)  Start playing a track (it isn't really SACD, it's just a rip of the redbook layer, simply a *.wav file)
4)  Track played for about 2 min 33 sec (approx.) and then something caused it to stop (sound and visual waveform on the header both stopped); I was using standard mode, not Theater Mode;
5)  I noticed the Pause/Play icon was still displaying the option to Pause (i.e. the player did not even recognize it had stopped playing!) so I tried to Pause the track;
6)  Pause had no effect other than to change the icon to show the option to Play (Resume) [i.e. the forward arrow similar to this: |>];
7)  Finally hit Stop - which amazingly enough did shut off the player;
8)  Again hit play for the same track, it played about 2 min 20 sec this time and the again stalled, repeated the Pause/Play/Pause/Play/Stop sequence as described above;
9)  Tried a third time, same track, I think it played about 30 seconds, repeated Pause/Play/Pause/Play/Stop nonsense;
10)  Tried a new track, same thing, can't remember how long it played before stopping,
11)  Tried another new track, etc.
12)  Gave up.  Terminated log.  Sent log.

Took rig into house.  Got pissed, disconnected HDD from one port on the 4-port USB2 hub and connected it to a different port.  The Dragonfly DAC remained connected to the same hub port.  I left the Dragonfly output dongle disconnected.  Lo' and behold!  I came back an hour later and the thing was still going (the waveform on the track header was dancing around instead of dead in the water.)  Stopped playback, changed albums, and resumed play.  It continued to work for a couple of hours.

I did encounter a drive disconnect when I put the computer in Standby or Sleep for a few hours.  When I restarted the computer I had to physically disconnect the HDD and reconnect before the computer would recognize the HDD again (obviously not JRiver's issue.)

I tried decoding the logfile by trying to recall the logfile event sequence from my own memory, but I cannot see anything in the log that tells me why JRiver lost track of the HDD.  Windows 8 Event Viewer also provides no information regarding loss of HDD connection/communication with my computer (which I am fairly amazed by - normally Windows tracks events very well.)

I am not 100% convinced the problem is gone, but I'm fairly sure it is my computer/HDD that is the problem.
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JimH

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #7 on: February 26, 2013, 07:28:08 am »

I tried decoding the logfile by trying to recall the logfile event sequence from my own memory, but I cannot see anything in the log that tells me why JRiver lost track of the HDD.
It isn't JRiver's job to keep track of the drive.  It's the OS's. 

From your description, I believe you said that the everything seemed to work after you switched the drive to a different USB port. 

We see similar problems fairly often.  You might try reading about this kind of problem or starting a thread about it on the Hardware board here.
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Pablow

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2013, 08:55:55 am »

I've had this problem in windows 7 32 pro, tried EVERYTHING. My latest is shutdown, unplug computer, unplug Usb speakers/Headset. restart computer. open device manager plug in USB...see that the computer "Sees" the device (whatever the usb device is). Open 18 to playback options see if the device I just plugged in is present (in this case USB Headset) click to make it where the sound goes. Playback starts im happy plays maybe two tunes and stops mid tune.

Best news to date I didn't buy Windows 8 because I thought Windows 7 was the cause......thanks for that bit of info.
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JimH

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Re: MC18 on Windows 8 Randomly Stops Playing
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2013, 09:08:42 am »

If the hardware isn't reliable, MC won't be reliable.

Try using DirectSound.

Provide some more details about the audio device and connection.
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