Topic: Audio Dropouts / Mac Performance (Read 93098 times)

glynor · « **Reply #100 on:** June 16, 2015, 04:39:58 pm »

Andy, I merged your new thread into this existing one about similar issues.

Your post made me wonder... Brian, are you also using Integer mode? I do not on my Mini at home (because it always worked fine without it and why poke the dragon, you know)...

AndyU · « **Reply #101 on:** June 16, 2015, 05:15:05 pm »

Quote from: glynor on June 16, 2015, 04:39:58 pm

Andy, I merged your new thread into this existing one about similar issues.

Your post made me wonder... Brian, are you also using Integer mode? I do not on my Mini at home (because it always worked fine without it and why poke the dragon, you know)...

(.. now that I've found what happened to my post)

fair enough glynor, but I have to say it's bad enough having drop-outs with a very simple setup but having now to wade through a mammoth thread like this and disentangle questions and answers to me from questions and answers to other people has made things harder for me ..

Buy mac mini. Download MC. Put two albums in library. Play music while doing very little else. Dropouts and clicks. This just should not happen under any circumstances.

AndyU · « **Reply #102 on:** June 16, 2015, 05:27:57 pm »

.. turned off integer mode (which I had set to use with a DAC) .. still got dropouts, though fewer, at 250ms buffering.

blgentry · « **Reply #103 on:** June 16, 2015, 05:32:19 pm »

I tried integer mode a while back and I can't remember exactly what happened, but it didn't work for me. I just tried it again for a test and got silence. I only tested for about 20 seconds, but that was enough for me.

For another data point I *have* now enabled exclusive access. I find exclusive to be sort of inconvenient, but if it helps my situation I'm happy with that. I'll report what I find and/or post JRiver logs.

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #104 on:** June 16, 2015, 05:34:59 pm »

Andy,

My audio problems are that the audio disappears for less than one second. Just a momentary silence. I don't get any clicks or loud noises. I mean, it's *sorta* like a click when audio stops and then starts less than a second later... but it's not anything that's loud, obnoxious, or painful. It's really obvious though; as I'm sure you've now experienced.

Brian.

glynor · « **Reply #105 on:** June 16, 2015, 06:24:52 pm »

Some DACs are troublesome with clicks in certain circumstances:
* When first starting up (or ending) a new audio stream
* When switching formats (between 44.1kHZ and 48kHz, for example)

The setting under Tools > Options > Audio > Settings > Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization is designed to combat these issues. It almost always fixes issues with the former, though the latter is as-often-as-not due to physical relays in the DAC being switched, and is something only the DAC manufacturer can help with (if anyone).

The latter issue is relatively rare, and really only applies to a handful of high-end DACs. The former happens even on my craptastic RealTek onboard audio DAC on one of my systems, but the play silence setting makes short work of it.

Neither of these issues (with clicking) have anything to do with missing audio, though, which I've still never seen. I know the JRiver folks have looked at this a bunch too, and they aren't seeing it there either.

As I said earlier in this thread, though... There's some smoke here, so there's probably some fire. We just have to figure out why it happens to you, but not the rest of us.

glynor · « **Reply #106 on:** June 16, 2015, 06:26:43 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 16, 2015, 05:32:19 pm

I tried integer mode a while back and I can't remember exactly what happened, but it didn't work for me. I just tried it again for a test and got silence.

It doesn't work with all hardware. If you're getting silence, you're not supported. It doesn't help anything substantial, so not worth worrying about.

glynor · « **Reply #107 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:03:28 pm »

I spent a bunch of time researching audio dropouts generally on OSX.

Wow. There's a litany of complaints about it, in all sorts of applications, ranging as far back as 10.3.1! It does look like there are a few things worth checking, though...

1. SMC Reset: Anyone who has this issue, it is worth trying the "catch all" miracle OSX cure: SMC Reset. I found lots of examples of people having similar issues in all manner of applications (VLC, iTunes, web streaming, pro-audio apps, etc) where resetting SMC fixed it like magic.

That makes some kind of sense. SMC controls stuff like power management, idle performance, and stuff like that. It also persists even through clean installs, so if your SMC is borked, it won't be fixed by reinstalling the OS. It only takes a minute, and has very few side-effects.

2. NVRAM Reset: This is a tiny bit more "destructive" (but really not much). Macs store some other system settings in non-volatile PRAM. This actually has specifics about audio hardware (and video performance settings), and I read a number of reports of it helping people with similar issues over the years (and plenty where it didn't). Instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

This does reset some things (mostly the system volume settings, and customized Startup Disk settings) so read through the Apple guide, but as long as you don't have a weird dual-boot setup, or very difficult to tweak monitor resolution settings, it should be basically harmless, and could help.

3. Thunderbolt Display: I've seen this myself at work, and I don't know why I didn't think to mention it before. If anyone has a Thunderbolt Display attached to their system... If you can, try it without the Thunderbolt display attached (hopefully it is a laptop) and see if the issue goes away. There have been all sorts of weird issues with Thunderbolt displays, but especially audio issues.

If you're using USB passthrough to connect a DAC to a USB port on the Thunderbolt display, it might help to use a USB port right on the Mac, but this isn't the only issue. There have been firmware updates to the Thunderbolt displays that fix many of these issue, but not all of them (and I think there are just bad ones out there).

We've RMA'd those Thunderbolt displays at work like it is our job. Actually, it is, but... In any case, if you can at all test it without the Thunderbolt Display attached, try it.

4. Outstanding Firmware Updates? There have been firmware updates for a number of Macs, including 2011 Macbook Pros (which I believe is the model Brian is using in this thread), specifically related to audio drop outs and other quality issues.

Make sure you've applied any outstanding Firmware updates. You can check yours here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518

It is possible (I've seen it myself) that the updates could no longer show in Software Update under certain conditions. But, if they weren't ever successfully applied, you can manually download them using that article.

5. Pull up the Console monitor: And watch the log messages as they go by. Do you see anything while it happens? In particular, any kernel messages about IOAudioStream?

That could lead to clues, and it seemed that a bunch of people with issues in older OS revisions were seeing this behavior with VLC and iTunes.

6. Repair Disk Permissions: This is a bit of a long-shot, but is worth throwing out there. I mentioned before fsck, but I didn't specifically mention repairing disk permissions. This is usually voodoo, but it basically never hurts, and will almost always find some kind of issue to fix (in my experience). I did, while searching tonight, find a few people who reported similar issues were fixed (again, in other applications) by running permissions repair.

Don't know why that'd be the case, but you never know.

7. AVID Plugin of Evil: This is a super-longshot, but there is an AVID plugin that gets installed with certain codecs and applications that is known to cause audio stuttering and drop-outs under Yosemite. If you have this on your system:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/Avid CoreAudio.plugin

Copy it elsewhere, reboot, and see if the issue is solved.

Probably only applies to people using pro-audio applications (ProTools and Media Composer), but worth mentioning.

blgentry · « **Reply #108 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:22:06 pm »

Glynor, thanks for doing so much research. I did quite a bit myself and found some other stuff, but some of this was new to me. I'll answer point by point.

1. My motherboard (logic board) was just replaced. I'm assuming this resets everything.
2. See #1
3. I don't use a Thunderbolt display, but I do have a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter I use. My DAC was on that adapter, but it's directly on the MBP now and has been for several days.
4. Checked the firmware in the link and mine is equal or higher for bootROM and SMC.
5. I did a search for that string in Console and found a few entries that I don't think are related. They all look kinda like this:
6/15/15 6:03:35.000 PM kernel[0]: Sandbox: QuickTime Player(3199) deny iokit-set-properties IOAudioControlValue

6. I repaired disk permissions a while back as part of the T/S process and it didn't make a difference. I did this both with the system live booted and later from a boot installer disk so I could catch the system disk "cold". I could do it again if you say so. The question would be Live booted or cold.
7. I do not have this file.

Thank you again!

Brian.

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #109 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:23:54 pm »

A few minutes ago I paused MC, walked away for 5 minutes, and came back. When I pressed my hot key for play I got a spinning beach ball. Activity Monitor said MC was "not responding". I waited about a minute, tried to quit it, then had to force quit it. I'm attaching the log hoping it has a clue.

Brian.

glynor · « **Reply #110 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:31:13 pm »

It's actually ESPECIALLY worth doing the SMC and NVRAM resets on that, Brian. They should have done so when installing the new motherboard, but... Accidents do happen.

SMC probably would have reset anyway (if power was off long enough), but it doesn't hurt to do it.

NVRAM is non-volatile (hence the name) and will never clear unless done manually. If they didn't remember this step when replacing the logic board? It's in the repair guide, but you know...

Both are likely to not help in your case, but your's is the one I'm most surprised by... I have basically the exact same machine. I played music on it tonight, for 5-6 hours, with nary the tiniest glitch.

glynor · « **Reply #111 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:50:58 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 16, 2015, 09:23:54 pm

I'm attaching the log hoping it has a clue.

Nothing in that that stands out. It paused. Logging continued for a while. Then just stopped (when it was force-quit).

Mind if I ask why they replaced the logic board?

The logic board is Apple's euphemism for the motherboard. On a laptop, it often (but not always) includes the CPU, but wouldn't include the RAM, power supply, and other components. Some of the 2011 MBPs were... Notorious for needing new logic boards over and over and over. I think it was mostly due to two problems:

* When you get a "new" logic board, it usually isn't actually new, but one that was factory re-certified.
* The problem lied elsewhere in the first place, and when they don't know what else to do, they replace the logic board.

On yours in particular, since I know some of those machines were... Touchy. You might want to grab this:
https://gfx.io/

It's a simple app. Drop it in your Applications folder and run it. It adds a little icon to your tray (up by the clock) that indicates whether the GPU is in integrated mode, discreet mode, or dynamic mode. Mine works fine in Dynamic mode, but... Since you had the logic board thing, it is worth testing out. Do problems go away if you lock it to one mode or the other (discreet or integrated)?

glynor · « **Reply #112 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:53:21 pm »

I should add... None of this is to suggest, at all, that there is or isn't a problem with MC. I don't know, and can't really help with that. But, I'm trying to eliminate all other possibilities that I can help with.

Searching for "OSX audio stutter" on Google (and a few other similar keyword searches) and browsing through a few pages of results makes you realize how... This kind of thing can happen for a huge variety of hardware reasons. Of course, Apple Discussion threads and their ilk are often full of half-understood voodoo and red herrings. But, still... There's a LOT of stuff out there.

blgentry · « **Reply #113 on:** June 16, 2015, 09:59:46 pm »

Quote from: glynor on June 16, 2015, 09:31:13 pm

It's actually ESPECIALLY worth doing the SMC and NVRAM resets on that, Brian. They should have done so when installing the new motherboard, but... Accidents do happen.

I'm relatively certain SMC and NVRAM got reset as I had to change back a bunch of minor stuff. But I went ahead and reset both anyway since you suggested it. While I was at it, I booted from an installer disk and ran Disk Utility on my system drive to repair permissions. It found a good handful of stuff, but it seemed like the usual suspects to me (the same stuff I see every time).

I booted up, ran MC, started playing, then ran firefox. Three seconds into starting firefox I got a dropout. <sigh> None since, but that's only been one song so far...

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #114 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:05:16 pm »

Quote from: glynor on June 16, 2015, 09:50:58 pm

Mind if I ask why they replaced the logic board?

Sure. About a week ago I got a weird graphics interruption and then my machine rebooted. Subsequently I got a grey screen on every boot. But I could see the spinner and Apple logo during the first part of boot. I booted from external boot media and got to a cool vertical blue bars screen instead!

I thought this was the graphics issue that Apple is covering for these (and similar) machines for free, even though they are out of warranty. But Apple said it wasn't that and replaced the logic board instead. All is well now as far as I can tell. Plus my fans don't run like crazy any more.

Quote

On yours in particular, since I know some of those machines were... Touchy. You might want to grab this:
https://gfx.io/

It's a simple app. Drop it in your Applications folder and run it. It adds a little icon to your tray (up by the clock) that indicates whether the GPU is in integrated mode, discreet mode, or dynamic mode. Mine works fine in Dynamic mode, but... Since you had the logic board thing, it is worth testing out. Do problems go away if you lock it to one mode or the other (discreet or integrated)?

I'm not sure what the purpose of that app is. I guess so I could switch to just integrated if I wanted? Since I can turn switching off in the Energy saver. But I've got the app running now just to see it. I'm currently set to Dynamic Switching. I had disabled dynamic about 2 weeks ago during my testing, but before the motherboard replacement. It didn't seem to change anything unfortunately. Disabling switching was one of many tips I read for audio dropouts. I guess I could turn that off again.

Want to trade machines?

Brian.

glynor · « **Reply #115 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:23:44 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 16, 2015, 10:05:16 pm

I'm not sure what the purpose of that app is. I guess so I could switch to just integrated if I wanted?

Back in the day you couldn't turn off the dynamic switching in System Prefs. But, even now, that app lets you force it to use the Integrated or Discreet one, which is handy.

It will also tell you, if you see it is set to Discreet and you don't know why, which app is preventing it from switching to Integrated. For example, if Lync is running, it is always locked to discreet (because Lync is so awesome).

Which sometimes offers clues (oh yeah, and if you have Lync and wonder why your battery life sucks...)

glynor · « **Reply #116 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:25:59 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 16, 2015, 09:59:46 pm

I booted up, ran MC, started playing, then ran firefox. Three seconds into starting firefox I got a dropout. <sigh> None since, but that's only been one song so far...

I'll second the sigh.

Figured it was fruitless, but you never know...

Quote from: blgentry on June 16, 2015, 10:05:16 pm

Want to trade machines?

HAH. Ummm... No.

blgentry · « **Reply #117 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:31:09 pm »

No trade??? Awwww. Oh well. Heh.

On a serious note, I just got another full on freeze; not a dropout. I had cleared the log about 10 seconds before the freeze. MC kept playing, then while I was in Firefox reading, the music stopped. I tried to switch to MC and got a beach ball and no MC display. Maybe 7 or 8 seconds later it unfroze, I got the MC screen and audio continued. Attached is the log from the freeze.

Brian.

glynor · « **Reply #118 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:35:31 pm »

That could be a good one to check, since you got it to unstick!

I'll try to look at it tomorrow. I'm done now and going to bed.

glynor · « **Reply #119 on:** June 16, 2015, 10:38:13 pm »

To Andy, if you come back to this thread after all this noise. Check out this post:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=97571.msg679143#msg679143

There are a few suggestions. They might help you, even though they didn't for Brian. Same goes for everyone else if you're having this trouble still.

And to Brian, try to keep the Console viewer running. I'm very curious to see what kind of logs there might be in the system when the freezes happen. Unfortunately, it is nigh-impossible to wade through them all after the fact. But, if you can see something happen in the logs that correlates to a freeze or drop out, it could end up being a smoking gun.

adamt · « **Reply #120 on:** June 17, 2015, 07:35:55 am »

Through rigorous scientific testing (opening a bunch of tabs in Firefox and shaking the window around the screen) we have been able to consistently reproduce the dropouts on a low-end Mac Mini. We're hoping it's the same dropouts described here. So far, it seems to be a thread priority issue, as using a tool to increase MC's priority reduced the dropouts significantly. In build 112, this was introduced:

Quote

4. Changed: Increased audio feeder thread to real-time priority to hopefully address audio skipping issues some users are experiencing. Please report results.

We'll see if there is anymore work to do there. Thanks for all the info!

glynor · « **Reply #121 on:** June 17, 2015, 08:50:18 am »

Adam, I can't speak for the others in this thread, but I know Brian has been testing builds since 112 and is still having frequent issues.

So, unless you had a typo there and made more adjustments on an as-yet unreleased build, I think there's more work to be done...

AndyU · « **Reply #122 on:** June 17, 2015, 09:03:51 am »

OK, well heres what Ive found ...

I did the turn off, unplug, count to 15 stuff. Possibly (and I'm being generous) it improved things a bit, but not much. Can I make some points that, unlike others on this thread,

I am not using a DAC, just the headphone socket. (Though I would like to use a DAC).

My mac mini is the base model, bought a few months ago, no mods, additions or trickery.

Easiest way to make it happen is play something in MC, then fire off apps. As they come to life there will be clicks, dropouts, pauses, scratches. Starting Google earth and Photos seems particularly good at provoking them. But they will happen anyway - did just now when I was scrolling down this page.

It is MC. I used MC to convert my 2 cds big library to ALAC (during which I got two drop-outs), put that into iTunes, played, fired off every app I own and there were no audible issues at all.

Integer mode or not makes not much different. Buffering does. 250ms is best, but still unusable. (Though to be fair, my threshold of unusable would be one click).

Over to you guys. If you have the ability to log into my machine remotely, or have some tests I can do that will help, or whatever you are welcome.

Edited to add: I just edited a typo in this and got another click!

PS: and another when I closed an Excel window (with nothing in it)

adamt · « **Reply #123 on:** June 17, 2015, 09:48:18 am »

Quote from: glynor on June 17, 2015, 08:50:18 am

Adam, I can't speak for the others in this thread, but I know Brian has been testing builds since 112 and is still having frequent issues.

So, unless you had a typo there and made more adjustments on an as-yet unreleased build, I think there's more work to be done...

Correct. Since people using that build are still experiencing problems, and it seems to be a thread priority issue, we're thinking we'll have to make changes to how that was implemented. The feedback is helping us narrow in on the problem. It would be interesting if someone wanted to try increasing the priority of MC (use a number like -10) and report any changes.

blgentry · « **Reply #124 on:** June 17, 2015, 10:54:31 am »

^ I tried re-nicing MC quite some time ago before I tried everything else in this thread. But that's been a long time ago, so I just tried it again. I've now got it set to -10, confirmed by the PS listing.

It's too soon to be sure, but so far it seems good. I've even done some mildly abusive stuff with MC running and gotten no dropouts. Like writing a 10GB file to the tmp folder. In the past those types of things induced dropouts. Here's hoping.

BTW, what did you mean about "shaking windows on the screen"? Literally grabbing the title bar and moving the window left, right, up, down fast? If so that's pretty crazy. ...and it doesn't do anything on my system. <shrug>

Brian.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #125 on:** June 17, 2015, 01:40:03 pm »

If it's working at -10, perhaps you should try increasing (or in this case decreasing) the number until if/when you find one where the dropouts begin to occur at - it might help find a threshold.

adamt · « **Reply #126 on:** June 17, 2015, 02:58:15 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 17, 2015, 10:54:31 am

BTW, what did you mean about "shaking windows on the screen"? Literally grabbing the title bar and moving the window left, right, up, down fast? If so that's pretty crazy. ...and it doesn't do anything on my system.

The only machine we can reliably reproduce it on is very low powered one, so it doesn't take much. On the i7, it happens so infrequently that it's hard to test. Hopefully by eliminating it on this one, it won't be a problem on other machines.

Thanks for testing!

blgentry · « **Reply #127 on:** June 17, 2015, 10:32:54 pm »

I hate to say anything after this amount of testing but...

I think I have 3 to 4 hours of play time on this configuration now. I got one teeny dropout (that I'm not even certain about) very early on in testing this. For the last 30 or 40 minutes I've been doing increasingly unreasonable things with my browser. Loading a good number of pages with multiple flash instances on them. Opening 15 tabs in some windows. Then youtube. Then CNN.

At some point I started opening other apps to see how hard I could push it. At the point that I had a ton of browser windows, two video apps (not playing), Apple maps, and then opened ibooks, I finally got *one* dropout I'm sure of. But this was a COMPLETELY unreasonable load for the machine. The browser was slowed down. Even switching from application to application was slower than usual. I hammered the machine.

I really don't want to say it again but... I think this is solved.

Now I need to do a little more testing with a normal load and *then* figure out if it's just the re-nice of -10 that did it, or if the 4 other audio parameters I set have had any impact. For the record: Play from memory, exclusive access, decreased prebuffering, and increased hardware buffering.

Thanks Adam! I had abandoned the re-niceing because it didn't seem to work the first time. So glad you suggested it!!

Brian.

AndyU · « **Reply #128 on:** June 18, 2015, 02:06:56 am »

I haven't got a clue what reniceing is or means or how to do it. Or what the other suggested settings are. If someone can tell me how to try this simply, I'll happily see whether it fixes this issue on my mac.

tortuga_Bob · « **Reply #129 on:** June 18, 2015, 06:53:12 am »

Quote from: AndyU on June 18, 2015, 02:06:56 am

I haven't got a clue what reniceing is or means or how to do it. Or what the other suggested settings are. If someone can tell me how to try this simply, I'll happily see whether it fixes this issue on my mac.

+1. No apparent issues for me yet, but I would like to understand what all of this means. I am new to MC & trying to learn as much as possible about how things work.

JimH · « **Reply #130 on:** June 18, 2015, 07:12:10 am »

Quote from: tortuga_Bob on June 18, 2015, 06:53:12 am

+1. No apparent issues for me yet, but I would like to understand what all of this means. I am new to MC & trying to learn as much as possible about how things work.

I believe this is an Apple question, rather than a JRiver question. You might try an Internet search.

blgentry · « **Reply #131 on:** June 18, 2015, 08:47:39 am »

Briefly about OSX "nice level". In Unix and OSX you can tell a process "be nice to other processes". This means for that process (program or app) to take less resources (CPU) so the others can run effectively. You can also tell a process to be "not nice", which means to take MORE resources. Setting the nice level is called "re-nicing".

I've built a little one liner script that you can run to set the nice level of Media Center to negative 10 (-10), which makes Media Center the highest priority, or the "least nice". You'll need to cut and paste this command *exactly* into Terminal and then press enter. It will ask for your admin password because setting priority in this way is a privileged task that requires administrator access. If you don't trust my command, please don't run it. Here's the command:

Code: [Select]

sudo renice -10 `ps -laxw |grep -i "Media Center" |grep -v grep |awk '{print $2}'`
Brian.

JimH · « **Reply #132 on:** June 18, 2015, 09:17:21 am »

You shouldn't need to be that extreme (-10). The OS should normally be able to handle priorities well. MC doesn't need to be "real time".

mwillems · « **Reply #133 on:** June 18, 2015, 09:24:11 am »

Always nice to see Unix commands in threads

Blgentry, I don't have a mac to test (so this might not be good advice), but with many ps implementations (including GNU ps), if you pipe "ps -e" (instead of "-laxw"), the grep itself doesn't show up in the results, so you could omit your second grep (although you might need to adjust your awk).
Alternatively, you can typically grep "[M]edia Center" instead of "Media Center", and it will still find the real process, but trick grep into not finding itself.

AndyU · « **Reply #134 on:** June 18, 2015, 12:23:15 pm »

Quote from: JimH on June 18, 2015, 07:12:10 am

I believe this is an Apple question, rather than a JRiver question. You might try an Internet search.

Sorry, I am confused. Are you saying that to fix this issue I have to fiddle around with my Mac in some way because it is Apples fault? Or will there be a new release of MC that is not susceptible to the problem?

AndyU · « **Reply #135 on:** June 18, 2015, 12:33:08 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on June 18, 2015, 08:47:39 am

Briefly about OSX "nice level". In Unix and OSX you can tell a process "be nice to other processes". This means for that process (program or app) to take less resources (CPU) so the others can run effectively. You can also tell a process to be "not nice", which means to take MORE resources. Setting the nice level is called "re-nicing".

I've built a little one liner script that you can run to set the nice level of Media Center to negative 10 (-10), which makes Media Center the highest priority, or the "least nice". You'll need to cut and paste this command *exactly* into Terminal and then press enter. It will ask for your admin password because setting priority in this way is a privileged task that requires administrator access. If you don't trust my command, please don't run it. Here's the command:

Code: [Select]
sudo renice -10 `ps -laxw |grep -i "Media Center" |grep -v grep |awk '{print $2}'`
Brian.

I'm sorry, I can't understand any of this. What's Terminal for a start? Why do you choose 10 when immediately following your post someone from JRiver disagrees with you? Why should MC need to be set to the highest priority? Are you saying that I am wrong to expect a base level Mac Mini to work with MC? Why doesn't iTunes need gobbledegook like this to play a bit of music out of the headphone socket?

JimH · « **Reply #136 on:** June 18, 2015, 12:46:54 pm »

We don't completely understand what is going on, but there is a very good chance that is the OS that is causing the problem. Try an Internet search for Terminal and OSX.

AndyU · « **Reply #137 on:** June 18, 2015, 01:11:34 pm »

Quote from: JimH on June 18, 2015, 12:46:54 pm

We don't completely understand what is going on, but there is a very good chance that is the OS that is causing the problem. Try an Internet search for Terminal and OSX.

OK, I have just googled "Terminal OS X"

This is what came up:

Quote

As a terminal emulator, the application provides text-based access to the operating system, in contrast to the mostly graphical nature of the user experience of OS X, by providing a command line interface to the operating system when used in conjunction with a Unix shell, such as bash.
Terminal (OS X) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_(OS_X)
Feedback
Terminal (OS X) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_(OS_X)
As a terminal emulator, the application provides text-based access to the operating system, in contrast to the mostly graphical nature of the user experience of OS X, by providing a command line interface to the operating system when used in conjunction with a Unix shell, such as bash.
Introduction to the Mac OS X Command Line - Treehouse Blog
blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-to-the-mac-os-x-command-line
Sep 27, 2012 - This is a command line tutorial primarily conducted in in the OS X command line. Learning to code means being comfortable in Terminal for OS ...
iTerm2 - Mac OS Terminal Replacement
https://www.iterm2.com/
iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm.
‎Downloads - ‎Features - ‎Documentation - ‎ITerm2 2.0 released
Eight Terminal Utilities Every OS X Command Line User ...
lifehacker.com/eight-terminal-utilities-every-os-x-command-line-user-s-...
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Terminal (OS X) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_(OS_X)
As a terminal emulator, the application provides text-based access to the operating system, in contrast to the mostly graphical nature of the user experience of OS X, by providing a command line interface to the operating system when used in conjunction with a Unix shell, such as bash.
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Eight Terminal Utilities Every OS X Command Line User ...
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Jun 23, 2014 - The OS X Terminal opens up a world of powerful UNIX utilities and scripts. If you're migrating from Linux, you'll find many familiar commands work the way you expect.

I am sorry, but I just can't understand stuff like that. I am sorry I am not as clever as you in your field of expertise.

If you can help me directly, ideally by fixing MC, I would appreciate it.

JimH · « **Reply #138 on:** June 18, 2015, 02:47:09 pm »

It is probably not an MC fix. Start terminal and poke around a little. It gives you a shell, like DOS.

At a $ prompt, type ls

cd .. goes up

cd [directory name] goes down into that directory.

pwd means print working directory.

Unix uses forward slashes rather than back slashes. cd / goes to the root directory.

The command you were given above can be entered at a $ prompt.

I agree it's silly that you might have to do this, but I don't think this is a problem with MC.

Foxman50 · « **Reply #139 on:** June 18, 2015, 02:56:27 pm »

Hi Andy

Im a total noob in Mac but i will try to help in easy terms. But please others correct me if im wrong

If you open finder which is an icon on that bottom bar on the home screen. If you then open applications which is in the left column, then on the right there is a folder called utilities. In here you will find an application called Terminal. If you double click it it will open a windows pretty much like a CMD DOS box in windows if you are familiar with that.

I think if you type cd / into the terminal window this takes you too the top of the root directory. You can then type in or copy and past the script posted by blgentry.

Have a look and see how you get on. It really not that difficult just a bit daunting

tortuga_Bob · « **Reply #140 on:** June 18, 2015, 03:55:33 pm »

Quote from: tortuga_Bob on June 18, 2015, 06:53:12 am

No apparent issues for me yet...

I guess I spoke too soon as I just encountered my first playback issue with MC20. I have been using MC20 for about two weeks, still in trial period. Playback just stopped for several seconds before starting again. Not sure if the indicator was still moving or not as by the time I got to the computer, the music started again. I am using a Mac mini (late 2012), 16 GB RAM, OS X 10.9.5, no other applications were running except Activity Monitor, computer is dedicated to music playback and files are on an external HD connected via Firewire 800. Using USB output to an Ayre QB-9DSD, integer mode and exclusive control set.

AndyU · « **Reply #141 on:** June 18, 2015, 04:33:30 pm »

Foxman50 - thanks for your help .. I'm just way out of my comfort zone and understanding, so thanks but I don't want to go any further with stuff like this. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to help and give the guys a JRiver some clues about the problem, it's over to them really. If they can get it sorted within my trial period I'll happily give a new release a go. If it's Apple's problem though there's nothing much I can do.

glynor · « **Reply #142 on:** June 18, 2015, 07:50:30 pm »

Quote from: JimH on June 18, 2015, 02:47:09 pm

I agree it's silly that you might have to do this, but I don't think this is a problem with MC.

I'm sorry, Jim, but I have to disagree. I understand that it might be challenging to find the right balance, and it could be due to bugginess in CoreAudio. But, the central point is:

You sell a Mac application that plays audio. On some currently shipping Macs, it (apparently) cannot reliably play audio.

The users who have this issue, have other OSX applications that play audio, and none of them seem to have this issue. I, myself, don't happen to suffer from the issue, but I have a TON of high-end Mac applications that play audio and don't have this issue. Even many, many, many simultaneous streams, while doing way harder processing at the same time.

It is something about how MC is interacting with the OS. So, it may very well be that you're hitting a bug in CoreAudio, but your choices are to find another way, or to stop supporting affected Macs (which seems to include currently shipping configurations). We're not just talking about ultra-low-end machines, I don't think. Asking users to implement manual process priority changes is entirely unreasonable (especially since they won't persist), and obviously the "real answer" is to not use MC if you're impacted.

That all said, I think Adam has some ideas about how to proceed. He wanted users to test changing the nice value. It was not intended to be a solution.

Brian, I think it might be useful for Adam to see how low with the nice value you can go before you start to get stutters regularly. Don't load the system up crazy style (I can make iTunes stutter too if I try to encode video and peg the CPU simultaneously), but do a useful real-world test. See if -7 works. If so, -6. And so on and so forth.

Then they might be able to set it closer to a useful default.

glynor · « **Reply #143 on:** June 18, 2015, 07:56:30 pm »

Quote from: AndyU on June 18, 2015, 04:33:30 pm

Foxman50 - thanks for your help .. I'm just way out of my comfort zone and understanding, so thanks but I don't want to go any further with stuff like this.

I think that's reasonable. If you aren't comfortable on the command line, you aren't really equipped to help here. There are some GUI applications that you can use to set process priority, but none of the decent ones are super simple applications.

If anyone is really dedicated to help, atMonitor is a nice process manager for OSX that can do this on running applications:
http://www.atpurpose.com/atMonitor/

Crap. I still have an old version. It is discontinued. You could try this, which is also discontinued, but still available for download:
http://www.eosgarden.com/en/freeware/process-renicer/overview/

Also, I'd like to add that I suspect that using renice to "fix" the issue is a bit of a "hammer" approach. The core issue is that there is some interaction between the way MC uses CoreAudio that is causing performance issues in some cases. Perhaps the buffering scheme or something isn't exactly completely Mac friendly?

Not sure, obviously, but I suspect that setting the process priority isn't "fixing" the issue, but hiding it. But, why also is it not impacting everyone? Under what circumstances does it crop up (other than very low-powered machines)?

I think if we could answer that, it would be a big clue. A current-gen Mac Mini, even the low end model, is still a fairy powerful machine. So if it impacts that, why doesn't it impact my 4-year-old Macbook Pro?

blgentry · « **Reply #144 on:** June 18, 2015, 09:20:27 pm »

Quote from: glynor on June 18, 2015, 07:50:30 pm

Brian, I think it might be useful for Adam to see how low with the nice value you can go before you start to get stutters regularly. Don't load the system up crazy style (I can make iTunes stutter too if I try to encode video and peg the CPU simultaneously), but do a useful real-world test. See if -7 works. If so, -6. And so on and so forth.

Today I was trying to isolate the other settings (audio device buffering, etc) from the renice setting. I think I have enough time testing to be sure that the renice setting is the only thing affecting performance for me.

With that in mind, I'm going to do a binary search algorithm to find the threshold of the renice setting. I've just gone from -10 to -5. I'll try to do several hours of play time at this setting, then move to another setting depending on results. I'll report back as I get more data. ...and yes, I'll try to be normal, rather than trying to break it on purpose.

Brian.

johnjen · « **Reply #145 on:** June 18, 2015, 10:36:45 pm »

Just to add my own 2¢…

I call these types of events 'hiccups'.
Just small seemingly innocuous perturbations in the flow of the music.

The momentary 'pause' in the playback stream started a ways back for me and I noticed and posted to that effect at the time. And no I don't remember when this was, but I noted it in the bug reporting thread at the time.

Another 'hiccup' is the change in SQ after the amount of ram continues to climb and it seems like when it becomes 1.5 times (or greater) than the initial ram load.
This Ram 'creep' is not a matter of running out out of ram, nor of resource limitation (I too use Menu Master).

After a re-start or cold boot (I use a power controller so I remove power to the Mac), in effect I've been doing a SMC reset and have in the past 'Zapped my PRAM' on more than one occasion.

Anyway, I was thinking it was something in the USB chain I use but that others are also noticing these behaviors tends to tell me it's not an external hardware induced problem.

JJ

JimH · « **Reply #146 on:** June 19, 2015, 12:53:28 am »

glynor,
I moved your post for Adam.

Jim

AndyU · « **Reply #147 on:** June 19, 2015, 05:06:26 am »

Just downloaded Audirvana + and installed it with the same 2 CD library I have for MC. Worked absolutely perfectly out of the box. Fired off every app I have and tried to use them all. No drop-outs, clicks, funny noises whatsover. All settings left at defaults.

blgentry · « **Reply #148 on:** June 19, 2015, 07:22:36 pm »

It's difficult to be very sure about the data because it requires so much listening for each test. But here's where I am:

Nice -10, I've gotten no dropouts under normal conditions, even pushing pretty hard.
Nice -5, normal and a little pushing, no dropouts. About 2.5 hours listening time.
Nice -2, one dropout after just over 2 hours of listening.

I'm currently testing nice level -3 to see what I get. The question is, did I test long enough at each stage? Not sure. But I'm continuing on; trying to help. If this testing isn't helping, please let me know. I'm willing to do it for sure, but it's not exactly fun.

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #149 on:** June 19, 2015, 11:16:57 pm »

I've tested at nice level -3 for roughly 2.5 to 2.6 hours with no dropouts and part of that time I pushed the system a bit. On this system I'd say a nice level of -3 to -5 is probably going to be rock solid until you start really resource starving the machine.

If Adam, Glynor, or anyone else wants further testing let me know. Otherwise I'm done testing nice levels.

Thanks,

Brian.

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Author Topic: Audio Dropouts / Mac Performance (Read 93098 times)