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[rinoatomy]

We can't repro any problems, can you provide more details of what you mean by "sloppy"?

Hi,

Playback is constantly skipping, making noises, cracks. Sorry, I can't find the right word, english is not my primary language.

When it happens, I need to restart the mac and try again. Eventually it'll normalize.

I used to be able to use JRiver on a regular basis, but i'm having these problem since 201 I think.

I used to have Audio on Hardware default, but I switched to Maximum recently. I don't know if this is part of the problem because when I go back to hardware, I still have the problem. I remember even restarting the computer with the default option. same problem.

Sometimes JRiver hangs and I have to force quit although after I wrote that first post, I couldn't reproduce this behavior.

My interface is Apogee Duet 2.

[Matt]

Please use 'Hardware default' for the buffer size.  Then reboot and test a single sample rate.

Does that work, or do you still have problems?

After that test, we'll slowly add more complexity.

[rinoatomy]

This guy explained the trouble better than I could ever explain. Its the exact same thing, but with the mac version.

As some of you know from my recent posts, I just started using JRiver for my music player. I am having an issue with skipping during playback and I cannot seem to figure it out. There does not appear to be a pattern with the files as it occurs with 16/44 as well as higher resolution. All files are FLAC and they reside on an OWC external drive connected via eSATA to a Windows 7 laptop. The laptop is output via USB to a Berkeley Alpha USB. MC is set to output mode WASAPI and the following are checked:

-Open device for exclusive access
-Flush device buffers on startup
-Flush device buffers on pause (recent change to see if it would correct skipping which it did not)

I tried increasing the buffer all the way and it did not correct it. Prebuffering is set to 6 seconds.

I need to start another song and sometimes exit the player and restart it in order for it to stop skipping. It occurs randomly, sometimes a couple times in a 10 minute period and sometimes not for hours.

I'm a bit baffled. Anyone experience this or have any suggestions?

I tried Hardware default and the other two options without success.

The other two options I tried was memory playback and exclusive access.

Its not a constant stuttering, its every now and then. thats why I think its will be more challenging to get to the cause of the issue.

It could be a conflict of software maybe? The duet drivers maybe? I dont know.

[Matt]

Sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what's happening.  That means we'll have to try some things to try to figure it out.

After switching Output device settings to 'Hardware default', please reboot the computer.  Some hardware doesn't reset until that.  Does that help?

How fast is your machine?  Post the JRMark score from MC > Help > Benchmark.

Could you try playing files from a local drive?

Thanks.

[rinoatomy]

Hi, alright.

I'm gonna try to reboot the computer and report back soon. (or later).

Fast? should be sufficient to playback audio, I think.

My files are all on my local drive, not external.

Here's the benchmarks:

=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===

Running 'Math' benchmark...
    Single-threaded integer math... 5.298 seconds
    Single-threaded floating point math... 3.151 seconds
    Multi-threaded integer math... 5.513 seconds
    Multi-threaded mixed math... 3.297 seconds
Score: 1101

Running 'Image' benchmark...
    Image creation / destruction... 1.508 seconds
    Flood filling... 3.597 seconds
    Direct copying... 3.207 seconds
    Small renders... 2.807 seconds
    Bilinear rendering... 4.054 seconds
    Bicubic rendering... 1.886 seconds
Score: 1290

Running 'Database' benchmark...
    Create database... 5.584 seconds
    Populate database... 3.663 seconds
    Save database... 0.328 seconds
    Reload database... 0.141 seconds
    Search database... 3.198 seconds
    Sort database... 1.811 seconds
    Group database... 1.552 seconds
Score: 1321

JRMark (version 18.0.216): 1237

[rinoatomy]

Hi.

I did reboot the computer after change to hardware default.

Played some albums without any issue, But It just happened again unfortunately. a quiet but present stuttering at the end of a track on this album Im listening to right now.

All my files are AAC. No upsampling.



Maybe its related to heavy multitasking while playing music? I do use mission control (mountain lion) a lot.

[Matt]

Played some albums without any issue, But It just happened again unfortunately. a quiet but present stuttering at the end of a track on this album Im listening to right now.

Does it keep playing, but have a tick noise?  Or does playback stall?  Or do you hear something after stopping playback?

Thanks.

[rinoatomy]

its keeps playing.

Its like the audio file had an issue, you know these crap mp3 files??? kinda like a scratched cd...

But I checked and my files are perfectly fine. It plays flawlessly on itunes or audirvana.

[Matt]

We've only seen this issue with devices that don't nicely support buffer size changes (despite reporting that they will).  Unfortunately this seems common on Mac, maybe because iTunes never changes the buffer size?

In any event, using 'Hardware default' in Options > Audio > Output mode settings makes it so that we don't change the buffer size either.  So I wouldn't expect this to be the issue.

Would you be willing to use Help > Logging to capture a log of starting playback and playing a little, and then send it to logs (at) jriver [dot] com with a link to this thread?  I'd like to see the buffer configuration used by the hardware, because perhaps it's doing something atypical.

Thanks for your help, and sorry to not have a more sure answer yet.

[rinoatomy]

Will do.

thanks.

[Matt]

Thanks for the log.  However, I need to see playback starting from a stopped state.  Could you try again and not reset the log (or make sure you stop with the stop button, then play after resetting).

Thanks.

[rinoatomy]

Hey, Matt,

I just emailed you again with what I think is the right thing. Let me know, please.

Thanks

[Matt]

Thanks for the log.

It shows that the device has a simple buffer arrangement: a single stream of four channels.  It defaults to 512 blocks as the hardware buffer size.

I think it would be good to try simplifying what the device sees from us, by trying two different things:

1) Use DSP Studio > Output Format to _always_ output a single sample rate.  It's possible hardware sample rate switches are leading to the problem.  If we remove this possibility, we might learn something.

2) Use DSP Studio > Output Format > Channels to output 4 channel (even if you don't have anything connected to the other two channels).  We should be leaving the two other channels silenced in two channel mode anyway, but it's worth testing.

Thanks again for all your help.

[rinoatomy]

I do always output with only one sample rate.

I'm going to try the channel options, beginning right now.

Thank you.

[bplexico]

I previously used a Apogee Duet with JRiver, I know you are using an Apogee Duet 2. I used the default of hardware default for buffer size which eliminated problems I had when switching sample rates.

For output formats I had it set based on the Apogee Duet handling up to 24/96. Thus 44.1 files I set for playback at 44.1, 88.2 at 88.2, 96 at 96, and then downsampling 192k files to 96k. It worked flawlessly for me, I know this does not solve your problem, but I think it must be a configuration issue.  Are you using a dedicated playback computer or also running other programs at the same time? What happens if you only run JRiver and no other programs? How much memory is in your Mac? And lastly have you tried playback with any other music player like iTunes or Audirvana?

Barr

[rinoatomy]

Thanks for taking your time trying to help me, I appreciated it.

I don't have a dedicated system for JRiver. I run all sorts of apps while playing music. I've tried listening to music without doing other stuff (usually after reboot when system comes clean). I've tried everything.

Yes, iTunes and Audirvana does play flawlessly. no issues whatsoever.

My mac runs 8gb of ram, but the processor is kinda old now.

I'm trying Matt's last suggestion. so far so good.

Thanks!!

[bplexico]

Well it sounds like you have done a lot of due diligence and given it does work with Audirvana then it should work with JRiver. Hopefully Matt's suggestion will resolve the issue for you.

Barr

[rinoatomy]

Hey Matt, unfortunately, it happened again. 4 channels and upsampling.

[Matt]

Would you be willing to test with the MC19 Mac that's going out in the next hour?

I believe it may solve this problem (which I think was ultimately a buffer shortfall condition due to how buffer sizes were being selected).

I really appreciate all your help so far.