INTERACT FORUM
Devices => Video Cards, Monitors, Televisions, and Projectors => Topic started by: murray on April 19, 2022, 02:03:05 am
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MC27 had this feature and was added: Left clicking a playing video will toggle the pause state.
Is there a setting somewhere that disables this feature in MC29?
If the answer is NO then is it possible to add one in a future release to MC29 please?
It was added to MC27 on the 27.0.15 (9/21/2020)
27.0.15 (9/21/2020)
13. NEW: Left clicking a playing video will toggle the pause state.
This is the thread where the guy is asking the question and below looks like when they added the feature (see#13)
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=127045.0
We need to be able to bring the window to the front and left clicking in the video window seems to be the only way to do it (BUT this now pauses the player)
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What version are you running? Quick testing on my machine v29.0.34, I cannot reproduce your issue. This was resolved in v27.0.18 (9/30/2020)
4. Changed: The program no longer pauses a playing video when clicking to activate the program from another program.
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The OP is right, left clicking on a video while the video is playing in full-screen pauses and resumes playback.
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The OP is right, left clicking on a video while the video is playing in full-screen pauses and resumes playback.
That is an intentional feature, as documented in the changelog - but its not supposed to pause if MC doesn't have focus, and you just click on it to gain focus.
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If you have set windows to "scroll inactive windows when I hover over them" or you use a 3rd party to give a window focus on mouse hover (as I do with WinAero Tweaker), that effectively takes the place of a physical click.
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That is an intentional feature, as documented in the changelog - but its not supposed to pause if MC doesn't have focus, and you just click on it to gain focus.
We are running MC 29.0.28. on Win 10. Prior to this we were running 25 and never had these issues. We were never using the left click on video window as we didn’t need to because it never failed. This was only discovered as the fix in 29 by lots of trial and error.
We have a script setup in MadVR which does some picture enhancements utilising keyboard shortcuts 3 & 4
Occasionally and for no apparent reason these shortcuts stop working and the only way we have discovered to make them work again is to left click on the video but as mentioned this pauses the video.
We can simulate the keyboard shortcuts not working by pausing the video in the player controls at the top of the page using the mouse. Once you click this then the shortcuts no longer work. Left mouse clicking on the video starts them working again.
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Try the doom9 forum for help with madVR.
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Try the doom9 forum for help with madVR.
JimH, you added the feature we are discussing here to MC27 on the (9/21/2020). This obviously is a JR feature not a madvr feature so I cant go to doom9 for answers. Is it not possible to have a tick box to enable this feature or disable it, we don’t want the video to pause when you left click on the mouse.
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If you have set windows to "scroll inactive windows when I hover over them" or you use a 3rd party to give a window focus on mouse hover (as I do with WinAero Tweaker), that effectively takes the place of a physical click.
HPBEME….. scroll inactive windows when I hover over them is on. We downloaded WinAero Tweaker but cannot get this to work as you suggest. Presuming its in the Xmouse section ???. We turned on a setting in the ease of use settings of windows like they suggested but not sure of the other settings in WinAero to get it to work by moving the mouse on the screen, It only works with a click still.
According to this document from Microsoft the only way to focus a window is to left mouse click
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-focus-on-a-window-e4f9fc5e-efa1-4655-ae34-04cb8f4f3716
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That is an intentional feature, as documented in the changelog - but its not supposed to pause if MC doesn't have focus, and you just click on it to gain focus.
Thanks for that info Hendrik but it doesnt actually work exactly like that in MC29. You say its not supposed to "pause" if MC doesnt have focus but it does pause every time.
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*****We should have mentioned that we use Theatre View and all discussion relate to this ******
We have loaded a little script in windows that shows the active focus window. We have noticed that there is a JRiver Media Center29 Focus and also a Theatre View GL Focus. Can anyone explain the differences? We have tried using EventGhost to bring the window into focus but can only find an option for Media Center 29 (which doesn’t work) and nothing for Theatre View GL so maybe this is where the problem is???
This is not really our area of expertise so if anyone can help out it would be appreciated so we can get this working as it was in MC25
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I've seen instances over the years where it looks like Theater View is in focus but is not. A single Alt Tab worked.
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I've seen instances over the years where it looks like Theater View is in focus but is not. A single Alt Tab worked.
Thanks so much for trying to help jmone, Ive just tried a single Alt Tab in Theatre View and it doesnt fix the problem. All it does is brings up a small JR box in the centre of the screen with the text JRiver MC29, but does not bring Theatre View into Focus.
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JimH, you added the feature we are discussing here to MC27 on the (9/21/2020). This obviously is a JR feature not a madvr feature so I cant go to doom9 for answers. Is it not possible to have a tick box to enable this feature or disable it, we don’t want the video to pause when you left click on the mouse.
You could try with video set to JRVR.
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We are running MC 29.0.28. on Win 10. ...
We have a script setup in MadVR which does some picture enhancements utilising keyboard shortcuts 3 & 4
Occasionally and for no apparent reason these shortcuts stop working and the only way we have discovered to make them work again is to left click on the video but as mentioned this pauses the video.
This appears to be the key to your problem, and it seems to be related to these madVR changes.
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You might consider using MCWS, MC's web service interface, to control MC.
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DevZone#Web_Service_Interface_.28MCWS.29
Run MC's Library Server and then click here:
http://localhost:52199/MCWS/v1/doc
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You could try with video set to JRVR.
We cant try this in JRVR JimH as it doesn’t have any enhancement features like madvr does. As you know madvr has many extra features that JRVR doesn’t and that’s the only reason we stick with madvr, maybe one day we can change if and when JRVR may catch up.
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This appears to be the key to your problem, and it seems to be related to these madVR changes.
There are no changes here Jim, we have been doing exactly the same thing for more than 8 years and everything has always worked perfectly with every single JR version we have had over the years.....
The only resent changes that have been made (on the same day) was to update to MC29 and update Windows which we havent done in years. We never update Windows as the PC is a dedecated HT PC and when everything works perfectly we never update. Our resent update to MC29 was to test JRVR which sadly didnt do justice to our large 150" curved scope screen, hence the reason to sticking with madvr for now.....
This would work for us if MC29 had an option to not pause the film when one left clicks to bring it into focus. As Ive mentioned on this thread in the past we run a small film club and we cant pause the film then restart when people are in the cinema, thats certainly not nice.
We will try your "other" idea and report back.
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I'm also using Theater View (with JRVR all the time, btw), and noticed that indeed sometimes keyboard and mouse inputs don't seem to be interpreted by MC anymore despite the fact that the video window is on top of everything else. (I think it used to/still does(?) happen when starting playback of a DVD or Bluray, if the playback was started by pressing Play on a ISO, or when MC has to download something first before starting playback, etc)
What I discovered is that if I cycle using F11 (yes, for some reason F11 is still interpreted by MC, while other keys such as arrow keys or Enter are not) between the video window -> the Theater View main view -> the last Theater View view before starting playback -> back to main video window, somehow this "resets" whatever state MC is in and it interprets all keyboard and mouse inputs again. Try it out!
As a side-note: if I got this right, MC actually makes use of two windows when in Theater View mode: the Theater View window, and the Display View window. The Theater View window is used to display the theater mode user interface, while the video is rendered in the Display View window. When someone starts playback of a video file from the Theater View window, MC switches from the Theater View window to the Display View window.
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Switching to JRVR (and rebooting) might give you a better idea if madVR is the problem.
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Switching to JRVR (and rebooting) might give you a better idea if madVR is the problem.
JimH I dont know if you are refering to bogdanbz or me as you have no quote above.
If its me: as I mentioned in the previous post Ive tried JRVR etc etc etc....
madvr isnt the problem its an old old version nothing has changed there, the only changes are moving from MC25 to MC29 and a Windows 10 update.
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If the problem continues after switching to JRVR (and rebooting), then it may be something other than madVR that is causing it. It's just a test and the switch will take little time and is readily reversed.
I'll lock this thread after you've had a chance to test.
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If the problem continues after switching to JRVR (and rebooting), then it may be something other than madVR that is causing it. It's just a test and the switch will take little time and is readily reversed.
I'll lock this thread after you've had a chance to test.
We can't test this on JRVR as it doesn't have the function of Enhancements as madvr does.
Also this isn't just a problem for us its also happening to the new poster here bogdanbz and he runs JRVR, please can you read his post.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,132806.msg920388.html#msg920388
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I'm also using Theater View (with JRVR all the time, btw), and noticed that indeed sometimes keyboard and mouse inputs don't seem to be interpreted by MC anymore despite the fact that the video window is on top of everything else. (I think it used to/still does(?) happen when starting playback of a DVD or Bluray, if the playback was started by pressing Play on a ISO, or when MC has to download something first before starting playback, etc)
What I discovered is that if I cycle using F11 (yes, for some reason F11 is still interpreted by MC, while other keys such as arrow keys or Enter are not) between the video window -> the Theater View main view -> the last Theater View view before starting playback -> back to main video window, somehow this "resets" whatever state MC is in and it interprets all keyboard and mouse inputs again. Try it out!
As a side-note: if I got this right, MC actually makes use of two windows when in Theater View mode: the Theater View window, and the Display View window. The Theater View window is used to display the theater mode user interface, while the video is rendered in the Display View window. When someone starts playback of a video file from the Theater View window, MC switches from the Theater View window to the Display View window.
We have just tested F11 but it takes it out of Theatre View and brings up a different view, we cant use that key as we are screening to 12 people. We need a fix thats invisible and the only one that we can see would work is a left click that didnt pause the film.
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I'm afraid I don't have a test scenario for this. I just tried with playing a DVD ISO and it did not happen this time. I do remember it happened to me in the past, but I don't remember how to reproduce this anymore.
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What is the view that you need? Maybe there's another way to do it.
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What is the view that you need? Maybe there's another way to do it.
Thanks Jim, we always only use Theatre View.
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bogdan's problem isn't the same. His is probably a focus problem.
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What is the function you need? What do you have the madVR script do?
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What is the function you need? What do you have the madVR script do?
We have been using two scripts from madvr Enhancements, call it sharpness 1 and sharpness 2, these have functioned perfectly on all the past earlier MC versions until we moved to MC29 a few weeks ago.
The keyboard numbers used for these are 3 and 4 which we operate through eventghost. We call these 3 = soft, 4 = sharp.
These stop working when sometimes MC29 isnt the focus window. The only way to make them function is to left click the film but as you know this pauses the film which we cant have when 12 people are in the cinema.
We have spent two weeks trying to resolve this issue hunting for anything on the keyboard. Some have said Alt Tab, F11, space, etc etc…nothing works.
If we could use left click without the film pause all is fixed, but MC29 doesn’t have that function. We always use only Theatre View.
We know the quick method to create the problem for testing:
Play film in Theatre View > pause film from top player OSD then press play > MC29 no longer the Focus window.
Left click over the film to pause, left click again over the film to play, Focus window now fixed.
But if there was a function that didn’t pause the film on a left click, issue resolved.
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So the number keys are used to set some mode in madVR. Right?
And you need MC to have the focus. If you're playing from Theater View, it should already have the focus.
So something (madVR?) has the focus instead?
Does that sound right?
You can set the view with ctrl-1, ctrl-2, ... ctrl-5
Could you try that?
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So the number keys are used to set some mode in madVR. Right?
And you need MC to have the focus. If you're playing from Theater View, it should already have the focus.
So something (madVR?) has the focus instead?
Does that sound right?
You can set the view with ctrl-1, ctrl-2, ... ctrl-5
sorry Jim this doesnt work...
ctrl-1 takes it to Cover View with the library, ctrl-2 takes it to mini view, ctrl-5 takes it to standard view.
Could you try that?
The only thing that fixes it is left click pause, but as Ive mentioned we cant do that when we have an audience viewing.
A Left click (option) that didnt pause the film would correct the problem.
Again all our past MC versions never did this.
Our madvr version is the same one we have been running this way for years and years.
This problem only started after moving to MC29 and updating Windows 10 all on the same day two weeks ago.
We have been trying everyday for two weeks to find a fix of our own and ripping our hair out in total frustration....
Thats when we started this thread :(
The only fix we can find is the left mouse click but we dont want the film to pause. If JR had a tick box to allow a pause or not on a left click we are done and dusted and could move on....
We have been thinking of moving back to MC25 to get this one function working again but after two weeks of finally getting everything working from 25 to 29, it would be a real drag to now return to 25....
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Did you try ctrl-3 and 4?
We're not going to add an option.
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Did you try ctrl-3 and 4?
We're not going to add an option.
ctrl-3 pauses the film and takes it to a small window on the right and the film text on the left.
ctrl-4 does exactly the same thing as 4.
We cant find anything to make MC29 function the same way all our past versions worked, something is different here as we are only trying to operate as we have for many years.
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ctrl-4 should give you Theater View.
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ctrl-4 should give you Theater View.
It does the same thing as 3 I said that, Ive tested it 5 times,,,,,,,, did you not test it yourself?
I posted in MC29 forum as we bought MC29, and thats where I expected to find help, thats what forums are for...
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I haven't heard anybody mention this particular setting, so it might be worth giving it a shot. Go to Options/Theater View/Behavior. In the Behavior section there is a checkbox for Pause Video Playback When Entering Theater View. Whatever the box check status is, toggle it to the other state and see if for some reason that magically solves your problem.
In regards to your frustration - we have all been there. We are convinced our problem (whatever it may be) lies with MC, because we have changed absolutely nothing else. And sometimes that actually is the case. But you indicated that you also updated to Windows 10 at the same time, which means your entire computing environment has been irrevocably modified. Inevitably, how madVR interacts with your computer has also changed, whether madVR has been updated or not.
Expecting JRiver to readily resolve every issue that might arise among the billions of combinations of computing environments/user settings possible is both unrealistic and unfair. In addition, I am not convinced the problem you are experiencing is terribly widespread. I am certainly not able to reproduce the problem you're seeing (with and without the tweaks I mentioned in a previous post). The couple examples you gave where others are having issues - there are some similarities to what you're experiencing, but they are by no means the same.
The bottom line is, Jim and others are continuing to try and help.
And finally, have you tried reinstalling MC 27 with your new Windows 10 installation? That would certainly be an interesting test. If the same pause issue happens with the M27/Win10 combo, that would point to Windows 10 being the culprit. Anyway. Hang in there, I think eventually this problem will be solved.
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I say thank you for not giving up and we will test your idea above and report back.
We updated Windows 10 on the same day as installing MC29 as Jmone told us to also do that....
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I haven't heard anybody mention this particular setting, so it might be worth giving it a shot. Go to Options/Theater View/Behavior. In the Behavior section there is a checkbox for Pause Video Playback When Entering Theater View. Whatever the box check status is, toggle it to the other state and see if for some reason that magically solves your problem.
We just tried that and as we went in there I just remembered we saw and tested that yesterday. Ive just tried it again and still it doesnt fix the issue Im sorry to say .....
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If you are in the middle of watching a movie, but MC doesn't have focus, something seems a bit off. Sometimes the focus can be stolen by a system tray item. If you do an alt-tab, it might give you a clue as to what seems to have focus.
Also, it seems like the problem is with MadVR, but you had a workaround. Now a feature of MC invalidates your workaround. However, the original issue is still with MadVR.
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It does the same thing as 3 I said that, Ive tested it 5 times,,,,,,,, did you not test it yourself?
Yes. It works.
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murray,
Try to keep on track with the problem and leave the complaints to a minimum. I've edited the posts above to try to remove the rants and leave the facts.
This thread was moved because, in my opinion, it's likely a madVR issue at the root.
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If you are in the middle of watching a movie, but MC doesn't have focus, something seems a bit off. Sometimes the focus can be stolen by a system tray item. If you do an alt-tab, it might give you a clue as to what seems to have focus.
Also, it seems like the problem is with MadVR, but you had a workaround. Now a feature of MC invalidates your workaround. However, the original issue is still with MadVR.
Many thanks fitbrit but its not a madvr problem. We never mentioned we had a workaround for the problem using madvr in the past, thats totally incorrect, the function we were using in madvr worked perfectly on all our earlier versions of MC, it stopped when we went to MC29.
This afternoon we have gone back to MC25 and everything is working again.
Thanks for your input.
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We have a script setup in MadVR which does some picture enhancements utilising keyboard shortcuts 3 & 4
Occasionally and for no apparent reason these shortcuts stop working and the only way we have discovered to make them work again is to left click on the video but as mentioned this pauses the video.
Sorry, I misinterpreted this quote. The root cause is not MadVR but your script suddenly not working for no reason. Good luck with MC25 - it's great that purchased versions of MC continue to work forever, unlike subscription models.
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@murray - there are some changes in V29.0.37 coming that will help.
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Many thanks Hendrik for the latest update in 29.0.38 to address:
1. Changed: Focus will be given to the video player more consistently when starting video playback.
2. NEW: Added an option to toggle the Click to Pause behaviour in video playback (Video -> Advanced).
However we are still having exactly the same focus (or whatever one may call it), issue as we were before your update.
Our only “real” fix is to return back to MC25 again…….
We are doing exactly the same presentation we have done for many many years, first starting on MC21 then MC25, MC29 just wont allow us.
Something in the operation of MC29 (maybe to do with focus) is different to what it was in MC21 & MC25.
Something certainly behaves differently in MC29 that forces us to use MC25 as it works perfectly, for us…..
We would like to test future improvements you are making in MC29, but we just cant make MC29 (with the focus problem we are encountering) our favoured version.
Rather than going into a long winded discussion here and take up valuable space, I would prefer to PM you with full details and the way to break it, if you wish to test MC29 for yourself.
All the very Best Murray
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Test without madVR and report the result. It's possible that something like antivirus is behaving differently with your scripts. Testing without madVR may tell us something.
Rather than going into a long winded discussion here and take up valuable space, I would prefer to PM you with full details and the way to break it, if you wish to test MC29 for yourself.
Please keep the discussion here, not in private messages.
Post any script you use here.
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Did you test without madVR? Can you post your scripts?
I'll move this to your original thread.
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Did you test without madVR? Can you post your scripts?
I'll move this to your original thread.
I told you in the last thread this cant be tested without madvr.
I told you in the last thread that the issue isn't with Windows 10, it isn't with madvr and it isn't antiviris.
All these three things work perfectly on MC25.
MC29 is different in some way and thats where we have the problem. I've also mentioned that we have reverted back to MC25 as it works perfectly.
I was trying to address hendrik on this as he's the video expert here.
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Click to pause is now optional, so whatever work-around you used in MC25 that includes clicking on it automatically, you can also use here again.
Otherwise you have not given any details other then "its broken", which is not something we can work with.
If you want to automate madVR, it also has a network interface you can use to talk to it, which would be reliable in all scenarios.
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Click to pause is now optional, so whatever work-around you used in MC25 that includes clicking on it automatically, you can also use here again.
Otherwise you have not given any details other then "its broken", which is not something we can work with.
If you want to automate madVR, it also has a network interface you can use to talk to it, which would be reliable in all scenarios.
Thanks Hendrik I’ve wanted to talk with you...
1st off we never ever needed a work round for madvr on MC25 or MC21, its always worked for us, MC29 is different in this respect and the latest update a few days ago hasn’t fixed the issue.
We did give details in the other thread how to test the problem.
The click to pause does certainly work now on MC29 with your new tick box without pausing the film. But we don't want to use another command to fix an issue in MC29 .
We didn’t know there was a network interface available for madvr, after doing a Google I still cant find anything relevant. Can you point us to that please so we can test?
If that doesn’t help I’m happy to then give you full details what we are doing and the quick way to break it which we discovered out of the blue....
Thanks again...
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I told you in the last thread this cant be tested without madvr.
It would only tell us whether madVR is part of the problem. That would be useful.
I told you in the last thread that the issue isn't with Windows 10, it isn't with madvr and it isn't antiviris.
All these three things work perfectly on MC25.
I understand that you believe that. Trust me. But I'm not convinced.
For instance, any antivirus program may be fine with MC25 but not with MC29. That's just part of how they work. It happens all the time. Configuring them is essential.
Windows 10 isn't likely to be part of the problem, but it's possible.
MC29 is different in some way and thats where we have the problem. I've also mentioned that we have reverted back to MC25 as it works perfectly.
I know you're very confident of that, but I'm not. Testing carefully, without making assumptions, might get us somewhere.
I was trying to address hendrik on this as he's the video expert here.
Yes, he's one of them, but it's not clear yet where the problem is.
Would you consider working with a consultant? I have someone in mind.
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It would only tell us whether madVR is part of the problem. That would be useful.I understand that you believe that. Trust me. But I'm not convinced.
For instance, any antivirus program may be fine with MC25 but not with MC29. That's just part of how they work. It happens all the time. Configuring them is essential.
Windows 10 isn't likely to be part of the problem, but it's possible.I know you're very confident of that, but I'm not. Testing carefully, without making assumptions, might get us somewhere.Yes, he's one of them, but it's not clear yet where the problem is.
Would you consider working with a consultant? I have someone in mind.
Hi Jim and Hendrik,
Let us answer some of your questions…
Today we had another check of your wiki on the anti virus situation, first off the HTPC is only for our cinema, its not used for anything else….
Our settings are exactly the same that this thread advises https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114101.0.html
This was setup sometime ago and I also saw a post I made in that same thread in 2018. (Certainly not to do with any problem…)
The problem still exists even if we set defender “your way” and also if we turn defender off and firewall off, there is still no issue when we revert back to MC25.
Any easy way to see the issue when its broken, you cant bring up the stats for madvr pressing ctrl J, things work if you left click then ctrl J will display the stats.
We still don’t know what causes it to break, but with all the testing over the last few weeks we have discovered how we can make it break. The following may give you some clues, we don’t know???
1. play a film in theatre view, on the player control top of the screen (using the mouse) click pause, then click play, this sequence breaks (or creates the problem) now press cntrl J and the stats wont appear for madvr. The fix: left click the mouse on the video window and madvr stats ctrl J work. None of this issue happens when we use MC25.
You ask if I would consider working with a consultant, who do you have in mind?
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The transparent player bar at the top should not block focus anymore in the next build.
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There was a problem. You were right. I owe you an apology.
This made it easy to find:
We still don’t know what causes it to break, but with all the testing over the last few weeks we have discovered how we can make it break. The following may give you some clues, we don’t know???
1. play a film in theatre view, on the player control top of the screen (using the mouse) click pause, then click play, this sequence breaks (or creates the problem) now press cntrl J and the stats wont appear for madvr. The fix: left click the mouse on the video window and madvr stats ctrl J work. None of this issue happens when we use MC25.
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The transparent player bar at the top should not block focus anymore in the next build.
Im really pleased you have now found the problem Hendrik and I cant wait to test the next build. If I can stay on MC29 rather than MC25 it will be much easier to pop back into JRVR for testing on my large 150" curved scope screen from time to time. ;)
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There was a problem. You were right. I owe you an apology.
This made it easy to find:
That’s ok Jim these things can happen from time to time.
It was getting to me and I did post the break method 7 days ago in post 29 but I just couldn’t get anyone to listen to me...
But if we have the “focus issue fix” on the way that’s the most important thing not only for me but also MC29.
I’ve been with JR for many years now and running my movie shows for my private film club off JRs Playlist feature is truly amazing. It took me years and years to find a prog that would do what I needed, out of the blue I found JR…... My screenings with the JR playlist are no different to how my shows ran for 40 years being a cinema projectionist with 35mm film. I’m a fanatic about presentation and hopefully soon MC29 will work the same as MC25, All the best....
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Myself, Murray and his team have been testing over the weekend to see if we could make a simple scenario showing the focus issue. Murray has a more complicated scenario that always fails but it is not practical for others to try.
Test Procedure: So for testing this is what we landed on as while not 100% repeatable, it shows that something causes MC29 to lose focus at times:
- Boot into MC's Theater View
- Play video
- Pause video
- Press Ctrl+J to see if it will bring up the OSD
- Shutdown Windows, repeat.
Results: This was tested with both JRVR and madVR and the results are consistent regardless of the renderer, but.... only on Murray's setup (I could not replicate the issue on my HTPC at all):
- After a Cold Boot, Cnrl+J will not work some 30% of the time
- Behaviour does not change even if MC is set to autorun or not (eg run MC manually after some time allowing Windows to fully load)
- If Cnrl+J does not work, fully exiting and then restating MC does not fix the issue, you have to do a warm reboot.
Workaround: The workaround is when Cntrl+J is not working, you can Left Click on the image and from then it is fine going forward. In addition it also stays fixed even doing multiple Restarts (warm boots), it is only after cold boots that the issue can arise. We at one point thought it was Windows loading MC too quickly after a Cold Boot and that some services was not yet up (as I've seen this with my Library Server clients sometimes loading faster than the network connection being available)... but Murray tried turning off MC auto starting and manually running MC after a minute but no improvement.
Any Suggestions ?: Murray's AV installer is going to map a button on their RC that will fire off a "Left Click" using event ghost so it is not the end of the world but I've run out of ideas on why MC29 is losing focus but only after a Cold Boot.
Thanks
Nathan
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I can get a Log from Murray if that helps but I'm not sure it will show any details on what has focus.
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I'm not sure if MC's logs show changes in focus? ... but I've written a little util that logs changes to the focus window (attached). Runs in the background and pushes out a timestamp and the name of what grabbed focus to a text file. To exit the util just press "ESC".
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When restarting MC doesn't change the behavior at all, but only a reboot does, you know what that screams to me, right? External interference.
Contrary to these terms existing, a "cold" and "warm" boot are also really not any different to software.
On a technical side, it sounds to me like another window has registered itself as the foreground window, which is a special flag in Windows that retains foreground focus even if some stuff happens.
A fully user-controlled click will override the foreground status from then on.
Why this only happens sometimes, on certain reboots, who knows.
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The keyboard numbers used for these are 3 and 4 which we operate through eventghost. We call these 3 = soft, 4 = sharp.
It seems to me from your comments that many other keys are in fact working, so the problem may be with the Eventghost mapping, or even that 3 and 4 are already assigned for something else on the new MC and so are not getting passed to MadVR. Have you tried mapping those scripts to some other different keys? Also, try directly on the keyboard, skipping eventghost. You can check if keyboard shortcuts are working in MadVR by testing a known key function, like CTLR+J. If that works but 3 and 4 don't, then it's likely that changing the keys will fix it.
Also, check numlock :D
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By the way, I assume you checked the MadVR config from within MC via "open MadVR settings" ?
Upgrading MC would also have upgraded MadVR, possibly resetting your configuration.
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Thanks Hendrik, and to make it more confusing…. Murray has both MC25 and MC29 on the same HTPC and it is only MC29 getting these focus problems.
The good news is that with more testing (since the last post) on MC29 the issue does not appear if:
- Windows Start Up --> Run on Windows Startup = Media Center
- Startup Interface --> Mode = Standard View
- & he then manually switches to Theater View
The focus issue only occurs when the Startup Interface = TheaterView
@zybex, the aim of the testing on the weekend was he was trying to find a simple, repeatable use case where focus is lost that did not rely on madVR or Eventghost. Murray was able to replicate the loss of focus regardless of it if was madVR or JRVR and can do so with just using Cntrl+J from a keyboard using the method described. I could not replicate it at my end so it is something unique.
Anyway, he has now narrowed it down to the start-up behaviour going straight into Theaterview.... but it might be the Interaction on getting MC from StdView to TheaterView solves the focus issue. Likewise a simple Left Click also fixes it.
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I assume you have the on-screen instructions turned off, eg. Settings -> General -> Show on screen Instructions? If not, try turning them off, they can be a bit icky, and anyone that used it for 5 minutes will know how it works anyway.
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Thanks - I learnt something today (how to turn them off)! +1
Murray checked and "Show on screen Instruction" are already off for him. Unless something simple comes to mind, he's also pretty comfortable with the boot into Std View then run up Theater View as they already have a button for that and it seems to address the issue.
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@zybex, the aim of the testing on the weekend was he was trying to find a simple, repeatable use case where focus is lost that did not rely on madVR or Eventghost. Murray was able to replicate the loss of focus regardless of it if was madVR or JRVR and can do so with just using Cntrl+J from a keyboard using the method described. I could not replicate it at my end so it is something unique.
OK, thanks. So any other app may be taking focus. Last time this happened to me it was just a Windows notification taking the focus from MPC-HC (icon was white, saying there was some notification pending). Once I dismissed the notification, focus started working fine again. There's also a setting on Windows about "focus mode" to prevent notifications from interfering, but I'm not sure if it handles this case.
I'd suggest closing all other apps, one by one, to see which one may be causing the issue. Even closing Windows Explorer is a valid test (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+Right-click on the Explorer bar, Exit Explorer; better open a 'cmd' prompt before doing that, so that you can then type 'explorer' to restart it).
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Any easy way to see the issue when its broken, you cant bring up the stats for madvr pressing ctrl J, things work if you left click then ctrl J will display the stats.
I will join this conversation by saying that I am also getting sometimes a similar behavior while watching a movie which was started from Theater View with JRVR (and by now I know it's not the Theater View window which is used to play the movie, but the Display View window):
- I can press Enter to pause/resume the video, the left and right arrow keys to skip forward or back, the up or down arrow keys to display the OSD menu, etc
- but if I press Ctrl+J to display the JRVR OSD, no OSD is displayed
And yes, I also have Startup Interface = TheaterView.
My experience would suggest that it's not an issue of the MC window(s) losing focus (as Windows would not keep sending the key press events to MC in that case), but some issue with the event processing in your window(s ?) event loop.
I have no idea what triggers this, but it does happen randomly.
I only started using MC with v28 last year in November, and it had the same behavior, it's not new to v29.
As a slight oddity: did you know that you have MCC command 24011 mapped to the Ctrl+J shortcut in your default Resources.xml? According to the wiki, the 24011 command (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands#Help) is the "MCC_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES" command. Maybe your event loop is sometimes eating the Ctrl+J to run the check for updates, while some other times it's not and the event is left alone to reach another handler that shows the JRVR OSD?
Later than usual edit: You might not experience this odd behavior if you are using some internal builds of MC with check for updates feature disabled! :)