Hmm ... I guess I will be playing Double tonight.

I'm sorry Johan, I didn't know this.

Hmm ... that's all about the same one error : LogicNP.

Are you sure you used 0.9v-4 before ? if Yes, then now it seems to me that you miss something which should be in the download. Or :
Are you sure you downloaded 0.9v-5 as a whole in a new folder ? The main one you'd need here is logicnp.folderview.dll from 24-7-2008 (July 24).

Well, I tried to rather explicitly think of that by means of the possibility to resize the panes to your likings. However. I never actually tried it myself (but you know about that resizing, do you ?).

Then, I can look into what you aksed, but I think it becomes kind of useless because you then can't use the panes together, which is what you would want. However, if you can tell me whether that resizing would do the job for you - and assuming that you can set the sizes by means of a button press (on something you preset yourself) ... I could make that at least.

Let me know what you think of this Johan.
Peter

Haha, but with unattended mode I'm doing that for 150 days.
But now with 0.9v-5 everything should be better. Only the silent playing problem with attended mode, that stays for now (many like silence, you know ).

Well, hopefully this solves just all playback errors, except for the silent playing. But hopefully that's attacked in the next version.

• The ChangeWP error shouldn't occur anymore. The way it is solved shouldn't cause anomalies, and it was not really tested (rather undoable because it may take 24 hours or more before it happens, and since it is theoretically solved ... when does it happen ?).
  Note that when the ChangeWP error occurred (during playback that is) as many of the same errors occurred after XX was quit and restarted. This now doesn't happen anymore either.
  
  
• If all is right it will not happen anymore that a track which internally reports a wrong track length, errors in Engine#3. This was tested upon an album which was known to be wrong, and that works now.
  Please report if you still encounter any "XXEngine3.exe stopped working" !
  
  
• Tracks shorther than around 14 seconds never could play. Now they do.
  On this matter, please report if you encounter any messages like "Engine#3 did not start within ..." !
  
  
• Cue File albums caused "XXEngine3.exe stopped working" at the end of the last track (since March or so 2008) . Solved.
  
  
• A check (with warning) has been built in for the album folders residing at least two folders under the root of a drive. Thus :
  d:\Music\Rock\[album name]
  and not
  d:\Music\[album name]
  This kind of guarantees better that the (various) CoverArt can be found.
  
  

Still no ToolTips on the new functions since 0.9v-4.

Issues found :
At the Show/Compare track function as can be found at rightclick at a Library Item, the last track of a Cue File album always shows the same running time as the before last track.
Also, the Embedded Explorer doesn't (always) do what was intended : not (!) showing the related data in the Library Area when only the arrow for expanding a folder was clicked. This should only happen when the folder itself is clicked.

I'm getting getting crazy here;
Looking at the first few posts from Gerard, he expected that the silent playing is related to a wrong implied track length as the bottom slider shows. So, I just tried to manipulate that. Built in a message when the "manipulation" was applied, which message so far didn't show because I used the wrong settings for that. But instead it happened for real (normal audio PC). Just a second track of an album, the PC running for days now, and especially the whole afternoon playing.

Ok, when the "manipulation" was applied properly, nothing happened. Not with shorter - not with longer than the track is in reality.

Hi Scott, thanks.

As far as what I have seen throughout all the testing by now, these are the problems. Or *were*, because nearly all are solved here now ... working on the last ones :

• There is definitely a difference between the laptop I used and my main audio PC. I mean, it is so easy to copy the problems at the laptop, which just do not occur on the main PC (all with Attented Playback btw), that I really can blame *or* the laptop itself at being more slow, *or* the amateuristic sound device which comes with it (and which come with all laptops as it seems).
  This is in general.
  
  
• The ChangeWP error, which I now nailed down exactly to where/what happens in the code, actually can't be. Difficult to explain when you are not a programmer, but this comes down to reading a record from a file, that file just being available for me to view (Explorer), which that one record is being read as empty. Mind you, randomly and with the exact same file.
  I now re-read the file, giving it another chance, and I just *hope* this solves it, and anyway the error is avoided now.
  
  
• It was known by me for a long time that tracks smaller than 14 seconds would produce the "Engine#3 did not start ..." message, which has been solved now (upcoming version). This just needed my attention.
  Btw, what I reported in my latest post in this topic, just *was* this pure coincidence, of just such a short track passing by. So, hunting ghosts indeed.
  
  
• The playing without sound ... I could never copy that on the main audio PC. This (I state by now) sure is a problem of the particular sound driver, but I can't tell how it is related to what, because just this problem only occured after the cold reboot at the laptop, indeed occurs somewhere in the beginning of the album, then occurs 100% sure one time more, and mostly one other time again. After that, it's ok.
  Testing this is a job which can only be performed when you're really doing something else, because it takes days in general, and I assume I don't have that period of time anymore.
  Besides that, there is just nothing which can be done about it in the problem for debugging, because the program just runs hence all is okay, but the sound device doesn't produce sound. Again, this is the exact same problem as with XP and Engine#1 with files larger than 64MB, and there is just nothing which can be done about it (besides that, MS people don't recognize such a thing (I asked), and by kind of pure coincidence this problem doesn't exist in Vista). This too (XP situation) is 100% sure a driver issue, because any driver going around official XP guidelines, just does work (until you perform alt-tab and alt-bab back to the player, then sound stops).
  Please note that XXHighEnd is special and sensitive to this situation, because it plays from memory, which no other (WASAPI) player is doing.
  
  Side note : I dedicated this silent playing to Attended Playback, because I just tried it like that on the laptop, and then indeed it happens. However, I don't think this is true, or at least I didn't prove it (because I never tried the lapop Unattendedly).
  
  There is one thing I should be able to grab on to, and that this the strict boundary of when silent play starts. This is 100% sure in between two tracks, BUT the playing program (Engine#3) really doesn't know about any difference. This comes down to playing one large file, with no gap in between. However, technically this is not really true, and there *is* a difference : the memory management which is needed to, say, glue the tracks together. And it is just this (I talked about it before) that is rather out of my control, because "managed" dot-net code does it for you. So, it is my expectation that the problem is in this area, which will be the same area as the used memory growing and growing (while I don't incur for that) right in the beginning, untill is shrinks again and it after that never grows again (I mean, not without reason). This might be the same moment when things go wrong, or possibly start to be all right.
  And thus, it is this area which I might be able to influence and just watch with eyes : cause the memory not to grow without reason in the beginning, and I bet that if that can be done, this problem has gone too. Otoh, if you'd know what time it took to tweak the whole lot in order to incur for similar, thinking of the "ticks" topic from Edward ...
  
  
• Since maybe March 2008, "Cue Files" can't play their last track without ending in an error. I'm working on that today.
  
  
• There are always the situations that the track length as indicated by whatever means (and these are as many as formats of WAV files exist, thinking of the means of ripping, tagging, incorporation of all kind of sh*t in the WAV file which never has been a standard ... is wrong. This is the typicle situation that XXEngine3 just dies, and I don't think this can be avoided unless sound degrades.
  Mind you, crashes like these should be covered by a means of error trapping, and it is just this what is deliberately left out for SQ reasons. There may be a time though that I can better recognize what really is music data and what is not, kind of similar to the "Crack Detection" feature. Thus, when I can do that more precise, I can check in advance where music data really stops, instead of the wrong information provided in the header, and as written wrongly in there by whatever program (which already can be a tagging program).
  

Ok, back to work !

Don't forget to rightclick files in the rightmost pane then.

But hey, it's time for a manual, right ?
(first finish off XX itself)

Ok. Good. Now I'll try to build in something that should prevent a next user from having this anomaly (which probably comes down to checking whether there are at least two folders above the album folder).

Haha Fidelio, no, I like these kind of reports; people should do it more.


Yes, I know. This is a quirk of the specific "grid" tool used, and I couldn't get it better with the time I gave myself for it, back then.
I will look into it once more.


No, this is just Vista itself doing that. It was talked about a few times before, and it happens (to my own explanation) because XX binds the OS so much to her, that there's isn't time enough anymore for some other services, which one by one shut down. However :
When you apply everything from How I tweaked my Vista virtually dead it doesn't happen anymore. Or at least I never saw it since.
Otherwise you should be glad with this, because in theory it improves sound.
Anyway, this is not something I do, or something the XX program does, it just happens because of the real time process (which requires each 1 ms the attention of the OS and it MUST be served (unlike e.g. disk copying)).


You just can by all means, except for when you asked for albums in the Library Area and load from there. Thus, you can load single tracks by means of :
- Drag from explorer
- The Library Button
- Rightclick on an album in the Library Area, and Load Individual Track
- Same, and things like Play Each
- Cause tracks to be in the Library Area (replace the A at the bottom there with T, and press search).


Yes I can imagine that. The selection itself is used to track which song is playing, thus if no selection is there ...
However, how do you get rid of the selection (hence blue color) ? ah ... by means of deleting the selected track I guess.
Anyway, I can't see how this is annoying. I mean, there's no selected track, so your eyes can't see what is playing (which probably is nothing), and now you want the "next" ? which one will that be ?


Well, I'm sure it does. This must be related to you coverart problem in general. Let's sort that out first (the other topic).



Yeah, but the other one I didn't like at all myself. The problem is, what would happen at your place when you have 10000 albums in there. So, this is all about maintaining some speed in the (browse) process.
Btw, please note this : anyone using the Embedded Explorer for looking for albums etc., is doing wrong (somehow). Why ? well, because I never do that myself, and all can be done in the Library Area. The *only* reason you should be "allowed" to use the Embedded Explorer is for changing Galeries (like for Rock, Jazz, Dance). So maybe this helps ?

But I will look at it again anyway, because it still s*cks for other reasons.


This is what I meant with s*cks. It is my intention that in the middle pane NEVER changes anything from the start, *unless* you click on a folder (not the arrow). Clicking on the folder fills the textbox at the bottom of the screen, and now here I go again : that is meant for Galery roots. Thus, from a Galery (root) like Rock, you'd *want* the Library Area be filled with the albums accordingly. And, if classical was there before, you'd want that gone. But not the Pink Floyd albums within Rock. Why ? there are already there, and you'll find them with typing Pink F ... in the Search textbox.

The anomaly with the Embedded Explorer is that even when you click an arrow, it sometimes (!) acts as if the folder was clicked, thus replaces the contents of the middle pane with Pink Floyd only, and when you want the old stuff back (all Rock), then it does coincidentally not work, because it works "sometimes".
So you see ? it s*cks. And this is all because of a bug in that particular software (which was far from free) which I can't work around so far.


I can't be sure, but this is most probably because you didn't fill in the (Settings) textbox for Music Root, or you removed that (partially) from the bottom textbox (Library Area).
But I will play with it myself, because I think it can happen via other ways as well.

Peter

Yes, that is what I meanT. Now I am even more puzzled, because now (if I understand you correctly) you say that more can show up, and not only that one Vivaldi. So, now it cannot be so anymore that it finds that folder.jgp from Vivaldi which is abusively somewhere else ...

But I would still stuff an additional folder above your XXHighEndMusikk, just to test. If that doesn't help, well, I'll kind of drop dead.

Btw, I just thought of something else. Are you sure your coverart files are called folder.jpg ? and not folder.jpg.jpg ? That would happen if you have renamed them without the extension being visible (Explorer setting). Then you now see folder.jpg, but it *is* folder.jpg.jpg.
Switch on the showing of all extensions to judge this, or go to a Dos box and look from there.

Hmm ... something's here indeed.
Will be solved in the next version.

Thanks for reporting !

So here they are :

• When something is changed in the rightmost pane (CoverArt Area) that implies another Cover for the currently selected album in the middle pane (Library Area), that new Cover now shows immediately.
  
  
• The (possible) slow Renaming in general, Rename to Folder.jpg and Deleting of coverart from the CoverArt Area has been solved.
  
  
• Since it has been reported by one person that CoverArt didn't show anymore in the left pane (the album playing), the changed code as per 0.9v-3 was set back to the original as far as possible. Since actually no reason was found why CoverArt wouldn't show anymore there, it is not sure this helps.
  
  
• At encoding and decoding to/from FLAC a test is performed whether the result is "official" FLAC resp. WAV. When not, a message says so, and no output will be generated (the message abusively always talks about decoding).
  
  
• When no CoverArt is found, the left pane could (since 0.9v-3) show the "X" image, implying so. However, this was unintentional, and in that case the image in the left pane should just be blank. This is restored now.
  
  
• In the rightmost pane (CoverArt Area) now not only .jpg files are shown, but just everything except XX-recognized music files.
  This includes image files of other types than .jpg/.jpeg; all files can be opened by double clicking them.
  Note that the icons showing with the file types only show right when Fast Rendering (Settings Area) is *not* ticked.
  
  
• The collection of CoverArt -depending on the amount and size- can take a while, and therefore that collection was performed in a separate process (working parallel to other stuff). However, this created more problems and anomalies than it solved, so now all is performed in the same process (actually : "thread"). The downside obviously is that you have to wait for it (at clicking an album in the middle pane etc.).
  
  
• Following the above, showing additional CoverArt (and files) in the CoverArt Area after clicking an album in the Library Area has been made faster. This makes the above more legit.
  
  
• When files are showed in the rightmost pane because of a click on an album in the middle pane, now the first file (image) shows as soon as it is available. So not only when all were collected.
  This does not count for collecting images from the Internet; they only show when all have been collected.
  
  
• Many messages at various places have been added. Some distinct only like e.g. : 01 [message] vs. 01a [message]. IOW, please report the full message including something like the example (the 01 message obviously implies a technical other problem than the 01a message).
  Also : Don't hesitate to report errors/messages, no matter how small they are. Only then the underlaying problem can be solved.
  
  
• Added a quick "back" button to the Embedded Explorer (Library Area -> the left arrow at the right top in the Embedded Explorer which can be in the middle of the CoverArt picture), allowing for traversing one level up, where the (by itself new) process as a whole can cause the higher up folders not being visible anymore, so without the back button no traversing up wouldn't be possible.
  
  
• The Embedded Explorer now comes with a Vista Look.
  
  
• An attempt -as good as possible- has been made to make the Embedded Explorer "active" right at the moment you'd want that. More difficult to explain, but it means (for example) that if you would like to scroll through the folders with downarrow, at least one folder should have a blue background (meaning "active", gray is inactive), which before only could work after clicking one of the folders. That by itself would open the folder, which is not what you want ... if you don't want it.
  Note : It is *not* the intention that when you click on an arrow (left border) the contents of the Library Area changes; this should happen pnly when you click on a folder. However, it is the most difficult to get this to work because of a bug in the particular software, and most often at clicking the arrow, it works as clicking the folder. BUT : when you use the arrow keys (right for expanding a folder, left for closing it) this problem does not occur, and you can freely browse through the folders, without affecting the Library Area (and te waiting for it).
  
  
• The contents of the Embedded Explorer now automatically refreshes, right along with you typing in the bottom (Search Root) textbox in the Library Area. Note that refreshing actually takes places when the contents of the textbox ends with a backslash (\). Thus, this happens when you type one, and it happens when you backout (backspace) characters until you are about to backout a backslash.
  
  
• When you now (Embedded Explorer) browse down right to the folder with the music files (or Galery data), clicking on such a file doesn't give anomalies as it did before.
  
  
• It appeared that in the CoverArt Area (rightmost pane) the Thumbs.db files could show up, while this never has been the intention. The same counts for Desktop.ini;
  Both now don't show up anymore.
  
  
• At the textbox for the XXHighEnd Data Folder (Settings Area) wasn't checked for whether the entry ended at a backslash (\). It does now.
  
  
• An internal list of DAC Sample Rates and Bit Depths was found to be old, that causing some selections not to be possible in the "DAC Is" area. This has been solved now.
  Note : a.o. this didn't allow for "DAC Needs" to be set to 24 bits at certain Bit Depths. Otoh, a "DAC Needs" 24 bits so far still hasn't been found, although a topic is running about this.
  
  
• Editing a label in the Library Area (click on the name under the album picture twice) looked like being possible, but really wasn't anymore (in earlier versions it was). This always resulted in a message that Renaming failed.
  Now it is just not allowed anymore to edit the label (the CoverArt Area should be used for that now).
  
  
• Before the individual Tracks for Cue File albums could not be shown, apart from loading them in the PlayList Area;
  Now they can show by means of the Compare Tracks options (see main post of this Release Note topic).
  
  
• When the formerly called Show/Open files was used (rightclick on a Library Item) (now : Load Individual Tracks) and a selection applied to it (hence more than one album was selected), it could be very annoying to keep on pressing "Cancel", because the selection was not applied on purpose to this functionality. Now a message asks whether you really want this, and cancelling of the function itself is allowed.
  
  
• The "Play Each" functions (rightclick on a Library Item) allowed for entering a number for e.g. the track number to play from each album. This was applied rather awkwardish;
  Now "Go" options are provided, and things are more normal.
  
  
• A selection on more items in the CoverArt Area can be applied to nearly all of the options under rightclick (on one of the items there). Note that this includes the hop-over to Amazon, and when the selection implies it, to different sites at the same time.
  Please note : When only one Amazon page opens, please report this ! It was found that when the opening of web pages happens too fast, they overwrite eachother, so a wait timer of 2 seconds per page has been build in. Possibly this is not enough in all cases ...
  

Small update :

Yesterday nothing wanted to go wrong after three cold boots spread over 1.5 hours (which for sure would have given one of the anomalies on the laptop by then), I listened for over 5 hours (without booting anymore) and never encountered a silent track, and since then (11pm yesterday) all is still playing without any error. That's all together almost 24 hours now.

I guess I am now going to test the lot with the soundcard connected to the preamp (and leave the audio DAC out).


Edit :

BUT

After I came home and checking whether all was all right as just explained above (also turned on the sound briefly), I typed this post (yes, that's on another PC), and in the mean time the screen saver jumped in on the audio PC. I woke it up again, and just now there is an "Engine#3 did not start blah blah" right at this moment after so many hundreds of tracks playing allright ? Come on ! this is no coincidence !!
But what am I hunting here ?

Hmm ... With "coverart browser", you mean the ritghmost pane (of three) ? if so, you know you must click an album in the middle pane first ?

But assumed you mean the middle pane :
What I discovered myself the other day, is that -because of the proper determination of the structure as a whole (and thinking of multi volume albums), you should have at least *two* folders above the album folder. Like :

H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Classical\Vivaldi\[albumname]\tracks
H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Rock\Pink Floyd\[albumname]\tracks

Now, in order to be right on this, you should be able to find the folder.jpg from the Vivaldi album in the root of H:\ or in H:\XXHighEndMusikk\ (which you then have put there by accident). There is a small possibility that if you remove that folder.jpg which shouldn't be there, all works already, but I don't think so.

Please let me know what happens and take into account I could be doing something wrong (ah, you did that already ).
Peter


PS: With

H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Rock\Pink Floyd\The Wall\CD1\tracks
H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Rock\Pink Floyd\The Wall\CD2\tracks

the folder.jpg is allowed to be (and searched for) in

H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Rock\Pink Floyd\The Wall\folder.jpg
and it works for both the volumes (CD1 and CD2).

Or with

H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Vivaldi\Concerti e cantate\[tracks]

the folder.jpg (btw etc. etc.) is looked for in

H:\XXHighEndMusikk\Vivaldi\Concerti e cantate\[coverartfolder]