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[Gaseous Clay]

I am running Windows 7 x64 with the hiFace USB-SPDIF converter feeding coax digital to my outboard DAC (Lavry DA-10).  Media Center (both versions 15 and 16) has been abruptly crashing on my computer whenever it is open, after varying amounts of time (anything from 5 minutes to 30 minutes or so).  There is no specific error message--other than "Media Center 16 has stopped working".  It crashes whether music is playing or not.  I'm not using MC to watch videos.

I've tried the following output modes:  Direct Sound, Kernel Streaming, WASAPI, and WASAPI Event Style.  MC has crashed under all of these modes.  I have the latest driver for my hiFace, and I'm able to play music using WASAPI on Foobar without any problems. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do to try and fix this?  I really love MC's interface and features, but the program has been basically useless to me due to the constant crashes.  Thanks in advance for any help!

Here's my system info:

Media Center 16.0.121.0 Registered -- C:\Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 16\

 Workstation 6.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Intel Core 2 2398 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 4194 MB, Free - 1551 MB

Internet Explorer: 9.0.8112.16421 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.7601 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.1.7601 / Shell32.dll: 6.1.7601 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive I:   Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 100
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive I: _NEC     DVD_RW ND-2510A    Addr: 0:0:0  Speed:8  MaxSpeed:8  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:


Interface Plugins:
  TiVo Server (Active)

[JimH]

That's not good.  Please try the link called "Stability" from my signature.

Disable any third party plug-ins.

[Gaseous Clay]

How can I determine which plugins are 3rd-party?  As far as I can tell, I haven't installed any 3rd party plugins.  The only installed plugins seem to be default JRiver Media Center plugins, like the encoders for audio formats and the output plugins.

I should add that I didn't notice this crashing problem until around a month into my use of MC15.  I don't remember making any major changes or installing any software that would obviously conflict, but since that time MC has been unstable for me in every build and version.

[JimH]

If you haven't installed any, you don't have any.

Try updating the drivers for video and sound.

[Matt]

What do you see as an error or webpage when it crashes?

Do you have your license installed?

Use Help > Logging and look for the word "crashing" in the previous log.  Post the results here if you log a crash.

Thanks.

[Gaseous Clay]

Well, I disabled auto-import of library files, and MC hasn't crashed for over an hour now.  I'm logging now, and if it still crashes I'll post my log and try reinstalling my license. 

I just never would've guessed that the auto-import feature could be causing the problem; it seems like a basic MC feature.  I'll report back later to confirm.  Does anyone know why the auto-import can cause crashing?

BTW I don't get a specific error message, just the standard Windows 7 crash message that the program has stopped working. 

Thanks for your prompt and helpful replies!

[kensn]

I would suspect a corrupt file. You may try to manually import some files and see if you can find the one(s) it is crashing on....

Ken

[glynor]

I would suspect a corrupt file. You may try to manually import some files and see if you can find the one(s) it is crashing on....

Yep.

The Logging should be able to help you track it down.

Startup logging (you can uncheck some of the clearly-unrelated loggers like Handheld, Store, and Podcast if you want to make the logfile easier for you to look through, but be careful and when-in-doubt at all leave it enabled).  If you already had logging enabled, it will probably help to clear the log right before you start.  Then, force it to do an Auto-Import Scan (Tools -> Import -> Run Auto Import Now).  When it crashes, you can either:

1. Find the "Log.txt" file in your C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 16 folder
2. Reopen MC and go to Help -> Logging -> View Previous Log

Start looking down near the bottom, and check out the files it was working on, and those "near" them, in the file system and you'll likely find your culprit(s).  MC's Importer is multithreaded though, and it'll be working on more than one file at a time, so scan back from the "end" of the log a little ways and take note of a few of the different files mentioned.  The log may clearly indicate which thread crashed, and then it should be easy to figure out.  But it may also happen just as MC looks at the file for the first time, which means it won't be one of the files listed, but the "next" one in the queue after it finished one of the files listed (which is why I said to check out the ones "near" it).

When you find the files, often it will be fairly obvious.  They might have zero file sizes, or unusually small/large file sizes for their "category".  Or look for files that Windows doesn't "thumbnail" like the rest.

If you find your broken ones and you're not 100% on the source of them, it might not be a bad idea to check them for viruses before you delete them.  Probably not, but you never know.

[Gaseous Clay]

Thanks a lot for the input, everyone.  I turned auto-import back on, and when it crashed I looked at the files it was working on near the time of the crash.  Most of the files were ones that I had added recently (a few months ago), and I've been experiencing these crashes months before I added those files.  So I'm not sure if it's those specific files or a particular type of files that MC is having problems importing, or if auto-import just doesn't work well on my system.

Is there a particular value or message that I might see near the corrupt file to help narrow it down?  It seems to have finished importing the last file in the log before the crash.  These are the last 2 messages before the log ends:

0327509: 8868: General: TopLevelExceptionFilter: Unhandled exception -- program crashing
0327509: 8868: General: TopLevelExceptionFilter: Message: 0, wParam: 0, lParam: 0, Window class:

I'm just glad that I seem to have found the problem and I'll manually import from now on.  Thanks again!

[JimH]

It may be a bad DirectShow filter for a particular filetype.

You can edit autoimport folders to set the filetypes you want. 

[Gaseous Clay]

Ok, MC seems to be stable now with auto-import off.  I've run it overnight twice with no crashing.  Thanks for everyone's help, now I can go back to enjoying this great program.

[Gaseous Clay]

So it seems that I CAN use auto-import without crashing MC, by unchecking the "analyze audio" option.  Just a suggestion for anyone experiencing the same random crashing problems I was.

Anyone know why the "analyze audio" task might be causing the crashes?  What exactly does that option do?