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[Omni]

Okay, I have reported this in the past, but it as never been confirmed or denied by one else.  Here's my last shot at it.

If left unattended during continuous audio playback, MC's playback engine will crash after four to five hours.

The "unattended" part is very crucial to duplicating this bug.  Starting and stopping playback all day long doesn't count.

To duplicate:

• Wait until you are ready to go to bed;
  
• In DSP Studio, turn off all effects;
  
• Turn off all visual effects (so not to muddy the test results);
  
• Set output device to DirectSound (Device=Primary, Channels=Default, and Buffering=0.20 seconds);
  
• Queue in one (or more) APE file(s) into Playing Now;
  
• Beginning playing (I don't think there is a setting for this, but if there is, make sure it loops, i.e., plays the list over and over again);
  
• Mute the volume;
  
• Go to sleep;
  
• By morning, MC was either be stuttering or completely frozen.  If stuttering, usually clicking on the Stop button fixes things, but sometimes a complete restart of MC is needed to start playing files properly again.

(The DirectSound output part is not critical in that this happens to me under all three outputs:  DirectSound, wave, or ASIO.  But for repeatability's sake, just use DirectSound.)

This has been present since before v.9.0.180.

This morning, after doing the above steps, I can note the following:

Memory Usage:  5 MB (when started), 24 MB (by morning)
File Handles:  124 (when started), 389 (by morning)
Threads:  3 (when started), 29 (by morning)

Omni

Media Center Registered 9.1.250 -- E:\bin\audio\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2797 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 576 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive R:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive S:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive R: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PREMIUM     Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:52  BurnProof:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: No /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

Denied.  I often leave an album of ape files playing overnight and it has always been playing in the morning.

Try wave out for playback.  It could be a driver problem.

Media Center Registered 9.1.251 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 3057 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 744 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive F:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive G:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive F: SONY     DVD RW DW-U12A     Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:16  MaxSpeed:24  BurnProof:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[KingSparta]

I confirm JimH's denial

[JimH]

I confirm JimH's denial

I categorically deny that money or Yugos have changed hands for this confirmation.

I could confirm this, too, I think.

[KingSparta]

LMAO  

I leave mine running also for long hours maybe 12 or so hours (ask my wife) and have had no problems.

[Shadowen]

Yeah, this sounds like it might be specific to your system.  I too, have left it running for long periods of time without incident.

Make sure you have the latest and greatest drivers for your media components.

[Omni]

Well, you guys give me hope.  I'd much prefer it to be my system rather than MC.

Jim latched on to the "DirectSound" aspect of my message ignoring my comment about this happening with wave and ASIO as well.  I have tested all three transports fairly thoroughly.

Tonight, I'll try a new test.  I'll play out a wave file using three applications:  MC, CoolEdit, and PlayWave (a proprietary WinAmp-like program I wrote myself for work).   We'll see which one is still working by morning.

And though I know there absolutely no hope for this anymore thanks to Jim's prompt (and appreciated!) denial, I would still like to ask others to perform my above steps anyway.  (Doing it while you sleep removes all possibly of interrupting the "unattended" aspect of this test.)   Again, though, I don't expect this to happen.

Omni

[NanjingGuy]

I normally leave MC minimized playing for hours (>5) and never see anything untoward. But I always just use random play which is putting MP3s in the mix as well I'm sure. I will use only APE format tonight and see what happens.

What soundcard are you using?

I have a P4 2.66 GHz
1 Gb RAM
Audigy 2
Win XP Pro

Well, you guys give me hope.  I'd much prefer it to be my system rather than MC.

Jim latched on to the "DirectSound" aspect of my message ignoring my comment about this happening with wave and ASIO as well.  I have tested all three transports fairly thoroughly.

Tonight, I'll try a new test.  I'll play out a wave file using three applications:  MC, CoolEdit, and PlayWave (a proprietary WinAmp-like program I wrote myself for work).   We'll see which one is still working by morning.

And though I know there absolutely no hope for this anymore thanks to Jim's prompt (and appreciated!) denial, I would still like to ask others to perform my above steps anyway.  (Doing it while you sleep removes all possibly of interrupting the "unattended" aspect of this test.)   Again, though, I don't expect this to happen.

Omni

[JimH]

Omni,
Try disabling any plug-ins you can.  DSP, Albumview, etc.  No visualizations, anything you can do to simplify MC.

My money is on the sound card.

Jim

[JimH]

One more thought.  Via chipset?

[Omni]

Try disabling any plug-ins you can.  DSP, Albumview, etc.  No visualizations, anything you can do to simplify MC.

Oh, did.  I've been following my own steps (cited above) for a week now.  Everything is disabled.

One more thought.  Via chipset?

I wish it were that simple.  No, I stay away from via chipsets like the plague.

------------------------

Update On Test Run Last Night

Okay, I created five wave files, each with me saying a number:  1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.   (This was so each test application would have its own, unique output that I could easily distinguish.)  The wave files were standard CD format:  Stereo 44.1 kHz Linear PCM.

one.wav --> Media Center
two.wav --> CoolEdit 2000
three.wav --> MusicMatch 8.0
four.wav -->  WMP 9.0
five.wav --> PlayWave (my software)

I started them all up, began playing each wave in its respective player, and went to bed.  Thirteen hours later they were all (including MC) still playing without error.[/u][/color]  (No, I didn't SLEEP for thirteen hours--I was just busy this morning.)

So could it be something with the internal APE-->WAVE conversion that's hosing my MC?  (I know your [Jim's] first reply seems to eliminate this possibility, but maybe my APEs are different from your APEs.)

Tonight, I'm going to take the APE file I have been using all week to duplicate this problem and convert it to a wave and see what happens.

Incidentally, I am currently using an Audigy 2, so I normally would be the first to agree with you that it's a sound card/driver problem; however, for a month (last July-ish) I was using an M-Audio Revolution 7.1, and the crashing problem occurred then as well.

Omni

[Omni]

I normally leave MC minimized playing for hours (>5) and never see anything untoward. But I always just use random play which is putting MP3s in the mix as well I'm sure. I will use only APE format tonight and see what happens.

What soundcard are you using?

I have a P4 2.66 GHz
1 Gb RAM
Audigy 2
Win XP Pro

Yes, yes, yes.  This is great.  Your system is like mine (Audigy 2 and XP Pro), so assuming you play only an APE file, your results will probably confirm that this is something specific to my system.  (Figuring it out what it is, though, probably won't be easy.)

Omni

[Omni]

Tonight, I'm going to take the APE file I have been using all week to duplicate this problem and convert it to a wave and see what happens.

After 15+ hours of unattended playback, the wave file is still playing fine.

So let's recap.  I can consistently and without fail make MC crash when playing APE files.  I have yet to be able to make MC crash when playing wave or MP3 files.  The consensus here is that I have a driver problem.

Can someone please educate me on how the driver knows that the raw data it is getting is coming from an APE file rather than from something else?  I really want to track this bug down on my system, but I don't know where to begin.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Omni

[KingSparta]

it could be a tag problem

where MC9 is leaking memory when it reads tags from APE files.

I think there was some changes in this from MJ8 and the way it is taged. I could be wrong but i also do not use APE.

[JimH]

Are you sure there are no other differences?  Cover art, for example?  DSP?

I play almost nothing but APE files and they are commonly played by others.

[Omni]

No, no other differences.

Maybe my APE files are whacky.  I've gone from WMA9 Loseless to APE (and back and back again) a couple times.  I did download Matt's v3.98 alpha in the past, but I don't think that is relevant, right?

My current APE's were created by MC (v.9.0, but don't know exact build) directly using the converter tool.  Previously, I used dBpowerAMP's Music Converter (with the 3.97 DLL presumably), and I don't recall having the crashing problem then.

I will try reripping the CD using MC to rip and convert.  I will run the test again tonight (the 6th night in a row) and see if MC still crashes with the "new" APE files.

If it crashes, tomorrow I will rerip the CD and use dMC to convert the files and run the test again.

Omni