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[jasonm17]

Hello.  I am running the latest version of MC through a mini PC connected via USB to a Marantz DAC.  Everything works perfectly until I power down the Marantz DAC.  MC stops playing.  I am trying to do this as a headless setup, so this poses an issue.  Is there a way for MC to continue playing when a DAC is not present?  Ideally I want to power up the DAC and have MC play without the need for a monitor each time.   Any help appreciated.

[jsolo53]

My setup does the same thing, MC won't stream to Player unless the dac is powered on.  I use an Oppo bdp-105 as dac, connected to my htpc via usb.  My guess is that the driver for the oppo dac won't let MC stream to the dac without 'hearing' from the dac that it is online.  MC will stream to Player if a different driver is selected in MC - Tools - Options - Audio Device.
 MC will stream to other 'destinations' on my lan with the dac powered down.  And jremote can access and play files with the dac off.  It hasn't been much of a problem for me because in order to listen to music files on my main setup the dac has to be on.

Which driver do you use? 

[RoderickGI]

Windows Mini PC?

If the audio device on Windows disappears, which I'm sure it would when you turn off the DAC, then of course MC can't play to it. It can't even see it anymore. If MC can't see it, it is going to stop playback. MC isn't going to start playback again just because you turn on the DAC and the audio device re-appears. In fact MC will switch to another available audio device when the one it is using disappears, I think. You could probably use Zoneswitch to have MC switch back to the DAC when you start playback again, though that would need to be tested, as a disappearing audio device may cause issues with that.

Nor is it going to keeping playing to a non-existent audio device while it isn't there, only to be heard again when you turn on the DAC. Is that really what you want, as you say? I guess maybe it would be useful if you were playing Radio Paradise or some other internet stream, but probably not if playing a Playlist and you own tracks.

The answer is to Stop playback before turning off the DAC, and then use a Remote such as Gizmo, JRemote for iOS, JRemote2 for Android, MO 4Media, etc. to restart playback on the DAC audio device when it appears again in MC. Again, Zoneswitch could be used to have MC switch to the DAC when playback starts.

[AndrewFG]

If the DAC and the PC both have HDMI, then you could try using that instead of USB. (In general Windows won’t “lose” an HDMI output if the downstream device goes away..)