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[patented_licks]

I try to open a new tab in MC 24, and get a stupid message about loading Chromium before having to end the task because it is practically crashing the machine. If I let the program run for 20 minutes, the new tab is never created, as the Chromium crap never completes. Nice work, guys. How do I open a new tab without the program going nuts? This problem does not occur in version 23, but even in 23, the situation was less than ideal, as there was some hinky network requirement to open a tab. Why not let a user open a new tab without the brouhaha?

[patented_licks]

Unsurprisingly, you cannot open a new tab in 24 until you have Google Chrome installed; how brilliant. Once you install this browser you don't want, opening a new tab results in "can't reach this page." The test team for MC is hitting on all cylinders. Did it ever occur to the design team that a user just might want a new tab for internal program use, or is Google whoredom somehow de rigueur?

[Spike1000]

I take it you aren't aware that  "Chromium" and "Goggle Chrome" aren't the same application? Despite your protests you do not need to install "Goggle Chrome" to run MC24. MC24 does use/can use Chromium as it's internal browser; maybe yours was missing/corrupt/being or upgraded/downloaded in the background.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=chromium+jriver

Spike

[Awesome Donkey]

MC uses the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), which is indeed downloaded in the background when it's needed. Sounds like to me that could be failing for some reason (firewall?).

Installing Google Chrome isn't necessary (nor would it work). The CEF instance MC uses is separate from any installed Chrome/Chromium instances.

[JimH]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=chromium+jriver

Thanks for a good laugh.  Maybe we should make that a sticky  post.

[Negasonic]

To OP: Try this, open up the Options window, click on 'Tree & View' and under 'Web Browser' change Enginge from Chromium to Internet Explorer. Had the same issue, but that solved it. (This was on MC 24. In MC 22 I still have it on Chromium and have no issues opening a new tab)

[lepa]

Problem is real though. I've also encountered this when I first installed MC24. For some reason MC couldn't download chromium plugin (my internet connection was fine) and every time I tried to open tab my whole computer was unusable while MC was trying to download chromium. If I remember correct MC stealed focus repeatly and only by ctrl-alt-del>task manager>kill MC I was able to get computer in control. Eventually after many starts downloading succeeded though I think that I had to extract plugin myself before everything was fine and dandy again

[JimH]

Maybe the firewall was blocking the download.

Or antivirus software was causing a problem.

Both of those have to work right before MC has any chance of success.

[lepa]

Maybe the firewall was blocking the download.

Or antivirus software was causing a problem.

Both of those have to work right before MC has any chance of success.

That most probably wasn't the case as it eventually was able to download the file albeit slowly. More probably would be that there were some glitches at time on server where the chromium plugin reside.

However the point is that if downloading of chromium plugin has some problems may it be firewall or server problem or whatever the tab creation shouldn't jam the whole program or even computer. I guess this happens because new tab default page is a net page and no chromium means that page can't be rendered and MC can't handle that situation graciously

[Negasonic]

Problem is real though. I've also encountered this when I first installed MC24. For some reason MC couldn't download chromium plugin (my internet connection was fine) and every time I tried to open tab my whole computer was unusable while MC was trying to download chromium. If I remember correct MC stealed focus repeatly and only by ctrl-alt-del>task manager>kill MC I was able to get computer in control. Eventually after many starts downloading succeeded though I think that I had to extract plugin myself before everything was fine and dandy again

I think this is what happened to me as well before I could get it to work on MC22.

I'm trying again now with 24, been a little over an hour with no visible progress, have to type this on my tablet since... a certain program has hijacked my computer.  Will see how it goes.

After installing MC and starting it for the first time, isn't this webpage (the one showing when you open a new tab) displayed in the beginning as well? Before you can set up anything? Or did I imagine that?

[JimH]

I'm trying again now with 24, been a little over an hour with no visible progress, have to type this on my tablet since... a certain program has hijacked my computer.  Will see how it goes.

Firewall?  Antivirus?

[patented_licks]

Now that this post has suffered the ridicule of idiots, let me repeat what Iepa stated: the "problem is real." Further, the installation of Google Chrome made a difference. If there was a firewall problem, or any kind of problem, it does not excuse the odious behavior of MC 24 in opening a new tab. The stupidest thing about all the replies is the denial that the problem is MC 24.

[patented_licks]

One more thing. Negasonic hit the nail on the head constructively with his advice: "click on 'Tree & View' and under 'Web Browser' change Enginge from Chromium to Internet Explorer." Yes, that solves the problem, and highlights the negligence of not relying upon an already-installed component in the system as opposed to having to download an alien software package that has caused many people problems. Thoughtless software design, and poor testing, plain and simple, in the assumption that everything works.

[lepa]

Now that this post has suffered the ridicule of idiots, let me repeat what Iepa stated: the "problem is real." Further, the installation of Google Chrome made a difference. If there was a firewall problem, or any kind of problem, it does not excuse the odious behavior of MC 24 in opening a new tab. The stupidest thing about all the replies is the denial that the problem is MC 24.

Still more polite approach could lead to better results.

Antivirus/firewall programs are in most cases a good place to start whenever there are problems with network access even though that IMO is not the case here. This isn't a problem for a first time user as I assume that IE engine is the default for fresh databases and I guess it doesn't need a downloadable plugin.

For upgraders though who have changed to chromium engine this problem occurs if MC isn't able to get the plugin and IMO again this should be fixed for example to by forcing IE engine to be used if chromium isn't available and download doesn't succeed

[Negasonic]

Firewall?  Antivirus?

Only Windows Defender. But as lepa wrote, I don't think this particular issue is caused by Firewall/Antivirus.

As of writing this, Chromium is once again working for me on MC 24.0.26 (Non Registered Version)

Yesterday I let the "Please Wait... Adding required components: Chromium" pop-up window remain on screen when I went to bed. This morning, seven hours later, it was still there. Had to be terminated through Task Manager. I re-tried it several times. I checked the Event Viewer but there was nothing there. I completely turned off Defender. Still the same results. The "Please Wait..." window would come up and never go away. Clicking Cancel on it did nothing.

I re-installed MC twice and re-imported my library but was met with the same results.

I decided to re-install once again and see how MC behaved right after install, before importing my library and also to make a detailed list of every thing I did while trying to get this to work. Windows Defender is untouched, no other changes in Windows have been made.


Detailed list of me messing about:

1. I run the  MC 24.0.20 install exe as administrator and after installation the program starts up. (This version was working with Chromium for me before I uninstalled it and later installed 24.0.26 instead, so I decided to try this earlier version. Just in case.)

2. On screen I am greeted by the "Welcome to JRiver..." message.

3. The first thing I do is to check 'Options/Tree & View/Web Browser/Engine'. It is set to Internet Explorer. I change the Engine from IE to Chromium. I click OK. The "Welcome..." message seems to reload and is displayed again (all in all a 1 second process)

4. I click on a new tab. The "Please Wait... Adding required components: Chromium" pop-up pop-ups and remains. Minutes pass. It remains on top of everything even if I switch to another program or desktop.

5. After a smoke and about 15 minutes of blank staring at the screen, a slight case of boredom overwhelm me, so I click Cancel on the "Please Wait..." window, and to my surprise, it actually cancels and disappears (!). I have never seen this before. My heart skipped a beat.

6. On my screen now, the new tab that I previously clicked on is properly displayed, that is - I now have two tabs both showing the "Welcome..." message.

7. I click on a third tab. "Please Wait..." pop ups. And remains. This time I decide to click Cancel after 15 seconds. Pop-up disappears and I now have a third tab displaying the "Welcome..." message.

8. Time to get really adventurous, so with the newly created third tab displayed I click on 'Streaming' followed by a click on 'Youtube' in the Tree. I am once again greeted with a blank screen and the "Please Wait..." pop-up. After 5 seconds I click Cancel and it disappears and the screen is filled with the Youtube "enviroment". I did not test if I could watch a YouTube video.

9. Still within the same tab I clicked on 'Google Video'. Same thing happened here as when I clicked on 'YouTube'.

10. I clicked 'YouTube' again and "Please Wait..." pops up. I leave it be and indulge myself with other activities for about 10 minutes. When I return to the screen, the pop-up has disappeared by itself.

11. I clicked 'Google Video' again and the same thing repeated here, I left the pop-up alone, took a break and returned about 30 minutes later. The pop-up was gone.

12. Now... when I click between 'YouTube', 'Google Videos' or any of the other choices in the Streaming Category, the "Please Wait..." pop-up do no longer appear.  Clicking on a new tab instantly opens it up with "Welcome..." message.

13. I guess, at this point, Chromium has been fully downloaded. I test to play a mkv video and it loads right away with no additional downloading. Great! I'm set to go!

14. I notice now that all my custom library views are displayed in the tree even though I have not done a restoration of the library yet.  Not sure if it picked up those automatically from somewhere?

15. Anyway... I decide to go to 'Library/Restore Library' and do exactly that... restore the last saved library backup. MC tells me it has to restart, so it shuts down and... with the desktop now displayed on my screen, there is also a small "Please Wait... Adding required components: Chromium" on top of it! (GASP!) The difference was that the sun/flower downloading type animation on it was frozen. Clicking on the window gave me the message that MC has stopped working and I chose to close it down. After doing that, MC started up automatically again and it was time to test the functionality.

16. I began with playing the mkv file I previously tested. Once again it needed to download "Chromium" (no pop-up, just message on top of movie), so I let it do that. It took a couple of minutes and then the movie started to play.

17. I then (from within the same tab that displays my movies) decided to click on 'Streaming/YouTube'. "Please Wait... adding Chromium" pops up again. And I wait. I take a 15 minute break and comes back to the pop-up being gone and 'YouTube' properly displayed. After that, clicking on any of the other choices under 'Streaming' makes them appear right away without any "Please Wait..." messages. Same thing with clicking on a new tab. And a new. And a new. No problems.

18. Finally, I update MC to latest version 24.0.26. Everything seems ok.


Nothing revolutionary, I guess, but maybe some useful information can be found.

[Awesome Donkey]

This could very well be caused by the Windows Firewall. Likely not related but as far as I know, currently the exceptions MC adds to the Windows Firewall are for public networks and not private networks, which is causing other issues for things like getting remotes working correctly with MC.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,115652.0.html

I'd make double sure Media Center 24.exe and perhaps JRWeb.exe and/or JRWorker.exe have full access to the Internet in Windows Firewall's configuration options. I can't recall which process handles downloading of additional components MC might need but I think it's one of those. You might try creating outbound rules for Media Center 24.exe too as a test and see if that helps.

Question for the devs while I'm thinking out loud... would it be possible to have a download progress bar added to the additional component dialog? And/or perhaps some sort of timeout if the download fails?

[JimH]

Only Windows Defender. But as lepa wrote, I don't think this particular issue is caused by Firewall/Antivirus.

See if you can eliminate that.  It's not a safe assumption.  There is a Windows Defender thread here.

[Gl3nn]

I can confirm that this happened for me too, sometime last year (?) in MC23.  I, fortunately, remembered the 'web browser' option, switched to IE, and everything was fine.  I can say that the issue appeared suddenly one day, with no meaningful change by me anywhere else on the machine (I don't do auto updates).

Anyway, what I wanted to ask is... would it be possible to have an option of specifying WHERE new tabs could open?  Like a specific part of the Tree?  Or, let's say, the same location as the tab immediately to the left?  (Directory Opus does this).

Thanks.

[JohnT]

Now that this post has suffered the ridicule of idiots,

Well, what do you expect when you come in with guns blazing?

"click on 'Tree & View' and under 'Web Browser' change Enginge from Chromium to Internet Explorer." Yes, that solves the problem, and highlights the negligence of not relying upon an already-installed component in the system as opposed to having to download an alien software package that has caused many people problems

By default, Media Center uses the built in IE engine for it's internal browser so nothing needs to be be downloaded/installed upon opening a new tab.  Sometime in the past you must have selected to use "Chromium" in the Tree & View settings.  We like to support our users' preferences which is why we added the Chromium option in the first place.  We didn't do it to piss anyone off.  Normally it's about a 10 second download from Amazon S3, and it's only done the first time you use Chromium and then whenever we create a new version for security updates (about once per year).  So it's generally not a big deal.  I can't say why the download wasn't working for you, I believe that it's a rare problem.  I just tested now and it was working fine.

[Negasonic]

Amazon S3

Hmm... 

I'm only hmm'ing because it reminded me of something. The only other time (that I know of) where I was downloading something from Amazon was through a computer game called Pro-Pinball Ultra (on Steam), which had this weird setup where you had to download the background graphics separately through the game's interface. A couple of players experienced extremely bad download speeds (I was one among them). Download speed was like a byte or two per second. I remember the download timer informing me it would be finished in a hundred years or something. If you were lucky and the download wasn't interrupted, that is. The developer for the game posted on their forum and provided direct download links to the files with instructions how to install them. Using the links provided, the files downloaded in a couple of minutes. These files were hosted by Amazon.

This also only affected a small (?) group of people, while most (?) people had no issues at all.
Just some food for thought.
Or something.

[JimH]

MC uses the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), which is indeed downloaded in the background when it's needed. Sounds like to me that could be failing for some reason (firewall?).

Installing Google Chrome isn't necessary (nor would it work). The CEF instance MC uses is separate from any installed Chrome/Chromium instances.

I just ran across these reports of problems with Win10 1803.  Possibly the same problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8gf68w/chrome_freezes_windows_after_april_update/

Also manifests itself as a video driver problem.