INTERACT FORUM
Mac => JRiver Media Center 33 for Mac => Topic started by: dmitch77 on March 21, 2025, 11:34:53 pm
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<Moving this to new thread since the subject has changed>
- On Machine "MCServer": MC serves a library which lives on an external disk "MediaDisk" on this machine.
- On Machine "MCClient": MC loads library from "Server".
- Playing a song on "MCClient" causes "MCClient" to mount "MediaDisk" as a remote volume.
Note "MCClient" has "Play local file if one that matches Library Server file is found" option FALSE.
This is a problem; the mount of "MediaDisk" on "MCClient":
- should not happen, and
- takes about 4 seconds, causing a delay when starting playing on "MCClient"
I cannot see any reason why "MCClient" should mount the disk "MediaDisk" in order to play songs from the library loaded from "MCServer". But it does, 100% of the time.
Is this a bug? Is there a way to avoid this behavior?
Both machines running MC 33.0.44, MacOS 15.3.2
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33.0.71 is on the Download Page.
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The problem persists with both server and client running 33.0.71.
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In your case, the MediaDisk file isn't a local file, is it?
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In your case, the MediaDisk file isn't a local file, is it?
It's an external disk connected to the server. It's also net-mountable by the client. Both client and server see the files on Media disk with the same path. Like
/Volumes/MediaDisk/Music/someArtist/someAlbum/someSong.wav
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Any update on this one?
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Is the volume auto-mounted on access on the client (outside of MC) ?
If so, a simple "check if file exists" would mount it.
Why not just keep it mounted and enable the local playback option?
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Is the volume auto-mounted on access on the client (outside of MC) ?
If so, a simple "check if file exists" would mount it.
A couple of points. One, I am trying to avoid the 4-second delay it takes to mount the remote volume when the client MC restarts. (For various reasons, the client doesn't run all the time.) Also, a constantly mounted remote disk complicates admin of the server machine due to "a client is connected to this machine, do you really want to do this" type of alerts. So I really don't want that remote disk mounted by the client all the time.
Why not just keep it mounted and enable the local playback option?
Because MacOS has terrible network file system performance. Even though I have a steady, reliable 300 Mb/s net connection on both client and server, it takes 5 seconds or more to fully preload a large FLAC file on the client so that it's all in memory. If I don't enable memory playback then the client will inevitably stutter. This is just a fact of life with MacOS's crappy network-mounted file system. Experimentation shows me that MC does WAY better at streaming its data than MacOS's net-mounted file system.
From another angle, is it fair to ask "why is MC causing this remote file system to mount when it has no business doing so?" It really should not do this, I can't imagine any good reason it does.
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You didn't answer this:
Is the volume auto-mounted on access on the client (outside of MC) ?
If the volume is auto-mounted (eg, by doing an 'ls' on the mount path), then it's not an MC issue - just disable automount.
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You didn't answer this:
If the volume is auto-mounted (eg, by doing an 'ls' on the mount path), then it's not an MC issue - just disable automount.
I know nothing about any automounting of this path, I never configured anything to enable this. How would I go about disabling it?
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In any case, no it is not getting automounted. After unmounting:
Rambler.local dmitch> ls /Volumes/dmMedia
ls: /Volumes/dmMedia: No such file or directory
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It may still be automount. I don't see how else the volume gets mounted, I don't think MC would mount a volume by itself.
Make sure this is NOT enabled:
https://www.google.com/search?q=macos+automount+volume+on+access
Or maybe:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8567057
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None of those apply and are not in play. Plus the volume doesn't get mounted at login itime. It gets mounted when MC plays a song that lives on that drive.
I don't think MC would mount a volume by itself.
I agree that MC shouldn't mount that volume. :-) But I know with 100% certainty that the volume gets mounted as soon I play a song that happens to live on that disk, even though I told MC not to use a local version. I don't know how it's getting mounted, I just know that MC is doing something, when it starts to play that song, which results in the disk getting mounted.
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Try enabling logging in MC and reproduce it and see what the log says.
... oh wait, that'd probably get it to mount, huh? :-X
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Try enabling logging in MC and reproduce it and see what the log says.
The log doesn't make any sense to me, it doesn't have any text associated with the file in question, or the server (Number6, in this case) or the media volume (dmMedia in this case). I've attached the log here.
The sequence is
- Quit MC
- Unmount /Volumes/dmMedia
- Run MC
- Enable logging, reset log
- Start playing a song from the dmMedia volume
- As soon as playback starts, stop it. Note /Volumes/dmMedia is now mounted.
- Grab the log file
Resulting log file is attached.
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The log shows MC playing via network without accessing any local volume, as expected.
0008188: 8711702592: Playback: CPlayerZone::Play: Processing play for 'm01p://192.168.1.9:52199/MCWS/v1/File/GetFile?File=2952723'
0008190: 8711702592: Playback: CJRPlaybackEngine::Play: Playing: http://192.168.1.9:52199/MCWS/v1/File/GetFile?File=2952723
I think this is a MacOS issue and it's not related to MC or any specific application. Here's another user with a similar problem that has tracked the problem to multiple applications - the trigger seems to be that the app has once before accessed the volume, so it just gets automounted when the app runs:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7596559?sortBy=rank
Unfortunately he could only solve it by reinstalling the OS, which I find excessive.
Again, you can tell your MacOS to never automount that volume.
Also: check Options > File Locations on the client and remove any reference to the volume path.
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What a can of worms. :-) No way am I going to reinstall MacOS.
But. I think I found a workaround.
- On Client machine, unmount MediaDisk and quit MC
- On server machine, disable file sharing so nobody can net-mount anything from this machine
- On Client machine, start MC
- On Client machine, play a song (which lives on server's MediaDisk)
- Here's the interesting part: MC hangs for a good 20 seconds. Then
- Client's MC Starts playing fine.
- Client does not mount MediaDisk
- On Client, stop playing and quit MC
- On Client, start MC and play a song. No delay, no hang!
- On Server, re-enable file sharing
- Repeat steps 1-4 on Client
- No hang and no net-mount of MediaDisk
Problem seems to be solved. Something somewhere "remembered" something about that MediaDisk being mounted by MC, and MC didn't like it when the auto mount wasn't available - see the 20 second delay at step 5 - but MC eventually gave up and everything went back to normal.
Thanks for all the help & suggestions. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...