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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 28 for Windows => Topic started by: GoodEnoughGear on August 21, 2021, 05:23:07 am

Title: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 21, 2021, 05:23:07 am
Hi folks, I'm getting a pop/click with MC 28 when changing tracks, skipping to next track etc. if I have any VSTs running. I have JRMC27 and JRMC28 as a portable install sitting in adjacent directories, and I can confirm JRMC27 does not exhibit this behavior. Updating this initial post with testing detail as I get it.

Behavior:
I will get a single pop before playback begins, and before the subsequent track starts to play when manually switching tracks with 1 VST loaded. With more than 1 VST loaded I get two pops.


Config:
JRMC27 = MediaCenter270085-x64, JRMC28 = MediaCenter280049-x64, Installed on a desktop PC on a PCIE M.2 dual stick RAID volume on which the FLAC library resides as well. The Installs are  portable installs on a separate Volume to be shared on a dual-boot system.
Config is identical from a backup of the Library settings.
OS = Windows 10 Pro, fully patched and up to date, dual boot with Windows 10 Enterprise, fully patched and up to date. The portable installs are shared between these two OSes (one is personal, the other Work) as the Volume is available to both.
Media  = FLAC PCM mostly at 44.1/16, but some Hi-Res. This is being consistently resampled using SOX to 352.8/384 across the board. No DSD.
I have track switching set to gapless.

DSP Stack:

Scenarios Tested:
New install of MC 28 exhibits the problem repeatably and consistently, where MC 27 behaves correctly under all the following scenarios:

Mitigating settings:
Selecting Crossfade for track change eliminates the track-switching pop(s), but the pop(s) are still presnt on initial playback startup.

Cheers,
GoodEnoughGear
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: JimH on August 21, 2021, 05:31:50 am
Hi folks, I'm getting a pop/click with MC 28 when changing tracks, skipping to next track etc. if I have any VSTs running. I have JRMC27 and JRMC28 as a portable install, and I can confirm JRMC27 does not exhibit this behavior.
I'll move this to a new thread.

Did you configure Windows Defender?
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 21, 2021, 07:00:15 am
Hi, yes, Windows Defender config makes no difference, exclusions on or not. Again I have the two versions running side by side, with the identical config. MC 28 exhibits the pops, MC 27 does not.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: JimH on August 21, 2021, 08:08:41 am
Double Check Defender.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html

Use DSP Studio > Output to resample everything to the same format.

See Weird Problems in my signature for more ideas.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 21, 2021, 10:38:08 am
Double Check Defender.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html

Use DSP Studio > Output to resample everything to the same format.

See Weird Problems in my signature for more ideas.

You'll see from my earlier post I am resampling everything to a common format and rate. The two portable installs of MC are on a separate drive with the media, and excluding that entire drive from Defender makes no difference. The fact that MC 27 is fine suggests this is a change in the codebase, not something on my machine.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 22, 2021, 03:55:07 am
A bit more detail:

Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: JimH on August 22, 2021, 06:33:24 am
Did you try the 32 bit version of MC28?

Compare settings carefully between MC27 and MC28?

All VST?  Or some?  Which ones?

Same drive?

Power for the drive?

Is it only a problem with the portable install?

Sorry if you've answered some of these above.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 23, 2021, 06:15:59 am
Did you try the 32 bit version of MC28?
Compare settings carefully between MC27 and MC28?
All VST?  Or some?  Which ones?
Same drive?
Power for the drive?
Is it only a problem with the portable install?
Sorry if you've answered some of these above.

Hi Jim,

Did you try the 32 bit version of MC28? - No I have not, I have a 64-bit VST I use regularly, but happy to test this.

Compare settings carefully between MC27 and MC28? - The settings are a restore of the same backup, so identical.

All VST?  Or some?  Which ones? All VST, at least of the 4 I am using. I have tested them all individually - some exhibit a louder pop than others, and with multiple in the chain I get two pops.

Same drive? - Yes, the same drive.

Power for the drive? Drive is a M.2 PCIE dual stick raid volume powered by the motherboard.

Is it only a problem with the portable install? - I will test a regular install, too, I use portable as I have a dual-boot work/home system with the Music Volume shared. The behavior is consistent across both Windows installations, MC 28 pops and MC 27 behaves correctly. FWIW these are clean portable installs. OS is Windows 10 Pro for one and Windows 10 Enterprise for the other.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: JimH on August 23, 2021, 06:33:34 am
The M.2 drive is an internal drive, correct?

Why even use the portable install?  Dual boot would work with the standard install.

I thought you'd said the drive was external.  My mistake.

A 32 bit version of MC will run fine on a 64 bit machine.  I'm suggesting it because it's possible one of your VST plug-ins isn't fully 64 bit compatible.

Is the problem the same on both versions of Windows?  We don't officially support Windows Enterprise.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 23, 2021, 06:55:29 am
The M.2 drive is an internal drive, correct?

Why even use the portable install?  Dual boot would work with the standard install.

I thought you'd said the drive was external.  My mistake.

A 32 bit version of MC will run fine on a 64 bit machine.  I'm suggesting it because it's possible one of your VST plug-ins isn't fully 64 bit compatible.

Is the problem the same on both versions of Windows?  We don't officially support Windows Enterprise.

Hi Jim.

The drive is an internal drive, correct. The reason I use a portable install is so that I don't have two MC installations on two operating systems whose metadata I would then need to keep in sync, I just use the single portable install on the shared drive.

I do not believe this is a VST incompatibility because the problem does not occur on a MC 27 portable install using the identical config, identical VSTs and identical library.

The problem occurs consistently on both Operating Systems.

I'll do some testing of the regular local install (I have one on the Win10 Pro partition to allow for licensing of the Portable installs), and report back.



 
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 23, 2021, 12:01:38 pm
I can confirm the pops are still present on a regular (non-portable) install as well.

Next I'll test MC 32-bit, and also a different machine entirely.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: JimH on August 23, 2021, 12:18:02 pm
Testing a different DAC would also be interesting.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 23, 2021, 12:20:39 pm
Testing a different DAC would also be interesting.
Yep that's easy too.

OK, tested with another DAC - the issue is still present.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: whoareyou on August 23, 2021, 08:58:55 pm
I had similar issue. 

In my case, reducing the hardware buffer size eliminated the pops and clicks when switching tracks.

For me, I never correlated it to VSTs (which I use), nor do I know if it started with MC28. 
I had been using my DAC's manufacturer recommended settings for long time before this happened.

At some point issue just showed up, and adjusting the device setting for buffering to a smaller amount eliminated issue for me.




Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 24, 2021, 01:18:58 am
Initial post updated with current testing results. The issue persists.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: Matt on August 24, 2021, 08:33:07 am
It's a good suggestion to try increasing the buffering for the hardware.  Options > Audio > Device settings...
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 24, 2021, 08:52:41 am
It's a good suggestion to try increasing the buffering for the hardware.  Options > Audio > Device settings...

Yeah I can set buffer to 500ms with no change (listed in the first post of the thread).
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: Matt on August 24, 2021, 08:55:27 am
And does it only happen with VST enabled?  If so, could you mail me one that does it (matt at jriver dot com)?  Thanks.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: Matt on August 26, 2021, 08:01:44 am
This took lots of back and forth (thanks Robbi) but it will be fixed next build.  Thanks everyone.
Title: Re: Pop / Click When Switching Tracks
Post by: GoodEnoughGear on August 26, 2021, 10:58:20 am
This took lots of back and forth (thanks Robbi) but it will be fixed next build.  Thanks everyone.
Thanks for your persistence, Matt, it's the sort of thing that makes all the difference.