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[scm]

Brand new computer with fresh Win 7 Install.  Wouldn't expect to have problems already, but these are strange, and I'm trying to figure out if it is MC20.0.108 or hardware-related.

The 1st problem is simple and consistent:

When I am playing a video, and I adjust the volume, MC20 crashes.

Doesn't matter whether I'm using the keyboard's built in volume button, or taking the mouse and adjusting MC volume through the visual interface.  MC Volume is set to SYSTEM.

Sometimes windows will make the sound of a device being disconnected from the system just before MC20 crashes.

This computer is blazing fast, yet I've noticed a weird symptom which may tip you guys off to what the problem is.  There is a delay when I type on the keyboard until the letter appears on the screen.  Would this perhaps indicate some faulty memory?

ASRock Anniversay Z97
32GB G.Skill Ares 2400 (fully recognized by windows)
i7-4790K 4GHz


I have 4 24" monitors vertically + 1 50" plasma tv connected using:

onboard Intel HD 4600 (HDMI)
NVidia Quadro NVS 290 (Displayport + HDMI + DVI)
Nvidia GeForce GT 640 (DVI)

2nd problem is hard to consistently replicate, but occurs often.  It does not make MC20 crash, but rather, when I ctrl+F6 to detach display of a video, which brings it to full screen on the TV, then click on a browser window back in one of the other monitors, sometimes the TV will show only black as soon as I click.  It still obscures the desktop and I have to double click in the MC window to bring the display back, then do CTRL+F6 again.  If I double click the full screen to take it into a window, that window will be frozen.

I'm suspecting perhaps hardware because of this bizarre delay when typing.

Any suggestions?

[scm]

I got my hands on a totally different brand of memory and installed that and the problem remains.  I don't see any typing delays from the keyboard, but when I play a video and change the volume MC just disappears and crashes completely.

Does anyone suspect sound hardware or software or have any ideas?

[JimH]

My guess is that you have a hardware problem.  The typing problem isn't likely to be a software or OS issue.

Did you try pulling the video cards?

[scm]

Ok I isolated the typing problem as having nothing to do with MC or the other problem.  It was just the video card feeding into one of the monitors.

I was confused by the sound problem because I'm using an external mixer that has a USB input such that I just plug it into my computer and it installed a USB 1.1 (I believe) device on my system.  It's always worked flawlessly.  In other words, it wasn't a sound card hardware output I was using.

So this lead me to go into my sound Playback Devices.  I realized that there was another active device for the front panel jacks (microphone, line out, etc.) which was actually set as Default, so I disabled this and now the problem is gone.

I had enabled this originally so that if ever anything was plugged into these jacks, it would take priority over the USB output, but at this point I don't care.  I just want my regular normal operating setup working properly, and now it does.

[scm]

I will try pulling the videos cards next to see about the video glitchiness.

Thanks!

[JimH]

And any other cards you can. 

[scm]

Dang.  After trying to recreate the failure and it working fine for some time.  I closed the program and tried again and it again crashed.  So maybe I haven't solved it.

I pulled all my cards.

That's my main video card (DVI + HDMI + Displayport)
2nd Video card (DVI)
Card that adds 2 SATA hard drive plugs

Then I re-inserted only my main video card and plugged the 3 plugs in.

I still have an HDMI output from my motherboard plugged in this whole time.

The problem still occurs when I mess with the volume.

Sometimes it won't crash right away but the volume indicator will move in a staggered way, rather than smoothly, and Windows will make the "Disconnect" sound and I will be pushing volume up to 100 then down to 0 and I will see the volume indicator on top of the video struggle to represent it.

Sometimes, while I am holding down my keyboard's volume down, it will even go downward toward 10% but then spontaneously go back to 50% and keep continuing down again.

A crash always ensues within 5-10 seconds though.

I had a video problem before and manually updated MadVR which completely solved my video problem.  I use Red October HQ, and I have hardware accelerate and VideoClock checked.  Any possibility this could be related?

The problem still occurs when I change to Red October Standard and uncheck VideoClock and hardware accelerate.

[scm]

Apparently, it's now crashing when I adjust the volume with just music as well.  So I will try uninstalling the main audio device and just using headphones.

[scm]

Ok after unplugging the USB to my sound mixer (which is my sound device) and plugging in some headphones into the front jack, the problem does NOT occur.

So it's clearly related to the USB connection.

http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/zed-10fx/
http://www.uns.nu/pdf/Allen-Heath_mixer_ZED10FX_UserGuide.pdf

That is the mixer I plug it into.  When I plug it in, it automatically installs a "USB Audio Codec".  I just reconnected it to a different USB jack so it would reinstall from scratch, and the problem returned.

Details from manufacturer are:
USB Audio In/Out USB 1.1 compliant 16bit.
Sample Rate 32, 44.1, or 48kHz

I have used this mixer with 3 or 4 different computers for the last 5 years and never had single problem ever, so this is confusing.  Since it is USB 1.1, it is super simple and not error prone.  Up til now.  Not sure what could possibly be conflicting with it, but MC20 is the ONLY program experiencing errors at all.

I can play the exact same video in VLC and adjust the volume with no ill effects.  This is killing me because MC20 is probably the most important software I use on my system (other than a browser).

[scm]

I had originally had this USB plugged into a blue USB 3.0 input, so I moved it to a regular one.  Then when I restarted the computer it  is trying to reinstall the drivers and it says:

USB Input Device - Ready to use
USB Composite Device - Ready to use
USB Audio CODEC - Searching preconfigured driver folders...

and this has been in progress for 20 minutes with no resolution.

I'm going to try to reset my USB driver cache.  Let me know if anyone has any other ideas, or if I am on the wrong path.

[scm]

After unplugging all USB devices, erasing all faded USB "hidden" devices in device manager and reconnecting the USB, it installed successfully from Windows.  However, problem remains in MC20 and no other program.  So at this point I don't know what to try next.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[JimH]

This computer is blazing fast, yet I've noticed a weird symptom which may tip you guys off to what the problem is.  There is a delay when I type on the keyboard until the letter appears on the screen. 

Rather than looking at the volume problem, try to see if you can learn why this is happening.  Did you try an Internet search on it?

[JimH]

Dang.  After trying to recreate the failure and it working fine for some time.  I closed the program and tried again and it again crashed.  So maybe I haven't solved it.

I pulled all my cards.

That's my main video card (DVI + HDMI + Displayport)
2nd Video card (DVI)
Card that adds 2 SATA hard drive plugs

Then I re-inserted only my main video card and plugged the 3 plugs in.

Did you try it with just your motherboard video?

I had a video problem before and manually updated MadVR which completely solved my video problem.  I use Red October HQ, and I have hardware accelerate and VideoClock checked.  Any possibility this could be related?

Anything is possible, but if you've modified madVR, that could be a problem.  Use MC's Red October Standard, then switch to unmodified Red October HQ to try both.

[scm]

Yes Jim, thanks for the suggestion.

Tried it with ONLY the onboard HDMI with all cards unplugged and still problem occurred.

Tried Red October Standard.  Tried HQ modified and unmodified.  Problem still remains.

I believe it is related to the USB Audio CODEC to the Mixer.  But I've tried erasing all USB devices and even deleting the INFCACHE.1 file, etc.  Nothing works.

[JimH]

Did you try playing to another device?  USB or otherwise.

[scm]

In terms of sound, yes, I played to the line out to some headphones on the front audio jacks of my computer, and the problem went away.  it only occurs when I am going USB out to my mixer.  But this mixer is so low tech it's never had complications of any sort.  I've used it with laptops and a variety of computers for years and it's basically plug it in, it installs a playback device called USB Audio CODEC and sound starts coming out. 

I'm almost thinking it must be the sound drivers for other devices conflicting in some way.  I'm not sure though.

I'm considering uninstalling the pre-installed RealTek HD audio drivers and finding just the drivers, rather than the entire suite which comes with an audio manager, etc. which I've already disabled.

But my entire media setup is of course hinged in this mixer.  I can't just switch to a dinky little line out.  The sound quality is great because it keeps the audio digital and let's the mixer's high quality DAC do the decoding and sends it directly to studio monitors.

[JimH]

Does the device work with any other software on the current machine?  That might tell you if the driver works.

[scm]

Absolutely!  It functions perfectly with everything.  The ONLY anomaly on my new system at this moment occurs in MC20 and only when I adjust the volume when audio or video is playing.  However, since I used this device with MC20 many times I don't think the problem resides in MC20.  It only occurs with my brand new computer so I'm assuming something is funky with software. 

Unfortunately, I tried the advice here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165554-usb-driver-general-fix-problems.html

And it didn't help the problem, but now has created a new problem.

My 4 monitors are Dell 24" that each have 4 USB ports on them, and now after following those instructions none of my monitors' USB hub capabilities are being recognized.  In Device Manager, they are listed as Unknown Device under other devices, and searching for drivers using windows returns nothing.

This has also never happened.

So the more I try to fix problem #1, the deeper the hole gets.

Let me know if you have any suspicions regarding the other sound devices or drivers on my system, which is Realtek HD Audio.

[Matt]

What if you switch the volume mode to Internal by clicking the little icon to the left of the volume slider?

[scm]

What if you switch the volume mode to Internal by clicking the little icon to the left of the volume slider?

Great suggestion.

Internal produces no sound at all, but Application allows me to adjust volume without MC crashing.  So that's great.  I can use this as a workaround for now, and can at least use MC again!  Thanks!

The video glitch with MadVR still remains but I found a workaround for this too...

First of all, bear in mind I have 4 rotated LCD displays in portrait mode (which is apparently significant to MadVR support) and a 5th which is a LANDSCAPE mode 50" Plasma TV.  The TV is of course the main display for enjoying full screen movies from a couch, whereas the 4 LCD monitors are set up on a desk in a different part of the room in an office setup.

To create the problem I play a video, push CTRL + 6 which sends it to a FULL SCREEN display on my 5th monitor (the TV).  This displays and plays fine until I click on ANY window back on one of my LCD displays, like a browser or any other program.  Once I click, the display freezes, although the audio continues. 

The video having frozen (even though it's still playing, as the audio continues), I tried double clicking on the video to bring it down to Windowed mode rather than Full Screen, and it plays fine, resuming video synced with the audio.  For me, this window is also located on the plasma TV.  If I then double click again to resume full screen, the entire screen becomes black.  This didn't work as a workaround.

The only workaround solution is as follows, just in case anyone else has this problem:

After CTRL + 6 sends it to full screen on the TV monitor, I immediately double click to reduce it to windowed mode, then double click again to blow it back up to full screen.  Then I can resume my computer work and click on other windows on my 4 LCD monitors.

In other words, I have to do this initially before I click on other windows.  If I send it to full screen and then click on some other window and freeze it, I can't recover from it unless I sort of "reset" by double clicking back in the MC Playing Now window where it says "The display is detached. Double-click to bring it back."  At that point I can CTRL + 6, double click, double click.

Hopefully this is a clear enough explanation for those using rotated portrait mode monitors with landscape TV displays as their main exported full screen display with MadVR HQ.