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Author Topic: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)  (Read 2094 times)

glynor

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Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« on: September 25, 2007, 04:01:21 pm »

Over the past few weeks, while on vacation and with family up visiting, I had the opportunity to use MC in a number of atypical ways (for me, probably not for others).

Throughout the experience, I've had two major complaints from myself and from others using MC.  The first of these is that MC seems to like to pop up error dialogs, even during file playback.  These pop-up dialogs must be actively dismissed with a mouse (and sometimes the focus seems to get messed up so simply hitting OK on the remote doesn't work), and do not time out and disappear on their own, and aren't always very important.  Certainly not important enough to pop up and distract us in the middle of an intense scene in a movie!  One time, my poor 2 1/2 year old niece was trying to watch Cinderella (which she REALLY loves) while we were all working on a project, and I didn't realize that the error message was up until the poor kid was 1/2 way through the movie.  (The second issue I'll address in a separate thread.)

The one I see the most often is the "tagging failed" message.  The files that fail have been 100% of the time Podcasts that MC was downloading itself.  I'll assume the downloads were interrupted (because my wireless connection failed, or I quit MC, or whatever) before enough of the file was written to be used.  Who knows... I always just delete the offending file.  Either way, this is obnoxious for two reasons:

(1) Already explained, pops up unprompted and disturbs my video, photo slideshow, or visualization.  In fact, quite often I get more than one of these, minutes apart.  I dismiss one, it goes away, and then 1-2 minutes later (just as I'm satisfied that everything is right again with the world) another one appears!  Boo!!
(2) The error dialog is entirely useless!  It doesn't allow me to delete the offending file, it doesn't allow me to find out what is wrong with the file, it just says "this didn't work" and waits for me to say "OK".  Double BOO!!

There are other occasional error messages that pop up as well (I can't think of them right now but I'm sure one will come up sometime this week), which are equally unimportant.  They are all things that it would be valuable to know about, but there is certainly no need to know so urgently that it should interrupt playback!

Can't we come up with a better way to alert users of problems like these without disturbing playback?  I think the only time a "must-dismiss-with OK" error message should come up, at least while files are actively playing back, is when the error is extremely critical (playback failed or MC crashed). Otherwise, I recommend this:

My top choice would be to do a tooltip error messages in the Notification Area (task tray), just like Windows does for Windows Updates messages, device connects and disconnects, and even things like Delayed Write failures.  The tooltip would be "attached" to a MC error tray icon (whatever icon you want -- I'd use the MC icon with a red, circled X over part of it), and the tooltip should fade after a standard delay.  The errors should NOT exit you out of Full Screen playback, or disturb Full Screen playback in any way, other than possibly a tooltip sound.  However, once the error has occurred, leave the error icon there in the Notification Area until the user dismisses it.  Clicking on the tooltip (or error icon after the tooltip fades) should bring up a dialog where you can actually attempt to resolve the issue (delete or locate external the offending file, etc) or at least get more details about the issue.

I really think this would be the best solution.  It is the error methodology used by many applications nowadays, and it is the least obtrusive method for non-critical errors.

If this doesn't work for whatever reason, I do have some alternatives:

A) Do much the same thing in the Action Window area.  Don't disturb playback, but open a new "error" AW.
B) At the very least, put an auto-dismiss timer and a "don't show these" checkbox on the dialogs, if you insist on keeping them.
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JimH

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2007, 04:10:37 pm »

Do you remember what the errors were?
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gappie

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2007, 04:16:14 pm »

yes. the least would be pop-under.

Quote
A) Do much the same thing in the Action Window area.  Don't disturb playback, but open a new "error" AW.
i really like this suggestion. maybe with a small log to see the errors from before. when a balloon opens the changes ill read and remember it are as big as with pop-up, ill try to get them out of the way as quick as possible, when watching a movie.
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glynor

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2007, 04:23:03 pm »

I don't remember the exact errors, but the tagging one is something like:

Saving tags to "c:\blah\bleh\podcasts\stupid broken file.mp3" failed.  OK?

I also thought I'd mention, my other issue was posted here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42680.0  I thought it was more appropriate for the general forum.

I'm sure I'll see some soon and I can give specifics, since I'll be having some people over tonight.
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glynor

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2007, 01:29:00 pm »

Finally got one of the Podcast tagging errors that popped up while I was able to actually grab the log.

I also got a couple over the weekend which came up while I was trying to watch video (causing my wife to curse "at the dog").  Of course, when she (or others) are already annoyed because you're trying to watch a movie/show/whatever and some stupid irrelevant error message comes up randomly, it isn't real easy to say "hold on, I need to post the log" so it's taken until now for me to be able to.  It is still extremely annoying that this happens, and I still vote for this solution (or something)...

Either way, here is the log-tail (it's becoming a theme today):

Code: [Select]
0591984: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::ScheduleDownload: Starting worker thread
0592000: 5416: Podcast: Add Downloading Episode: ABC This Week: Adding downloading episode: 1e34a20
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastWorker[65]: Start
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastWorker[65]: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::ScheduleDownload: Finish (594 ms)
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::ScheduleDownload: Start
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::ScheduleDownload: No work found
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::ScheduleDownload: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: Podcast: CPodcastScheduler::Update: Finish (641 ms)
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0592000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0592000: 5416: General: CMCResourceHelper::GetIsModalPopupShowing: Main window disabled
0592016: 5336: Podcast: CPodcastWorker::Thread[CPodcastWorker[65]]: Start
0592031: 5336: Podcast: CPodcastWorker::ReadURLToFile: http://a.media.abcnews.com/podcasts/071104tw_pre.mp3?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381: Start
0592031: 5336: General: CNDownloadQueue::AddFile: Start
0592047: 5336: General: CNDownloadQueue::AddFile: Finish (16 ms)
0592047: 5772: Database: CTagSaveHelper::Thread: Start
0592078: 5772: Database: CTagSaveHelper::Thread: Saving tag: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440044.mp3
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::Open: Start
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Start
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Filename: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440044.mp3
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Start
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Filename: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440044.mp3
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFileMJ: Start
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFileMJ: Finish (0 ms)
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Finish (0 ms)
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::AddFile: Finish (0 ms)
0592078: 5772: Import: JRAnalyzer::Open: Finish (0 ms)
0592078: 5772: Reader: CLocalReader::OpenInternal: Opening: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440044.mp3
0592094: 5772: Reader: CLocalReader::Close: Closing: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440044.mp3
0592109: 5772: Database: CTagSaveHelper::Thread: Done saving tag
0592484: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592484: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0592484: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0592484: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0592484: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0592500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0592500: 5416: General: CNDownloadTask::Begin: Start
0592500: 5416: General: CNDownloadTask::Begin: Finish (0 ms)
0592500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::StartNewThread: started numThreads=2
0592500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (16 ms)
0592500: 1880: General: CNDownloadTask::Thread: Start
0592500: 1880: General: IDownloadFile::PreProcess: Start
0592500: 1880: Service: CServicesPlugins::DownloadNotification: Start
0592500: 1880: Service: CServicesPlugins::DownloadNotification: Finish (0 ms)
0592500: 1880: General: IDownloadFile::PreProcess: Finish (0 ms)
0592500: 1880: General: CNDownloadTask::Thread: attempting download, m_bRetry=0, m_bCancel=0
0592500: 1880: General: CNDownloadTask::DownloadContent: Start
0592500: 1880: General: CNDownloadTask::DownloadContent: m_bRetry=0, file=C:\media\podcast\Episode63440045.mp3
0592500: 1880: Reader: CLocalReader::OpenInternal: Creating: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440045.mp3
0592500: 1880: Reader: CInternetReader::Open: Start
0592500: 1880: Reader: CInternetReader::Open: Opening http://a.media.abcnews.com/podcasts/071104tw_pre.mp3?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381
0592500: 3784: Reader: CInternetReader::Thread: Start
0592500: 3784: Reader: CInternetReader::DownloadFromHTTPURL: Start
0592609: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'M:\music\'
0592625: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'C:\video\final\'
0592625: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'C:\media\'
0592969: 3784: Reader: CInternetReader::DownloadFromHTTPURL: Success
0592969: 3784: Reader: CInternetReader::DownloadFromHTTPURL: Finish (469 ms)
0592969: 3784: Reader: CInternetReader::Thread: Finish (469 ms)
0592969: 1880: Reader: CInternetReader::Open: Finish (469 ms)
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0593000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0593500: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0593609: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Detected change
0593672: 5416: General: CMCResourceHelper::GetIsModalPopupShowing: Main window disabled
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0594000: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0594109: 5772: Database: CTagSaveHelper::Thread: Finish (2062 ms)
0594422: 5416: General: RunProgram: Start
0594422: 5416: General: RunProgram: Filename: C:\Documents and Settings\emr\Application Data\J River\Media Center 12\Log.txt / Parameters:
0594437: 5416: General: RunProgram: Running...
0594437: 5416: General: RunProgram: Finish (15 ms)
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0594531: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0594641: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'M:\music\'
0594641: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'C:\video\final\'
0594641: 4180: Import: CWatchFoldersThread::Thread: Watching folder 'C:\media\'
0595062: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0595062: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: MAIN_THREAD_CREATE_ACTION_WINDOW
0595062: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)
0595078: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Start
0595078: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: start new task
0595078: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: nReentranceCount == 0, starting thread
0595078: 5416: General: CNDownloadQueue::ProcessMainThreadMessage: Finish (0 ms)

I'm pretty certain that in this case the error was generated for the file: C:\media\podcast\Episode63440045.mp3

When I closed MC, that file disappeared (I assume it went into the proper folder or got deleted -- I'm not sure).  Either way, make the pop up error messages stop please!!!
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John Gateley

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2007, 12:58:04 pm »

Hi Glynor, I've found the problem, I'm working on a fix. Maybe the next build or so... -- j

glynor

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2007, 01:09:20 pm »

Hi Glynor, I've found the problem, I'm working on a fix. Maybe the next build or so... -- j

Yippie-kai-ay!  ;D
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John Gateley

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Re: Obnoxious Pop-Up Messages (Tagging XXX File Failed and Others)
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2007, 02:02:10 pm »

Okay - in the next build. It's kind of strange though: I'm not sure why the tagging fails. I'm guessing that the podcast downloader might be missing an error condition and keep going when it shouldn't. Please let me know if you get any podcasts with obvious errors.

Thanks,

j
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