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[MikeBRG]

Any help gratefully received. Earlier today I had to force quit MC 20.0.126 following an update with some flac files on a NAS. Nothing unusual here as a restart of MC usually clears any problem. Have been running for months on an MC 20 master license without problems.

A warning came up that I could only read files from now on, not change them. On restarting MC I then only get the 'trial period expired' notice. I cannot now move back to a permanently licensed operation. I have tried everything on the restore pages and read all the posts with similar problems. My program will only run once until I close it and then it reverts to trial period expired. The installed license will not 'stick' even though the Registration Information reports that the master license is installed.

I have removed an MC 19 version in Applications that until now gave no problems, as a precaution. I have trashed the whole MC 20 app and downloaded MC 20.0.126 dmg fresh, twice and reinstalled. I have restored the master licenses (both the MC 20 and MC 21 versions) and they are both individually accepted and the program then runs properly until I close it. Have burnt up several restores so far but that is not the problem as I anticipate you will refresh them when this problem is solved.

Something has been corrupted, I guess. Are there any other files I should delete or refresh related to MC or have I done something to the Mac OS? I have run disc repair and repaired permissions. Would a log report help on this?

Any suggestions - other than leaving it running all the time…..?

Running OSX 10.8.5 on a memory rich iMac.

Mike B

[JimH]

There is a "run with Package Installer" work-around that blgentry posted somewhere.

I assume you tried restarting the Mac.

[blgentry]

Any help gratefully received. Earlier today I had to force quit MC 20.0.126 following an update with some flac files on a NAS. Nothing unusual here as a restart of MC usually clears any problem. Have been running for months on an MC 20 master license without problems.

A warning came up that I could only read files from now on, not change them.

That's odd.  I haven't see that particular message before.  Was it from OSX, or from JRiver MC?  Reading the rest of your message, it appears like you're running in a virtual machine or something.  Which isn't normal.  But, what about File Vault?  Is your user account set up to run from File Vault?

Can you create new files in your home directory and have them "stick"? 

Something has been corrupted, I guess. Are there any other files I should delete or refresh related to MC or have I done something to the Mac OS? I have run disc repair and repaired permissions. Would a log report help on this?

You might try moving JRiver's ~/Library/Application Support/JRiver/Media Center 20 directory to a new directory name and letting it create a new one when you run MC again.  I would also make an MC Library backup first, so you can restore it after.  File > Library > Backup Up Library...

Finally, the workaround that Jim is referring to is when the license file won't install.  On my system (10.9.5) I've had to do this each time I license a copy of MC.  You just right click on the .MJR license file and do "open with" Package Installer.  Maybe try that first?  By the way, the license file that you got recently (I'm assuming recently) is good for 14 days.  You can use it several times during that time.  So if you just got it a few days ago (when your trouble started), you don't need to burn another restore.  Just use the same license file (MJR) again.

Good luck and let us know how you do.

Brian.

[MikeBRG]

Many thanks to Jim and Brian for the thoughts.

The mac was restarted several times but did not make any difference.

Brian's comments were helpful as I had not realized that the first warning message was strange. There was no company logo on it - it was in plain text in a plain box so I do not think it came from either Mac or MC. It suggested that the crash had somehow invoked another program to start up - unlicensed as a trial perhaps? I did not pay too much attention as I thought a restart would clear it away. On reflection, I think I am right in saying that the trial MC gives you full access so it does not appear to have come from MC.

I am running MC20 from the internal hard drive (OK a slow spinner) of the iMac. The library is on the HD. The output feeds a USB dragonfly DAC. The music files are on a network connected NAS via cabled ethernet. Nothing too demanding here. I am not running from File Vault. Just one admin account running.

Your comment on a virtual machine made me think about where the ghost program might have come from. I have Parallels installed (latest version 10.2.2) to run XP and Win7 from time to time - but no MC on these virtual machines. All was running well up until yesterday when MC crashed. Parallels was not running but had run the week before.

I started Parallels up and within a few seconds, the mac had a kernel panic. I don't see those very often. From there on in, the Mac would not start up past the apple logo. Clearly the initial crash had led to something major and Parallels was involved even though not actually running. At this point I chose the sledgehammer route and opted for a complete rebuild from Time Machine.

Several hours later, everything is back to where it was before the crash and all is well. This has naturally removed all the evidence of what happened.

The trigger was the force quit on MC 20.0.126 and this seems to have led to series of worsening events in the OS, possibly made worse by the presence of Parallels. The force quit arose from the spinning beach ball after getting an album to 'update tags from the library', that happens from time to time. Normally all is well after an MC restart.

I don't think we will ever know what happened and I can only hope it was a one-off deriving from my setup. Before I discovered the corruption, the MC behaviour of not being able to hold registration was very strange and I leave it on file here in case it crops up again elsewhere. I did all the mjr loading processes but to no avail. MC would accept the registration and run but would not hold it. Unfortunately, I was not able to move the suggested directory before things went truly haywire.

My MC master mjr file was still valid but installing via 'Package Installer' seemed to invoke a restore request, each time. This may be another indicator of the corruption process.

Thanks for the ideas and support. Your advice gave me a way forward. And as ever, good backups on everything prevented a problem becoming a disaster.

Mike B

[blgentry]

Very glad to hear that you are back up and running again.  I'm guessing you had some sort of hard disk issue, but it's hard to say; like you said all the evidence is gone.  You might take a look through the Console logging program and see if you see any references to disk errors *after* your reinstall.  If you have a disk going bad, it will probably throw some error messages into the log and you can view them with Console.

Otherwise, I hope it all continues to work correctly for you. 

Brian.

[glynor]

Sounds very much like a failing hard drive, or filesystem corruption.

One caution...

I started Parallels up and within a few seconds, the mac had a kernel panic. I don't see those very often. From there on in, the Mac would not start up past the apple logo. Clearly the initial crash had led to something major and Parallels was involved even though not actually running.

Correlation does not equal causation.

It is possible that Parallels caused the kernel panic, and then the filesystem got so corrupted that the machine wouldn't boot. However, a far more likely explanation (especially since you were seeing issues in other applications) is that you had an underlying issue, perhaps filesystem corruption or some kind of hardware failure in progress, and launching Parallels "pushed it over the edge".

Different applications stress the computer in different ways.  Because loading application X results in condition Y, does not mean application X caused condition Y.  It means it triggered it.  Those are usually two very different things.