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[Hendrik]

Hi,

i recently setup a new server inside a VM for Gizmo streaming so my main PC can be off at the time, but after import i noticed something odd.
I noticed at first when not being able to seek in Gizmo, but after some checking it seems to be a general problem.

A whole lot of my files got imported without a duration.
Is there any known problem in this area?

My import went through Auto-Import, i just added all the folders into the auto-import path and toggled it.
It affects all file types (avi, mkv, blu-ray rips, mpeg files, in fact 99.9% of all my files), *except* m4v files for some odd reason.

Anything i can do to make MC figure out the duration?
Any ideas?

[Matt]

If you select the files and do Library Tools > Update Library (from tags), does the duration fill in?

What happens if you play a file, then try again (to make sure needed components like LAV are there)?

Also, could you describe the VM a little more (software, host OS, etc.)?

I just tested with VirtualBox and XP, and could not reproduce the problem.

Thanks.

[Hendrik]

Update Library from tags does not help. Duration remains empty.
It did fill in all sorts of other infos in the initial import pass, so its working in general. It has the dimensions, even has a thumbnail - just no duration.

The VM is VirtualBox 4.1.2 on a Linux Host with Windows Server 2008 R2 as Guest (still had the license from MSDNAA back in the day)
A key factor might be that it doesn't have a soundcard, which means playing the file on the server causes it to fail instantly on account of no sound output..

I can try to assign it a virtual sound card later, and see if thats maybe the cause.. would be weird, but what do i know how MC works internally.

[Hendrik]

Sadly i was unable to assign a virtual sound card to the VM, i guess it won't work because my Host doesn't have a sound card.

I did however try something else.
I switched the audio engine to disk writer, and tried to play a file. That worked just fine, and the playback status also showed a duration.
However, the library still did not.

[Matt]

During import, we build a Red October graph and ask IMediaSeeking for the duration.

We use NULL renderers in this case, so I wouldn't expect the presence of a soundcard to matter.

I'm a bit stumped, so we might need to load up Windows 2008 in a VM here.

Would you be willing to do 'Update Library (from tags)' on a few of the videos and then send me a log (Help > Logging)?  I'm matt at jriver dot com.

Thanks.

[Hendrik]

I send you a log file.

Another thing about the server that i didn't mention before is that it runs completely headless.
It doesn't have any graphics card to speak of (some very cheap onboard chip for 2D console rendering), therefor the VM doesn't get any "real" GPU either. All it does is output its image over the RDP link i use to manage it.

I doubt thats really the issue though. It can produce thumbnails just fine, and it even plays the video (although slow and broken due to lack of video performance).
I even see in the Log that the Thumbnail code manages to figure out the duration of the file...

[Matt]

Thanks for the log.

From what I can tell, we're failing to create / add a Null Renderer to the graph (CLSID_NullRenderer).

The whole point of using null renderers was that they should be more compatible and faster than connecting real renderers at import time.

I've never seen this before, so will have to do some digging.

[Hendrik]

That made me check something.

I copied GraphStudio over to the box, and i found something funny.
There is no Null Renderer on that system.

It doesn't come with WMP or anything of that sort, would that maybe cause it?
I can install the W7 Desktop Experience pack, which installs WMP and all those things, maybe it helps.

[Matt]

Looks like we found the problem.  We aren't expecting or handling a case where a null renderer isn't available.

As for the solution, short term it would be good if you could find a way to get a null renderer on that system.

Long term, we may need to write our own null renderer.  It doesn't seem like this would be too hard, since we've made audio and encoding renderers already.

[Hendrik]

Installing the "Desktop Experience" feature helped, it made the Null Renderer available.

Now, how do i re-import my whole library? :d
Ctrl-A and update library from tags ... lets see if it survives that!

[Hendrik]

And it survived, now all my 7000 files have a duration again.

Thanks for the hints how to resolve it.