Well the magic number is precisely 8 minutes and 41 seconds. So long as a track is this length or longer, I have absolutely no problems with multiple tracks in unattended mode. But if the track length is 8 minutes and 40 seconds or less, then multiple track playback is not possible as I get the End of Track error message.

It does not seem to be dependant on the file size, as the FLAC files I tested were tiny yet caused no issues.

So Peter, I dont know if 521 seconds is meaningful to you in respect of XXHighEnd or Windows 7, but it is certainly a magic number in so far as being able to use unattended mode in my case.

Hi Peter,

All my wav files are 16 bit, 48 khz. They are my own analogue to digital transcriptions of my vinyl collection and I dither the 24 bit conversions to 16 bits using iZotope so that they are compatible with the 16 bit Chordette Gem DAC that I use with the system in my signature. Incidentally, if the DAC is the "problem", I won't be changing it as I absolutely love the sound of it - it is one of the very few digital products I have heard that give me that "analogue" experience.

I have not yet tried the onboard sound. I will, but I need to enable it and load the drivers - currently it is of course disabled completely.

I was doing further tests tonight and this included making sure that changing the buffers, quality settings and clock settings did not help (none of them did).

But then I found something interesting. I listened to a very long, single track (Beethoven Violin Concerto transcription from the DG LP 138999). This is around 47 minutes long with a file size of 515MB at 16 bit, 48 Khz. Not only did XXHighEnd play this track flawlessly, but there was no "End of Track" error message at the end of it.

So this got me experimenting with a number of different file lengths to see if this had something to do with it. Sure enough, after trying many different lengths, I have found that file sizes somewhere around the 9 minute 30 second mark (or larger) play perfectly with no error messages, and I can play as many as I like in unattended mode!

But files of 9 minutes or less give the error message and the unattended playback stops after the first file.

At the moment, I am still experimenting to find the precise length of file at which the unattended playback works and where it fails, but it is definitely somewhere between 9 minutes and 9 minutes, 30 seconds!

I also want to experiment to see if this time limit really is a time limit or it is a file size limit ( I guess test FLAC files and testing 16/44.1 files might help here, but first I need to know exactly how many seconds past 9 minutes represents a "safe" file.

Anyway, the one good thing in this case is that because 95% of my listening is to classical (and the files are my LP transcriptions), it is comparatively rare that I would have single files that are less than 9 minutes, 30 seconds long.

When I originally posted I was worried that I might not be able to play my music properly at all in unattended mode, however at the very least it looks like I will be able to compromise by ensuring I never have a track that is less than 9 minutes-and-something long.

Yesterday was the first day I have used XXHighEnd in non-demo mode, having only bought it yesterday. I had assumed the issues I have reported in this thread were a demo limitation (as the documentation says the program may randomly stop playing in demo mode). So you can imagine I was concerned when the problem remained after activating it.

I don't know if this 9 minutes 30 seconds lower limit means anything to you - it is suspiciously close (in file size terms) to the 100MB SFS limit I have XXHighEnd set to, but when I changed it all the way down to only 5, this should have let any of my test files play without problems. And it didn't.

But at least I have a partial (and workable) solution here. 

Hi Peter,

My gear is now listed in my signature. The HP Mini has an OCZ Octane SSD installed - so there is no mechanical drive involved and the music resides on this solid state drive as well.

If I load a FLAC album (around 62 minutes worth) it will take about 28 seconds from pressing the play button to the point where the music begins to play (this is in unattended mode, minimised OS). Of course the second time around it is only around 5 seconds, but these tests averaging 28 seconds were done immediately after cold reboots. I should mention that I do not listen to FLAC though, I only listen to WAV files.

Although I have a solid state drive I did try changing the power profile so as to never power off the drive, but it did not help - I still get the problem.

I also tried changing the priorities as you mentioned (there is no "nothing" option - only "normal"). I tried "normal" for both and this did not help either.

Hi,

I have the latest activated version of XXHighend installed on my HP dual core Atom netbook. Whilst I am very happy with the sound, I am having some problems with it.

The first problem is that when using unattended playback, I am unable to play more than one track in either Special or Normal modes. I can only play multiple tracks in Adaptive mode. That said, since the sound quality is significantly better using Special mode, I don't wish to use the Adaptive or Normal modes. What happens in Special mode is that after the first track has completed, I will receive an "End of Track" message (and I have to click on OK).

As I say, it works fine in Adaptive mode, but there is a significant improvement in sound quality with Special mode, so I do not want to change modes simply to avoid this problem.

At first I thought this might have had something to do with my SFS setting (which is set at 80). But I tried reducing it to much lower settings (even as low as 5) and it made no difference whatsoever. I also tried changing a number of other settings. Minimising the OS and stopping services (or not) also makes no difference - it seems that the issue is solely due to running in Special mode.

Also, even if I do not run in unattended mode (so I have the GUI up all the time), I am still receiving these annoying "End of Track" messages each and every time a track ends. I already know the track has ended - I don't need the program to tell me this - ever - and I am sick and tired of having to keep dismissing these annoying messages each and every time a track finishes.

That said, there are no other symptoms at all from running in Special mode - no sound glitches, dropouts or any other problems - it is just that I can't play more than one track, which is annoying because every time I want to play a new track I have to wait for the GUI to restore itself then manually start the next track. And these annoying dialog boxes are driving me nuts.

And just on the subject of unwanted messages, when I run in unattended mode there is another dialog box that comes up telling me something about waiting for services to stop and there is an OK button. Although it dismisses itself on it's own, I don't want to see this dialog box but there does not seem to be any way to supress it.