Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gpvillamil]

I'm using MC9.1.316 and I've noticed some odd problems recently.

First, I get stuttering during playback, which I'd never noticed before.

Second, I get jumpy mouse cursor movement and an unresponsive keyboard when MC is the foremost window. I'm using an Acer IR wireless keyboard with built-in pointing device. The strange thing is that mouse pointer and keyboard will work fine in windows explorer, but as soon as MC is the foreground window, things get really jumpy. Switching out of MC to another program is slow, but as soon as the other program has focus, things go back to normal. This happens regardless of whether MC is playing music or not.

(CD burning is still not working, but I think I'm on the track of a solution)

Media Center 9.1.316 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2593 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1014 MB, Free - 638 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1276 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0002) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0002)

Ripping /   Drive D:   Copy mode:Normal   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive D: PLEXTOR  DVDR   PX-708A     Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:40  MaxSpeed:40  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

Turn off visualizations.  Try uninstalling any third party plug-ins you're using.

The problem may be a side effect of another problem with the PC.

[gpvillamil]

Turned off visualizations. No plug-ins in use. Uninstalled MC and reinstalled. Same problem.

I've noticed a couple of strange things:

1) In the control panel, in Add/Remove programs, there are entries for Media Center 10 and Media Center 9.1. It is impossible to remove the MC10 entry.

2) Whenever there is another dialog on the screen from within MC9.1, cursor movement is fluid. For example, when the Import Media or iPod Sync progress dialog are on screen, everything is fine. It is only on the MC main screen that things are jumpy. This is regardless of where in the tree I'm looking: playing now, media library, etc.

How can I do complete uninstall, getting rid of all traces of MC10 and MC9.1, so that I can do a clean re-install?

[JimH]

I don't think an uninstall would solve it.  It sounds like something is borrowing CPU cycles.  Try killing all other software you can by using the task manager.

[gpvillamil]

Well, that's what I thought too.

However, Task Manager shows nothing using CPU cycles except MC, with some occasional peaks even when idle. I'm thinking maybe something got corrupted in the process of moving from MC9.1 to MC10 and then back to MC9.1 - which is why I have the dual MC9.1 and MC10 entries in Add/Remove programs in the control panel. I'm guessing something broke in the main UI program loop, since having a dialog on screen clears things up?

When I tried uninstalling before, I got a strange message on startup saying something about how "J River couldn't find options.xml" and that I should reinstall under that user account - this was *after* uninstalling the program and rebooting.

[gpvillamil]

Well, I took drastic action. I reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP, and installed MC9.1.316 from scratch. I restored the library from backup, which points to the external hard drive with the music collection.

I still notice a responsiveness problem with the mouse and keyboard, though it is somewhat improved. The most annoying thing is that sometimes MC will miss mouse clicks. For example, I can move the mouse over the "stop" button, it will bring up the tooltip for the button, but then I have to click several times until it actually takes effect.

As before, responsiveness is much better when there is an open dialog on screen.

(On a positive note, CD burning now works!)