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[Arindelle]

After reading your post I uninstalled the MC driver and reinstalled MC.
Problem solved! Thanks!

Great, glad it helped and thank for posting back

[bobkatz]

For instructions, please see the first post in the feature thread here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92593.msg637430#msg637430

Please post any problems here.

This is not a problem, just a word of thanks! I upgraded today to 20.0.80 on PC and suddenly my lipsync issues with JRiver, YouTube with Convolution filters seemed to disappear. I noticed that the WDM driver was installed automatically with the update. Lip sync is very close, I think quite satisfactory for playing You Tube music videos at least. I'll still play with buffers but I think the issue has been licked. I have no idea how JRiver knows that something is being played in another application that's feeding windows sound!!! How is that link being made? Is it listening on its input all the time?

Now I have to conquer and figure out what keeps the links in the tab window... I'll look for or create another thread to ask about that.

[Matt]

I have no idea how JRiver knows that something is being played in another application that's feeding windows sound!!! How is that link being made? Is it listening on its input all the time?

Media Center runs an IPC (inter process communication) server that the driver opens and writes to.

[bobkatz]

Media Center runs an IPC (inter process communication) server that the driver opens and writes to.

Beautiful, Matt. That explains the magic that's going on. So when the driver is not being used (when Windows is not playing any sound), I assume there is minimal impact on CPU drain?

[Matt]

Beautiful, Matt. That explains the magic that's going on. So when the driver is not being used (when Windows is not playing any sound), I assume there is minimal impact on CPU drain?

There's none really.  I guess there's an IPC server sitting there but it only does something if data comes in, so it's basically free.

[culliganman]

Crackling sounds while playing Spotify premium no matter how I adjust the buffering and live playback.
It doesn't matter if the songs are downloaded or streaming. If I just use Spotify without MC no crackling.
The crackling is intermittent and not very often, sometimes takes 15 seconds, sometimes takes minutes.
Reducing device buffering does help, my best setting is minimum buffering and 50 live playback latency.
I am using a Dell ultrabook with I5 processor and 8 mb ram with USB out to Dragonfly dac.
Audio device setting is WASAPI.

I'm a newbie but I've owned MC for about 2 months with constant reading on the forum so I think I have a feel for the settings, no expert by any means.
So to sum it up if I select MC for the sound device driver the problem begins.
I'm using the latest stable version 20.0.63
I've tried low/low, low/high, high/low, and high/high device buffering/live playback latency setting, over a dozen different combinations.
I'm out of ideas and need help please.

Edit to add that it does it without using internet or having any other programs going besides MC and Spotify.
Computer is set to never sleep.

[JimH]

A newer version of MC is posted at the top of this board.  It would be worth testing that.

[culliganman]

Will do and report back.
Thanks!

[culliganman]

Still crackles on occasion after the update. 
I am currently using minimum buffering and 20 ms latency.

[prerich]

Ok, solved my problem.  I still don't know what caused it....I'm thinking my registry became corrupt - so I just re-installed my old image and started from scratch.  Everything is up and running good now. Making a new image today because everything seems to be stable and running well.

Thanks to everyone that tried to help!!!!

[schugh]

I'm using Tidal to stream to MC and then to my Chord Hugo Dac.
I've followed the instructions and set the driver as the default device, selected MC in Tidal settings etc.

It's finally working just fine, except I noticed one thing.
I was wondering why the audio path showed 24/192 for everything I played.
It seems MC is running in shared mode and in my Windows Sound settings the default setting for shared mode is set to 24/192.

But why is MC running in shared mode? Is there some setting? I've looked can't seem to find anything.

-- Sanjay

[mutato]

A newer version of MC is posted at the top of this board.  It would be worth testing that.

This implies that you have been working on the WDM crackling issue since last stable?

[6233638]

Still crackles on occasion after the update.  
I am currently using minimum buffering and 20 ms latency.

Most playback devices require at least 50ms buffering to have completely glitch-free playback, I find.
Some of my devices are mostly glitch-free down to 10ms, but high CPU usage can still cause playback glitches.
 
I wouldn't expect anything below 10ms to be glitch-free. Below 10ms is a compromise where you will tolerate potential glitches in order to keep latency low enough for video playback to stay in sync.
 
As for the live playback latency setting, there is no detriment to using the highest setting available; unlike device latency, where anything above 25ms glitches at the very start of playback. (on my system, at least)
If you are just using it for music playback, latency should not be much of a concern, so you can use anything up to 500ms.
 
 
10ms device buffer and a 10ms playback latency should be far less prone to glitches than "minimum+20ms".
You might even find "25ms+minimum" to be suitable.

[JimH]

This implies that you have been working on the WDM crackling issue since last stable?

I don't know what the crackling sound is.  Sorry.  It's always worth trying the latest build if you find a problem.

[culliganman]

Most playback devices require at least 50ms buffering to have completely glitch-free playback, I find.
Some of my devices are mostly glitch-free down to 10ms, but high CPU usage can still cause playback glitches.
 
I wouldn't expect anything below 10ms to be glitch-free. Below 10ms is a compromise where you will tolerate potential glitches in order to keep latency low enough for video playback to stay in sync.
 
As for the live playback latency setting, there is no detriment to using the highest setting available; unlike device latency, where anything above 25ms glitches at the very start of playback. (on my system, at least)
If you are just using it for music playback, latency should not be much of a concern, so you can use anything up to 500ms.
 
 
10ms device buffer and a 10ms playback latency should be far less prone to glitches than "minimum+20ms".
You might even find "25ms+minimum" to be suitable.

Thank you for posting, that gives me a better understanding of the device buffering and live playback latency.
While I had already tried a dozen settings, I went back and tried even more including settings within your suggestions.

It does seem that some settings improve over others but the crackling is random and hard to define even after what is now hours of testing.
Unfortunately the crackling still exists while playing Spotify and using the MC driver, sounds fine when I just set Dragonfly as default.

I decided to try a completely different ultrabook and it has the same symptoms.
At this point I am not enjoying the music, but the geek in me makes me want to keep trying.  ?
In looking back at previous posts it looks like there's at least 3 of us with this similar/same problem.

[culliganman]

Well, I just bought a new dac, not to fix this problem but for another room,
but I will retest after I get it since both ultrabooks used the same Dragonfly dac when I tested.
I should have it by Friday the 13th 

[mutato]

I don't know what the crackling sound is.  Sorry.  It's always worth trying the latest build if you find a problem.

That's too bad. It pains me not being able to enjoy WDM. Maybe for MC 21 you could fix it?

[JimH]

That's too bad. It pains me not being able to enjoy WDM. Maybe for MC 21 you could fix it?

I'm not sure it is our problem.  It doesn't seem to be common.  Time will tell.

[6233638]

I'm not sure it is our problem.  It doesn't seem to be common.  Time will tell.

The JRiver WDM driver is by far the audio device most susceptible to playback interruption from things like high CPU usage compared to anything else in my system.
 
It's not necessarily that what you're doing is wrong, but it does not seem to be as robust as playback to other audio devices.
I wish I had some insight as to why that is the case, but I really have no idea. Other virtual audio devices on my system (e.g. VB-cable) don't have this problem.

And this is exacerbated by the fact that people often want to minimize latency to keep audio in sync with video.

[mutato]

The JRiver WDM driver is by far the audio device most susceptible to playback interruption from things like high CPU usage compared to anything else in my system.
 
It's not necessarily that what you're doing is wrong, but it does not seem to be as robust as playback to other audio devices.
I wish I had some insight as to why that is the case, but I really have no idea. Other virtual audio devices on my system (e.g. VB-cable) don't have this problem.

And this is exacerbated by the fact that people often want to minimize latency to keep audio in sync with video.

What would be the optimal condition if one were to minimize the potential impact that processor usage might have? The random crackling issue appears with max buffers set and MC and chrome the only programs running on a fairly powerful 4 core i7 laptop.

[mwillems]

What would be the optimal condition if one were to minimize the potential impact that processor usage might have? The random crackling issue appears with max buffers set and MC and chrome the only programs running on a fairly powerful 4 core i7 laptop.

My experience is that it's very audio device specific.  I have some sound cards that never experience crackle when being fed from the WDM even with prolonged periods of 100% CPU utilization, and some that experience crackle with even short spikes in CPU usage.  I've had two different devices plugged into the same computer, same instance of mediacenter, etc.  One will crackle when using the WDM, the other will not.  

So I don't think it's necessarily a function of the PC/CPU, but more of a function of the sound hardware/drivers and how MC interacts with them in exclusive output modes.  

For example, my Asus Xonar ST (in a new i7 based PC) experiences crackle with the WDM driver regardless of buffer settings (some are better than others, but no combination of settings totally eliminates the crackle).  When my sound output to the ST is ASIO, I get less crackle than when it's WASAPI, but in either case I still get some crackle when using the WDM driver.  There are specific computer tasks I can perform that always cause crackle regardless of buffer settings.

On the same computer an Asus Xonar U7 (which is an external USB interface), cannot be made to crackle with the WDM driver unless the buffers are set to minimum.  Plugging the U7 into an i5, I still cannot get it to crackle with WDM.

My Steinberg UR824 doesn't crackle with the WDM even when the PC it's attached to is running Prime95 on all cores.

I could provide 2 or 3 other examples of interfaces that exhibit consistent behavior; the issue seems to be more audio device driven than computer driven.  My general findings are that external interfaces generally do a better job than internal cards (but not always), and Asus has terrible driver support.  

[culliganman]

What would be the optimal condition if one were to minimize the potential impact that processor usage might have? The random crackling issue appears with max buffers set and MC and chrome the only programs running on a fairly powerful 4 core i7 laptop.

Mutato, what brand laptop are you using? Mine are both Dell, a 6230 and a 4200.

Mine both crackle without having Chrome up, only running MC and Spotify.
It won't go away with ANY setting so far.

I do think there are probably users that have not noticed yet, but will in the future.
It is most apparent on soft passages of music.

[mutato]

Mutato, what brand laptop are you using? Mine are both Dell, a 6230 and a 4200.

Mine both crackle without having Chrome up, only running MC and Spotify.
It won't go away with ANY setting so far.

I do think there are probably users that have not noticed yet, but will in the future.
It is most apparent on soft passages of music.

It's a Samsung ATIV Book 9. I'm also using an external dac, called Nuforce HDP.

Maybe mwillems is right that the crackling issue is connected with how MC's WDM driver interacts with certain devices, the dac in my case and what I presume to be the onboard soundcard in your dell? This leaves but a few options. We can wait for jriver developers to improve the flexibility of their driver or we can try other hardware/software combinations. I sadly don't have another dac to try. In your case - have you experimented with other drivers for your soundcard?

[culliganman]

I'm using a dac also. I'm using a Dragonfly V1.2
I've got a Schiit dac coming this Friday that I will try.
I am not using any MC dsp functions so I can just go back to using the Dragonfly without MC although I will
lose WASAPI.

[mutato]

I'm using a dac also. I'm using a Dragonfly V1.2
I've got a Schiit dac coming this Friday that I will try.
I am not using any MC dsp functions so I can just go back to using the Dragonfly without MC although I will
lose WASAPI.

Keep us posted in regards to the Schiit. I'm getting a little desperate for a solution since I'm reliant on a dsp which lessens headphone fatigue.

[culliganman]

I received the Schiit dac early and as expected I still have crackling.
I also had a situation where the audio became completely distorted while playing a music file after using Spotify.
I was using a different zone than  the Spotify zone and shut down Spotify and the distortion still existed.
While MC was still on I played a music file from iTunes and it sounded great.
I shut down MC and restarted and music was back to normal.
I don't know what that was about but I've never had that happen before I started using the WDM driver.
I don't know if it's related or not.

[mutato]

As more people discover WDM, it'll be interesting to see how many more audio devices will produce crackling when coupled with MC20.

[6233638]

"Crackling" during playback is nothing to do with the output device. (unless it also happens when you're playing music)
It's entirely due to the WDM driver, and typically caused by using buffer sizes which are too small.

[mwillems]

"Crackling" during playback is nothing to do with the output device. (unless it also happens when you're playing music)
It's entirely due to the WDM driver...

I respectfully disagree with this part.  Read my post above.  

I have sound interfaces that will crackle with any combination of buffer settings when CPU load spikes  when using the WDM driver, but never when not using the WDM driver.  I've literally tried all combinations of both buffers.  Some settings are better than others, but with that device, load always causes some crackling.

I also have sound interfaces that never crackle when CPU load spikes when using the WDM driver even when running prime 95.

I have tested most of these devices on the same machine, so I can confirm that the only difference is the device.  To be crystal clear: none of these devices typically crackle when not using the WDM driver.

and typically caused by using buffer sizes which are too small.

But I agree that most instances of crackling that people experience can be corrected with different buffer settings, and many of the folks in this thread probably need to do more experimenting with both of the buffer settings.  Some folks may also have underpowered machines and/or windows configuration issues causing crackles.

But some interfaces (in my experience) will always have some crackling with the WDM in its current form regardless of buffer settings.  And some devices seem to never crackle once you've found the right buffer settings.  It may be that the WDM driver can be improved to resolve this issue, but results with the current driver seem to vary based on device.

[culliganman]

That's why I said as expected I still have crackling with the Schiit dac.  
My opinion is that it is the WDM driver also but I wanted to try everything.
I've tried larger buffer sizes. Some people say smaller buffer sizes. I tried smaller.
Some people say it's a combination, I've tried every combination.
There is no buffer size that works on my two laptops as well as about 6 or 7 other people by my count.
This forum has a lot of smart people on it and I am sure that someone will figure it out.

[Arindelle]

That's why I said as expected I still have crackling with the Schiit dac.  
My opinion is that it is the WDM driver also but I wanted to try everything.
I've tried larger buffer sizes. Some people say smaller buffer sizes. I tried smaller.
Some people say it's a combination, I've tried every combination.
There is no buffer size that works on my two laptops as well as about 6 or 7 other people by my count.
This forum has a lot of smart people on it and I am sure that someone will figure it out.

hi a little late to respond to, but do you have either the Gungnir or Bifrost form Schitt? Or do you have the Modi.  If it is a Gugnir or Bifrost clciking could occur if you make a playlist mixing sample rates -- this is "almost" normal in my understanding of how there clocks work. They have a brilliant analog module, btw. Anyways a friend bought an uber version of the Bifrost and had crackling and testing it at my house, everything worked perfectly. It came down to the usb bus in his laptop (which I had help with, as I know zero about shared USB buses ).  What you might want to try is a different USB port or a small powered hub to see if the USB connection has anything to do with it.

The Modi on the other hand is not in the same league and is more prone to other windows issues especially the usb connection. Maybe why they sell this now http://schiit.com/products/wyrd ?

For what its worth, the combination I used (audio only) was 10ms for the device buffer and 50ms live playback latency (no DSPs). If you use lots of DSP and crossfading, etc. up the buffer keeping the live playback at 50ms -- as this is just for an audio zone no worries about syncing.

[culliganman]

If it was the USB port, wouldn't it crackle when playing Spotify directly without using the JRiver driver?

I have the Schiit MODI, and the Dragonfly V1.2

I have been educating myself on USB noise and I do think I want to investigate that possibility.
Coincidentally I have been thinking of buying the WYRD but I'm not convinced a plain old USB hub wouldn't work the same. (thoughts?)
Lately I'm getting intermittent ticking noise from my Dell e port II with my Dell E6230 laptop hooked up to it.
It is happening with mouse movement but sometimes just by itself.
I tried a different mouse and different USB ports, removing the dac completely but it is still doing it.
The noise is not coming through the speakers and is a completely different sound.
It does not do it all the time though and definitely not through the speakers.
This never happened before but maybe whatever problem I have is getting worse.

Also if I get a USB hub, do I have to get a 2.0 or will a 3.0 hub work?
I was thinking of this one:
http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Port-2-5A-power-adapter/dp/B00DQFGH80/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426614698&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+powered+hub

I would think using the USB ports on the Dell e port II would work the same as a hub since it has a big power supply that it uses.

[culliganman]

I just got done powering up the Schiit MODI dac with a powered 2.0 USB hub borrowed from the neighbor.
It still crackles using the Jrivers sound driver.  

Edit to add that I just got done trying the Dragonfly dac on the powered hub and it crackles while using Spotify with the JRiver driver also.

[JimH]

Check for USB updates at Microsoft.

[culliganman]

Would it make any sense to try using the 3.5 mm audio out jack directly to the AVR as a test with and without JRiver driver?
If it still does it, it's not USB related?
Or am I off base?

[JimH]

Sure.  That would help.

[culliganman]

Would it make any sense to try using the 3.5 mm audio out jack directly to the AVR as a test with and without JRiver driver?
If it still does it, it's not USB related?
Or am I off base?

I tested with no USB, still crackles with MC.
No crackles without MC, with or without USB dac.
I could not find any new USB drivers for this laptop.
Could be just me but I think drums are crisper without using MC with Spotify.

[Arindelle]

I tested with no USB, still crackles with MC.
No crackles without MC, with or without USB dac.
I could not find any new USB drivers for this laptop.
Could be just me but I think drums are crisper without using MC with Spotify.

hmm sorry haven't got a clue then. Just one thing out of curiosity, have you tried your new dac/wdm combo from another computer??

[culliganman]

hmm sorry haven't got a clue then. Just one thing out of curiosity, have you tried your new dac/wdm combo from another computer??

Yes, I tried another computer.
Both computers with or without a dac, with wdm driver crackle (with all combinations of buffering and latency)
, without wdm driver no crackle.

[JimH]

From any source of music?

[culliganman]

From any source of music?

I've only noticed it while using Spotify.
Playing music files is ok.

[jbbernar]

WDM had been working perfectly for me, until today, when I tried it with orastream. With WASAPI and a Geek Out (a USB DAC), I get

Firefox: continuous crackling
Chrome: instant blue screen
Opera: continuous crackling

With ASIO and the Geek Out, I get intermittent crackling, just enough to be annoying.

If I have the GO set to WASAPI in MC, then even if I stop using the WDM driver, but leave it enabled, I have the same issues (ie, instant blue screen with Chrome). I have to disable WDM to use orastream at all with the GO. (I haven't tried it with the built-in Realtek chip yet.)

This is on Windows 8.1, updated this morning, and MC 20.0.84.

[Yanoush]

I set this up in a separate zone to my DAC and loved the audio quality but noticed some glitches on internet video e.g. YouTube. After a short time this got worse and internet video would stop after about 11 secs and would not play further even when refreshed.

A new release of Flash had just arrived so I suspected that at first but after experimenting without success I removed the JRiver WDM and immediately everything played fine again.

That's with Windows 7 and IE 11.

Any ideas?

[wibblefish]

Hi

I'm seeing the same issue as mentioned up in post #110, namely that the WDM driver seems to be running in shared mode and windows is resampling everything to the default  rate (as defined in the WDM properties advanced tab).

I am trying to pass a 5.1 video soundtrack through to the WDM driver to let MC decode down to 2.0 and night mode to compress audio but the audio is being downsampled to 2 channel before it arrives at MC. The only exception is if I playback from MC itself, in which case it appears to (bypass windows setting) and works fine.
[edit] I assume this may be related to the fact that under encoding formats, windows shows "not compressed formats found".

Is this working as designed, a config problem somewhere on my pc or a possible defect?

tx in advance.

[mutato]

Is anyone still experimenting with things to get WDM to work without crackling?

[Zero_G]

I have 2 Schiit dacs Modi and Bifrost Uber.  Using WDM I get intermittent clicks using Spotify.  I've tried every combination of buffer settings to no avail.  If I don't use JRiver they are both silent as far as noise goes when playing Spotify. 

[mutato]

It would be nice if the devs could give an estimate as to how many of us need to have this problem in order for them to look into fixing it.

[Amleth]

Is this safe to turn back on now, or does it still do that thing where it intermittently replaces your whole "Now Playing" list with a single entry of some weird link text every time a system sound plays outside JRiver playback? It annoyed me to the point I had to turn it off outright, as none of the other suggestions I tried would stop the behaviour.

[culliganman]

Is anyone still experimenting with things to get WDM to work without crackling?

The last thing I tried was an update of my computer bios.
It seemed to work for a dozen songs and then the crackling happened again.
I don't know if that is a clue or not because the crackling is intermittent although usually happens within a song or two.
I currently don't use WDM with Spotify or Pandora, and have run out of things to try.

[culliganman]

I have 2 Schiit dacs Modi and Bifrost Uber.  Using WDM I get intermittent clicks using Spotify.  I've tried every combination of buffer settings to no avail.  If I don't use JRiver they are both silent as far as noise goes when playing Spotify. 

What brand computer?
Have you tried using analog audio out?
I tried my 3.5mm audio out and still had crackling audio out.
I have Dell ultrabooks.