Topic: MC19 Audio Sporadically Stopping (Read 6970 times)

SilverLitz · « **on:** October 24, 2014, 12:40:11 pm »

I am running MC 19.0.163 on a HP Z400 workstation with 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processors with 18GB of RAM running 64-bit Win7 Professional with SP1. My DAC is an Audio-gd NFB-28, with VIA32 USB receiver capable of 32/384K, but not DSD. I have installed the Audio-gd drivers and am using VIA DirectKS [ASIO] as my Output Mode. Besides MC19, I will typically have a few large Excel models open and about 20 Chrome web tabs open.

This has been my primary computer since May with little problem, but in the past week music on MC19 will sporadically stop playing for no apparent reason. Sometime it will go for a day without this behavior, but then sometime it would happen within a few minutes. I have observed my computer resources by Windows Task Manager, and I typically have more than 10GB of available RAM unused and my CPU is loafing with 1-30% usage. The CPU has plenty of unused capacity during the audio stoppage episode.

When this happens MC's Play/Pause button does NOT change (remains showing play), but the timer display has stopped, e.g. 2:01 / 5:10. Toggling the Play/Pause does not restart the music (the Play/Pause button will change its display state). Pressing Stop and then Play will restart the music, but before the music plays a loud static pop sounds.

I have tried changing the output mode to WASPI and KS, as well as using MC18 (KS), and these moves do NOT resolve the problems. I have also tried (with no results): PC reboot and disabling High Definition Audio Device on Device Manager (leaving only Audio-gd active).

I have had other non-MC strange audio behavior as well (with MC not playing) : YouTube will often (but not always) be silent when viewed in Chrome, and YouTube in IE audio going silent after initially being OK though the video continues to play. I just noticed the IE YouTube problems today, and it was corrected by sequential pushes from the Pause/Play button.

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** October 24, 2014, 12:49:43 pm »

Quote from: SilverLitz on October 24, 2014, 12:40:11 pm

This has been my primary computer since May with little problem, but in the past week music on MC19 will sporadically stop playing for no apparent reason.

Did you change anything a week or so ago?

SilverLitz · « **Reply #2 on:** October 24, 2014, 04:02:42 pm »

I have not made any significant changes, but within the last week I see that I have had a Java 7 Update 71, Adobe Flash Player 15 Active X, Adobe Reader XI, and NVIDIA updates, in addition to the normal Windows Updates.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #3 on:** October 25, 2014, 09:04:31 am »

After about 30min of non-stop performance, MC had multiple bouts of not even being able to get through a single track without stopping, I uninstalled Java 7 Update 71, Adobe Flash Player 15 Active X, and Adobe Reader XI, and rebooted. Let’s see if that helps.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #4 on:** October 25, 2014, 09:51:40 am »

Uninstalling Java 7 Update 71, Adobe Flash Player 15 Active X, and Adobe Reader XI, and rebooting did NOT help, as MC19 had about 40min of non-stop performance and then stopped midway through the 12 track.

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** October 25, 2014, 10:44:38 am »

Bad tracks, antivirus, or a hardware problem.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #6 on:** October 25, 2014, 12:50:27 pm »

I do not think it is bad tracks, as those track will play later. I have run PC diagnostics and everything checks clean. My AV is Microsoft's Security Essentials and it updates daily. I have run Malwarebytes scans and they come back clean. I am using the same DAC/drivers.

Though in the past week a few Windows Updates have failed: KB2965788, KB2952664, and KB2984981. Other updates were installed, and when I have Windows Update search for new updates, it says there are NO UPDATES AVAILABLE. I have posted this to Microsoft's forum, and have not received any response yet.

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** October 25, 2014, 03:30:26 pm »

If you have malwarebytes installed, uninstall it.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #8 on:** October 26, 2014, 07:22:18 am »

Does Malwarebytes have known conflicts with MC? Malwarebytes has been on the PC for the past 2 months.

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** October 26, 2014, 09:11:37 am »

Uninstall it. That will tell you more than I can.

It isn't an incompatibility. It's bad behavior of antivirus software. Here's a partial list:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86096.msg588759#msg588759

Here's a problem that turned out to be Windowblinds:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91349.msg628397#msg628397

SilverLitz · « **Reply #10 on:** October 28, 2014, 12:33:46 pm »

I uninstalled Malwarebytes and exempted music file types from Microsoft's Security Essentials on Sunday.

MC performed without stopping on limited action on Sun/Mon, only about 5 hours.

Today, through 3 hours of listening, MC has stopped twice. Upon Stop/Play it resumed without the static pop.

Still not where I want it, but MUCH better.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #11 on:** October 30, 2014, 10:33:23 am »

Malwarebytes does NOT seem to be the cause, as the last few days MC19 has stopped a couple times a day. And so far this AM, it has stopped 5 times.

What is the problem with MC19?

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2014, 11:28:17 am »

If it was working previously, and it isn't now, it's very unlikely that it's a problem with MC. Sorry.

Are the files stored on a local drive?

horse · « **Reply #13 on:** October 30, 2014, 11:35:53 am »

SilverLitz. I would check to see if MS updated any of the USB drivers. Especially the VIA chipset ones as I has issues with that particular USB chipset in my workstations and server. Have replaced where ever possible.

I'm running latest MC19 on 2012 R2 server and have no issues although mine is optical to my Denon 4806 CI.

I would also check the power properties of your USB port to ensure it cannot sleep to save power.

Maybe my suggestion is a Red Herring, but based on my experience with VIA USB on a Dual Xeon E5 2697 v2 workstation running Win 7. The VIA drivers turned it into a very expensive room heater that would freeze or BSoD. Disabling the VIA card solved the problem 100 %

Btw a few of the latest updates from MS have had issues due to ridiculous issues. The latest being a failed major update if you moved the "System Tools" folder from its default location in the start menu. As I had due to me keeping a very clean start menu

SilverLitz · « **Reply #14 on:** October 30, 2014, 03:35:55 pm »

My audio files are played from a NAS (ZyXEL 320) connected with CAT6 cable through a Gigabit switch.

It does NOT look like any USB drivers have been updated, as Driver date is from Jun2006. Should I check for newer USB drivers?

My USB power settings do NOT allow computer to turn off to save power (unchecked box).

The Via USB Receiver chip is in my DAC, Audio-gd NFB-28.

horse · « **Reply #15 on:** October 31, 2014, 01:20:44 am »

Hmm, not wanting to add another change/variable I would leave the drivers for now.
Is there anything in the Windows event log to give us a clue?
Still feels like a USB issue, until of course it's proved otherwise

JimH · « **Reply #16 on:** October 31, 2014, 01:50:21 am »

Quote from: SilverLitz on October 30, 2014, 03:35:55 pm

My audio files are played from a NAS (ZyXEL 320) connected with CAT6 cable through a Gigabit switch.

Something in the network connection may be sleeping. Ethernet hardware can do power saving, for example.

Try playing local files, just to test.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #17 on:** October 31, 2014, 04:38:28 pm »

My Gigabit switch is a Trendnet green switch.

I have copied one folder from the NAS to my PC and have been playing it for 5.5 hours so far without a hiccup, after 3 stops in 3 albums earlier in the AM. I will continue playing to bedtime and see if it stops. This is not a perfect test as last week, I had a day without stoppages (though I did not have it running non-stop).

I have MC set to play from memory. I thought that would buffer the files from the network, and make it unlikely to have problems (as well as improve any jitter issues). All of my stoppages have been in the middle of a track, which I would have thought would have already been loaded into RAM (and logically the next track as well). This would be intuitive guess to how the memory play option would work, but I have no actual understanding of how it actually works.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #18 on:** October 31, 2014, 07:09:07 pm »

I have check the progress, after being away for 2.5 hours, and since the 5.5 hour mark and now MC has again stopped at in the middle of track 119 of 237 tracks of the folder I had it playing. If I had to guess, MC stopped after about 7 hours of non-stop playing from the PC's internal HD.

So it looks like the problem is NOT the NAS or ethernet network.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #19 on:** November 01, 2014, 08:42:06 am »

This morning, I retried playing from PC's HD, and again MC stopped, this time only 12 tracks in.

Seems clear that the NAS and ethernet are NOT the problem.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #20 on:** November 03, 2014, 12:43:12 pm »

MC19 in currently in its 4th straight album without a hiccup. HOPEFUL!

Over the weekend, its performance was awful, never getting through an album, and sometime not even making it through a single track.

Yesterday, I performed a Clean Boot (to try to install 3 Microsoft Updates that failed) and then changed it back to normal and reboot again.

Today MC19 would not play at all; it would give some type of playback error (e.g. ~ASIO error ??). This error happens fairly frequently and is normally easily corrected by Stop, changing output to something else (WASAPI or another), hit Play (which works), Stop, change output back to ASIO, and Play (ASIO then works). But this morning it did NOT correct. I then opened MC18, and MC18 worked (though think I was hearing a faint "tick" noise in the background.

I then rebooted, and since MC19 has worked flawlessly for the past 4+ hours.

JimH · « **Reply #21 on:** November 03, 2014, 01:08:05 pm »

You might try a search to see why the Microsoft updates are failing. It would probably give you a clue to what's wrong.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #22 on:** November 03, 2014, 04:34:19 pm »

My luck did not last, as this afternoon, I have had 2 stoppages within a single album.

JimH · « **Reply #23 on:** November 04, 2014, 12:55:03 am »

You may never solve this problem until you solve the MS update problem. Something basic isn't working on your machine or network.

These kinds of problems often turn out to be related to "security" software.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #24 on:** November 27, 2014, 01:52:53 pm »

Quote from: horse on October 31, 2014, 01:20:44 am

Hmm, not wanting to add another change/variable I would leave the drivers for now.
Is there anything in the Windows event log to give us a clue?
Still feels like a USB issue, until of course it's proved otherwise

Windows Updates seem to be working, as I have gotten several updates the past couple of weeks, though those 3 earlier failed updates are still missing.

I updated my Audio-gd NFB-28 DAC's firmware and driver. This has mostly eliminated the static "pop" sound after the audio stopping, if I hear anything (mostly I do NOT), it is a faint "pop" compared the the loud "crack" before.

I checked for new USB controller drivers, but upon checking, my PC said that I had the best driver.

Today, after MC behaving badly (comes in clusters), I tried changing the Output (normally use ASIO):
WASAPI: similar audio stop, manually have to Stop and then Play to resume music
Default Audio Device [Direct Sound]: instantaneously stopped and automatically resumed (~1sec), but audio was "confused" with timing wrong
audio-gd USB audio [Direct Sound]: BSoD

After BSoD, I finally got an Event 100 (which does not mean much to me) in the Event Viewer, details below:

+ System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance
[ Guid] {CFC18EC0-96B1-4EBA-961B-622CAEE05B0A}

EventID 100

Version 2

Level 1

Task 4002

Opcode 34

Keywords 0x8000000000010000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2014-11-27T19:21:52.836721600Z

EventRecordID 571

- Correlation

[ ActivityID] {02EF8C48-F800-0001-224B-CB0C770AD001}

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 1716
[ ThreadID] 2844

Channel Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational

Computer Z400-PC

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-19

- EventData

BootTsVersion 2
BootStartTime 2014-11-27T19:19:22.578000100Z
BootEndTime 2014-11-27T19:21:47.677426500Z
SystemBootInstance 77
UserBootInstance 66
BootTime 143787
MainPathBootTime 63314
BootKernelInitTime 13
BootDriverInitTime 274
BootDevicesInitTime 3999
BootPrefetchInitTime 0
BootPrefetchBytes 0
BootAutoChkTime 0
BootSmssInitTime 7379
BootCriticalServicesInitTime 4980
BootUserProfileProcessingTime 1449
BootMachineProfileProcessingTime 0
BootExplorerInitTime 26813
BootNumStartupApps 14
BootPostBootTime 80473
BootIsRebootAfterInstall false
BootRootCauseStepImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseStepDegradationBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualDegradationBits 0
BootIsDegradation false
BootIsStepDegradation false
BootIsGradualDegradation false
BootImprovementDelta 0
BootDegradationDelta 0
BootIsRootCauseIdentified false
OSLoaderDuration 1996
BootPNPInitStartTimeMS 13
BootPNPInitDuration 4032
OtherKernelInitDuration 3167
SystemPNPInitStartTimeMS 7139
SystemPNPInitDuration 241
SessionInitStartTimeMS 7441
Session0InitDuration 3322
Session1InitDuration 234
SessionInitOtherDuration 3822
WinLogonStartTimeMS 14821
OtherLogonInitActivityDuration 20230
UserLogonWaitDuration 1311

SilverLitz · « **Reply #25 on:** November 28, 2014, 07:22:22 am »

Another thing, after the BSoD fail, reboot and reload of MC19, MC did not recognize my valid purchase credentials, and I had to re-enter the Install Key. This is the second time, I have had to re-enter the Install Key (previous time was a few months ago).

dtc · « **Reply #26 on:** November 28, 2014, 03:51:23 pm »

Have you tried re-installing MC? You can do a library backup, remove MC, re-install the latest MC, and restore the library backup. Might be worth a try at this point.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #27 on:** November 29, 2014, 12:08:55 pm »

dtc:

I have not tried to re-install. If I was thinking a couple of days ago I would have done that instead of re-entering my purchase key.

Is there a link to the details on the library back-up and restore?

I am getting low on my MC allowed installations on my Install Key, as I have already used 3 on this PC, due to MC saying my Free Trial had ended and re-entering my purchase key, as well as for other PCs in the house that have had HDs replaced and an incidence of a Win7 OS nuke and repave.

dtc · « **Reply #28 on:** November 29, 2014, 04:09:34 pm »

File - Library - Backup

File - Library - Restore

In the Wiki

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Backup

I cannot remember if this requires a new registration or not. You can always get one of the administrators to reset your license if you run out for legitimate reasons.

shadowlight · « **Reply #29 on:** November 29, 2014, 05:57:05 pm »

I have had similar issues recently after the latest JRiver update on a Win Server 2012 system. I would hear bad screech and playback would stop. Pressing play on JRemote would play the song again.

No other changes that I have made manually.

JimH · « **Reply #30 on:** November 29, 2014, 05:59:32 pm »

Quote from: shadowlight on November 29, 2014, 05:57:05 pm

I have had similar issues recently after the latest JRiver update on a Win Server 2012 system. I would hear bad screech and playback would stop. Pressing play on JRemote would play the song again.

Latest update of MC19?

shadowlight · « **Reply #31 on:** November 29, 2014, 06:59:54 pm »

Quote from: JimH on November 29, 2014, 05:59:32 pm

Latest update of MC19?

Running 19.0.163 which was installed last week or earlier this week. Read the release notes for 163 and I am using realtime DSD setup in case that is relevant to the issue.

SilverLitz · « **Reply #32 on:** November 30, 2014, 10:14:08 am »

I still have the MC19.0.128 download on the PC. I ran the executable and it put MC19.0.128 (version originally on HP Z400 when it replaced my older PC) on the PC replacing MC19.0.163. This worked just like an update and did not require re-entering my purchase key nor did it require a Library Restore. I will run this version for a few days and then update to MC19.0.163, and see how it goes.

Does this way accomplish the same thing as a re-install?

Does a complete un-install delete the JRiver library files?

SilverLitz · « **Reply #33 on:** November 30, 2014, 10:26:21 am »

The MC19.0.128 change did NOT work, as MC stopped after ~20min.

Is downloading a new version to update an existing version the equivalent of Un-installing and Re-installing?

Does a complete un-install delete the JRiver library files?

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Author Topic: MC19 Audio Sporadically Stopping (Read 6970 times)