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[richard-ec2]

I'm a new user - I never cease to be amazed at the way MC18 seems to have thought of everything and anticipates your every need. It is such a great program. However I have come up against one problem and wonder if anyone can help.

I have MC18 loaded onto a small-form Windows 8 PC that has all my music loaded onto it and that's plugged into my stereo system. This PC has no keyboard and no screen. I control it using the JRemote app loaded onto an iPad. If I need to access the PC for other reasons, I go to my main PC in another room and access it via Remote Desktop.

The problem is this. When I've finished a music listening session, the last album played doesn't automatically clear from "Playing Now" even if you've listened right through to the end. It just sits there, with a green button next to the last track you listened to, as if you've only paused it. And here's the big problem - like all Windows 8 PCs as far as I know, if the PC senses that a media server is playing anything, or trying to, it refuses to go to sleep. This is a good idea because it prevents the PC shutting down in the middle of a an album or movie, etc. However, with MC18, this means the PC can never go to sleep because there's always something "Playing Now" unless you manually go into the PC with a keyboard and screen, manually open up the program, manually go through the menu and manually select "Clear Playing Now". (Or access it using another PC with remote desktop using the same procedure.) As far as I know, there is no way of clearing "playing now" using JRemote.

Surely there has to be a better way? I wish "Playing now" would clear automatically at the end of an album, or at least offered this as an option. What puzzles me is that this hasn't been asked over and over again, since a lot of people must be experiencing the same problem. That makes me think I'm missing something.

[Samson]

Tools > Options > General > Advanced > Clear Playing now on exit but I cant see an option to clear after each album or idle period.

Are you saying that the pc goes to sleep if you manually clear the playing list?

Have you fiddled with advanced power options under multimedia and sleep ? (Im on Win7 but presume 8 has similar setting.I dont have this problem on 7.)

[InflatableMouse]

I'm pretty sure that when playing ends, MC closes the file and audio output. The green marker you see is simply an icon and does not mean the output stays open preventing sleep.

You can check this. If you select Wasapi or ASIO for output mode and allow applications to take exclusive control of the audio device, nothing else can play when MC is playing. If your statement holds true then no other application should be able to play after playing now finishes and I don't think that is correct.

I can't test this myself right now as I'm at work but I'm pretty sure about this. There must be something else preventing your pc from falling asleep.

[stevemac]

in Windows 7 you can issue powercfg -requests from CMD prompt (running as Administrator)

With nothing preventing it sleeping it should return

Code: [Select]

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg -requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
None.

AWAYMODE:
None.

C:\Windows\system32>

With something preventing it sleeping you'll get something like

Code: [Select]

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg -requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
[DRIVER] Realtek High Definition Audio (HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0885&SUBSYS
_1458A002&REV_1001\4&730555e&0&0201)
An audio stream is currently in use.
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 18\Me
dia Center 18.exe

AWAYMODE:
None.

C:\Windows\system32>

Does this work in Windows 8?

regards,

Steve

[Samson]

in Windows 7 you can issue powercfg -requests from CMD prompt (running as Administrator)

Very cool !

Following on from that should something be found, it can be overriden,
 -REQUESTS
             Enumerate application and driver Power Requests. Power
             Requests prevent the computer from automatically powering off
             the display or entering a low-power sleep mode.

 -REQUESTSOVERRIDE
             Sets a Power Request override for a particular Process, Service,
             or Driver. If no parameters are specified, this command displays
             the current list of Power Request Overrides.

             Usage: POWERCFG -REQUESTSOVERRIDE <CALLER_TYPE> <NAME> <REQUEST>
             <CALLER_TYPE>    Specifies one of the following caller type:
                              PROCESS, SERVICE, DRIVER. This is obtained by
                              calling the POWERCFG -REQUESTS command.
             <NAME>           Specifies the caller name. This is the name
                              returned from calling POWERCFG -REQUESTS command.

             <REQUEST>        Specifies one or more of the following Power
                              Request Types: Display, System, Awaymode.
             Example:
                 POWERCFG -REQUESTSOVERRIDE PROCESS wmplayer.exe Display System

[richard-ec2]

Many thanks for the helpful replies.

It's definitely the "playing now" field that's the problem. I've done a lot of experiments.

If the "playing now" field is empty, the PC goes to sleep on schedule with no problem at all.

If the "playing now" field has items in it, the PC will not go to sleep. If you then clear the "Playing now" field, the PC goes to sleep.

If there are items in the "Playing now" field, and you force the PC into sleep mode, it wakes up again a few minutes later.

If there are no items in the "playing now" field, and you force the PC into sleep mode, it stays asleep with no problem at all.

In addition, I previously had a completely different PC in this role and it had exactly the same problem with MC18. The one thing both PCs had in common is that both were Windows 8 so maybe there's a new feature in Windows 8 that's conflicting with MC18?

I haven't fiddled with the power options other than to set them for the PC to go to sleep after two hours and for the power button to put the PC into sleep mode. The problems I've described weren't affected by the change in settings.

Steve, as soon as I get a chance I'll try those powercfg experiments and report back. They look very interesting - thank you.

[JimH]

When you finish playing, do you press the pause button or the stop button?

[InflatableMouse]

If there are items in the "Playing now" field, and you force the PC into sleep mode, it wakes up again a few minutes later.

I have this problem myself but never linked it to Playing Now.

Will test this myself.

[InflatableMouse]

Oke that was quick. PC wakes up even if no JRiver process is running. Tried with playing now filled, empty and no JRiver running.

Definitely a different problem I'm afraid.

[JimH]

I have had problems like this when I had the Wake on Lan settings for the network adaptor set to wake on any LAN activity.  It should be set to wake on Magic Packet.

[richard-ec2]

When you finish playing, do you press the pause button or the stop button?

That's a very interesting question. There is no stop button in JRemote, only a pause button, so there's room for suspicion there. However, the cases I'm talking about are where I start a complete album playing and then let it play all the way through to the finish without touching anything so I never actually touch the stop/pause button. I do think it's worth considering, though. I'll try an experiment where I play an album using the J River instead of J Remote and see what happens.

InflatableMouse - thanks very much for trying, anyway.

JimH - annoyingly my PC does not have the Wake On Lan feature - it's not supported by the motherboard. The network adapter is set to be woken by magic packet - not that it works  - but there's another check box in the power management section where there's a box Wake On Magic Packet Only which is unchecked by default. I could try checking this box - I'll add this experiment to the list!

Steve - I will send the results of the command prompt test shortly. I can't do it from Remote Desktop because it shows Remote Desktop as a an activity so I have to attach a keyboard and screen to the PC, hence the delay.

[richard-ec2]

OK, here's the powercfg result. This is after another sleepless night for the poor PC,  kept awake by the presence of a fully played album in the "playing now" window.

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg -requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\srvnet
An active remote client has recently sent requests to this machine.

AWAYMODE:
None.

EXECUTION:
None.

PERFBOOST:
None.

FULLSCREENVIDEO:
None.

As you can see there's nothing there other than to record the fact that I've used Remote Desktop.

[richard-ec2]

Next experiment: I started MC18, cleared the "Playing now" field and used a keyboard and screen, not JRemote, to start playback of an album. I let it play through to the end without touching anything. The PC still wouldn't go to sleep, so it appears that JRemote isn't the source of the problem. I also tried this with the JRemote app completely shut down on my iPad just to make sure JRemote couldn't interract with the PC in any way.

Next experiment will be checking the "magic packets only" box. Any more suggestions?

[Matt]

You can read about srvnet (Windows networking) keeping the computer awake here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=79201.0

Since MC manually keeps the computer awake if it serves something important, and Gizmo (and I assume JRemote) wake a sleeping computer, it's probably safe to disable the srvnet keep awake stuff.

[richard-ec2]

That's great, Matt, thanks very much. It definitely sounds like that's the source of the problem. I've gone through the steps referred to in the other thread, I've just finished playing an album through MC18 and I'm now waiting to see if the PC will go to sleep by itself.

A couple of points while we wait.

I'm not clear whether it's JRemote or Remote Desktop that's causing the srvnet problem.

Nothing will wake my sleeping computer unfortunately because the motherboard doesn't support Wake On Lan. I have to wake it manually. JRemote used to wake my previous PC, however.

Oh yes, and checking the "magic packet only" box didn't make any difference. Must remember to uncheck it again.

[Matt]

Make sure you're using S3 sleep instead of S4 (hibernate) for wake on LAN.

A modern computer should only use 1 or 2 watts in S3, so I'm not really clear why S4 even exists.  Maybe for laptops?

[6233638]

A modern computer should only use 1 or 2 watts in S3, so I'm not really clear why S4 even exists.  Maybe for laptops?

My system refuses to wake from sleep properly, but hibernates just fine. It's a conflict between the motherboard and the power supply.
ASUS will RMA my board as many times as I want, likewise with Corsair and the power supply, but neither will acknowledge the compatibility issue between them that's causing it.
So glad I bought components with five year warranties.

WoL works from hibernation though.

[richard-ec2]

AMAZING! IT WORKS! Problem solved. Huge thanks to JohnnyN in the other thread for cracking this and to everyone here too. I followed JohnnyN's instructions by going to the command prompt, going into powercfg and requesting an override for srvnet. I don't fully understand what the issue was or what I've done but the PC now goes to sleep without any problem.

It's not strictly relevant to this thread but I still don't have a functioning Wake On Lan. It's a brand new, custom-built small form factor PC (from Quiet PC) with a Gigabyte Z77N-WiFi motherboard. Wake On Lan has never functioned and after I emailed Gigabyte last week they told me quite simply that the motherboard didn't support it. It's maddening really - I can't understand why a new motherboard wouldn't support such a basic feature especially in a motherboard that's virtually made for music servers.

I'll try the hibernate idea but from what Gigabyte say, it won't make any difference.

Many thanks again for solving my problem.  Now I can sleep as well as the PC.

[6233638]

In my BIOS (UEFI?) under APM, "Power on by PCI" has to be enabled for WoL to work correctly. It's an ASUS P67 board though, not Gigabyte.
I seem to recall a friend with a newer 7-series motherboard (it may have been a Gigabyte one actually) having similar issues because he enabled a new power saving option that was supposed to minimize standby power consumption. (it basically auto-configured the BIOS to disable anything that would draw power in standby - including Power on by PCI)

[richard-ec2]

I think my earlier euphoria may have been a bit overdone. I tried playing an album today and stopped it mid-way using JRemote and the PC has not gone to sleep. There still seems to be a basic problem with the "Playing now" window in MC18 whereby if anything is in there that hasn't yet played, the PC will not go to sleep. It's a real problem because if you're operating your PC remotely, without a keyboard or screen but using JRemote, you have no way of clearing the "Playing now" window and therefore no way of allowing your PC to go to sleep without accessing it by some other means. Your only hope apparently is to let all tracks in the window play through to their end - but you can't even do that except by leaving your DAC switched on because playback ceases as soon as you switch off the DAC.

H-e-l-p!

BTW, 6233638, thanks very much for the Wake on Lan suggestions but the simple fact is that the Z77N-WiFi board doesn't support WoL and nothing I do to the BIOS will alter that. (I've tried.)

[6233638]

Was it stopped or paused?

I have not used JRemote recently (I need to set up proper views for it - right now, they're quite useless) and to my surprise the interface has been changed and the stop button is hidden away in the Now Playing section.



There's also an option under Tools > Options > General > Behavior for Show stop button in Media Center itself. (though some skins might not support it?)

[richard-ec2]

Yes, funnily enough I noticed that stop button thing in JRemote for the first time today and did use the stop button, not the pause button on the main screen, to stop play.

I think I need to do some more experiments and report back.  I do like JRemote a lot, by the way - it does everything I want it to, looks great and is very stable. But this PC sleeping thing is driving me nuts.

[curiousMonkey]

I am having the same problem but srvnet is not listed in the powercfg output.

powercfg -requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
[PROCESS] Media Center 18.exe

AWAYMODE:
[PROCESS] Media Center 18.exe

The playlist is currently empty but I did configure JRemote.
I will try playing around with program options.

[curiousMonkey]

I think I found the reason my computer would not sleep.

There was a TV program being recorded in the background.
It would be nice if there was an intuitive way to see that.

[Daveyravey]

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81625.0