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[wburkett]

I'm wondering if anyone else is having trouble with this.  I'm finding that during playback, I'm getting electronic-buzz audio interruptions when hitting web sites using Chrome.  My music library is on a local hard drive and my playback is on speakers connected to the main box.  MC and Chrome are open at the same time.  When I open a new Chrome tab or click a link to go open a new page, I get the buzz interruptions.  Anyone have any idea what's happening?  (I haven't experimented to see if other apps interrupt playback.)

Thx - Bill

[Matt]

I certainly don't get this, but you might try increasing the audio buffer size in Options > Audio > Device settings.

[DoubtingThomas]

I've seen this issue using Firefox with lots of open tabs and scrolling...  with WindowsDefender/MicrosoftSecurityEssentials running.

Usually it would take days before the issues started and a reboot would fix it for a few days.  So I scheduled WD/MSE to stop and restart daily... problem solved.  Until Microsoft took away the ability to shutdown WD/MSE from a script, so I scheduled a daily reboot which again solved the issue for me.

While I am still doing an automated reboot every day (early morning), I think I tested this again after upgrading to Windows10 and the issue was solved.

It took me a long time to find the trigger (WD/MSE running for many days).

So, does the issue happen all the time?  Are you running WindowsDefender or MicrosoftSecurityEssentials?  Are you running Windows 10?

This was a long time ago, so my memory may be wrong, but I have a vague memory of setting playback from memory solving the issue too.  Worth a try.

Good luck... when I had a similar issue it was very annoying.

This might help...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59224.0

[wburkett]

Thanks, Thomas, Matt --

I'm not running WB/MSE unless it's running in the background and I don't know it.

Changing the buffer size had no effect, Matt.

The problem has been particularly bad this morning, so I came back here to check on the status of the thread.  I'll try a reboot and see if the problem disappears and, if so, for how long.  I do often have a lot of apps open, and a lot of chrome tabs open.  I'll also go weeks without rebooting (a habit I'm trying to change.)

fwiw: I have a SSD for my C: drive, but all my data and my music are on secondary physical hard drives - I don't know if this matters.

Also, here's something interesting:  I'll experience problems playing directly on my main computer, but I never experience the problem playing through Eos or Gizmo through the JMRC server - even though the main computer is the same state (#apps, #tabs open).  

Bill

Addendum: I'm experiencing the audio interruptions with streaming audio/video, too - suggesting it's a system/resource problem - not a MC problem..

[ssranch]

Hi. I am also getting buzzing during playback. 

The problem is definitely related to high CPU load. That said, I can play a BluRay or do almost anything else without having audio artifacts, so it would seem that this is something that could be fixed. My system is an Intel i7, 8 cores, 16G running Win8/64. I am often running large background applications, and when the CPU is loaded, even moving the mouse between windows will cause my audio to be interrupted with a loud BZZZ. Quite annoying, especially once or twice per song. 

While I am not a JR MediaCenter expert, I have run several tests and not found a solution, other than only using MC on a quiescent system. I had thought the problem was from spooling my audio files from my network, though the library was local. But I moved some of the audio files to my local disk, and the problem remains. I tried setting "play files from memory", "prebuffering" to 10 seconds, device settings\buffering to 1 second. I tried setting Windows advanced settings, performance to give preference to background (also foreground) services. None of these made an appreciable difference. The problem has persisted since MC 19, but I hadn't really given much attention to investigating the problem until now.

Any suggestions for settings I haven't mentioned?

Thanks
David

[blgentry]

Are you using an on-board sound card?  These types of noise problems are more common with internal sound cards, and with on-motherboard sound cards.

Brian.

[ssranch]

Yes, I am using the onboard NVIDIA High Definition Audio.

[JimH]

There were some sound problems with NVIDIA a few months ago.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.msg709509#msg709509

[blgentry]

If you have any way of using a different sound device, that would be a good test.  In particular, an external sound card (DAC) that plugs in via USB, toslink, or coax would be great to try.

Even a different internal sound card would be worth testing.

Brian.

[ddow]

Thanks for following up.

I see problems that are fixed by reinstalling the video driver. I've kept up to date with the video driver, so it has been installed several times over the last couple years when the problem has been occurring. However, I just installed the latest and it does not fix the problem.

I see further down the list, buzzing related to Windows Defender - I don't use Windows Defender.

I decided to try a USB sound card. It has been ordered and will be here any day. I'll report back the results.

Thanks for the ideas.

[ddow]

Hello again.  I installed this USB sound card:

 http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01AGB375M

It changed the character of the interruptions, but did not fix the problem. Instead of a buzzing sound, it is now more of a staccato. The sound will just drop for a moment. Sometimes it a single drop of maybe a second, other times it stutters on and off for a couple seconds. It seems to be associated with some active window movement; probably a series of interrupts to the OS while the CPU is otherwise busy.

Windows media player does not do this, though of course it has its own set of issues; not the least of which is that nobody cares about the issues!

I know how to prevent the problem; shut down my CPU intensive programs while using Media Center. But that kind of defeats the use of Media Center while I'm working.

Let me know if anyone has any other ideas to try.
Thanks for your help.

[JimH]

If WMP works, take a look at its settings and use the same in MC.

Look at the Windows settings in Control Panel > Sounds and try the tests there.

What version of MC are you using?

[ddow]

I'm at 21.0.83

I'll see about the WMP settings.

Thanks

Dave