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Author Topic: Race conditions and multi-threading  (Read 920 times)

Laird_Williams

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Race conditions and multi-threading
« on: December 02, 2002, 09:56:19 am »

Hi folks,

 I am running MC9.0.84 on a dual-processor rig with Windows XP Pro. Before you rush off and say "we don't care about duallies, there aren't enough of you out there to care about" - remember that the current SOTA processors from Intel do hyperthreading, and hyperthreading has the same effects as running multiple processors. You really ought to care about that market.

Most of the time, everything works fine. However, there are a couple of apparent race conditions.

 1) Sometimes, when I insert a new CD, It will be scanned for tracks twice - and all the tracks will show up twice. Attempts to play or rip while the symptoms persist results in the program crashing. Simply clicking on another spot in the tree view and then clicking back on to the CD in the tree view makes all well and I can play or rip as I see fit.

 2) While ripping - if I insert a new CD before acknowledging the completion of the previous ripping session, I get all sorts of problems (program crashes, etc.)- even if I acknowledge the session completion immediately after inserting the CD. I have to be quite disciplined about this in order to keep the program up and running.

 On a hunch I briefly put the same build on my kids PC (single processor) and these problems did NOT appear - even when I tried to make them do so. (I removed it from there...I just wanted to experiment)

Also...if you are going to force an acknowledgement or notification dialog to the top of ALL of the open applications, then you should also force the focus onto that dialog. In general, however, you should only be putting it on the top of your application, and not the entire desktop. If I have another program in the foreground when ripping completes, the notification pops up over that window, but the focus remains in the "invaded" application. This is clearly a bug.

Thanks.
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RemyJ

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Re: Race conditions and multi-threading
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2002, 03:45:33 pm »

I'm running 2 dual proc systems with MJ, so I care.   ;D

The problems you describe might be related to that specific installation though, and not necessarily multi-threading.  

There are 2 things you can do to isolate this...

1.  Start Media Jukebox, then in the task manager, select the entry for Media Jukebox, right click and take "Set Affinity...", then de-select all but "CPU 0".

2.  Boot the machine in single CPU mode.  You can do this by editing your boot.ini file, copying the normal boot entry and adding the parameter "/numproc=1" to the end of the entry.   Reboot and select this entry when prompted.   Don't try this if you're not comfortable editing the boot.ini file or not comfortable using the recovery procedures if it gets messed up.

Of course, you could just pop out CPU 1 and try it but that's usually a lot of work.

Either way, try to recreate the problems.  If they still happen, it's not related to the dual proc setup.  



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