Amendum to my last post (and merely for myself, but possibly recognizeable for you) :

At just shutting down my audio PC in order to start testing, I suddenly realized that something *is* related to a cold boot. At least, for my Vista (SP0) it is :

When my PC is booted cold, at performing x time no activity (an Energy timing setting), the PC will hybernate. Not that I have settings which imply hybernating, but it just does. These kind of things are known Vista quirks, and SP1 is better at this (these things), but it did not solve this specific anomaly. Now :
After XX played "some" time (and then stops because I just wanted it), the hybernating doesn't happen anymore. Just the screensaver jumping in (if not already done long before), and throughout the further boot session, no hybernating anymore.
How much time of playing this requires I never found out, but an hour seems enough. Now :

What if at the moment the PC actually wants to hybernate, the silent playback starts to happen ? With *AT*tended playback there is a moment of just no activity. Then the hybernating starts to activate, immediately followed by "oops not", but in the mean time the sound system has beem shut off. At the next track, the sound system is (rather) explicitly reactivated, and there's sound again. But the hybernating feature keeps on trying, and at a next track there's silence again. Of course you were not allowed to even touch the mouse in the mean time, because that would reset the process ... (which might be because the exact moments can't be repeated).
This happens a few times (I don't think I ever encountered more than 3 silent tracks), and then something gives up on hybernating.

The difference with Unattended Playback would be that there's NO idle time between tracks ever. So, only when I stop playback within, say, 20 minutes, I find the PC hybernating some 15 minutes after that.

Am I seeing ghosts now ?

Ok. Here is some experience of myself :

Got myself a Toshiba Satellite (with nonexant sound device), suffed XXHighEnd on it plus some 40 albums, brought it with me during my brake from the last 10 days, and started playing over the loudspeakers (bweh) Attendedly, and witched off "Show as Wallpaper".
After tens of hours of testing (no joke), these are my conclusions :

Yes, it is rather easy to copy a mixture of the behaviours as expressed in this topic.

The silent playing of one track, a next normally playing, and another (could be a few tracks later) quiet again, only happens after a cold boot (thus, switch off, and switch on again);

The ChangeWP error seems to happen randomly, but, it did not happen after a cold boot on its own (see next subject).

In one occasion, the silent playing 2 times (one session after a cold boot) 1:1 followed a ChangeWP error, after a first track playing silent without the ChangeWP error. Again, this happened at one occasion (session) only.


In each of above cases, at always using the same Playlist, it is not repeatable where it happens (using a reboot at least).

The playing silent seems dependent on the number of tracks played, and not on the time after start playing.

The ChangeWP error can happen 1 or 2 times per album, or doesn't happen throughout 24 hours of subsequent playback at all.

Note : Once the ChangeWP error during a playback session happened, at a next startup of XX it will reoccur as many times as it happened during the before playback session (not boot session). This is logical to me, because of the process happening then.

In no occasion the ChangeWP error disturbs playback, except of course the one occasion it came along with playing silent.

The silent playing seems to be related to using 64MB of memory by XXEngine3, although I couldn't really prove that. I do have in mind though, that XP has the very same problem with tracks themselves being larger than 64MB (the around 6 minutes boundary). How this can be related to the Unattended Playback where it does not happen (ok, with a DAC behind the soundcard, which is so far my only experience) I don't know.


So can I solve it now ? no, not from this idiotic behaviour and searching for the real cause. However, I will be able to create a backdoor solution for the ChangeWP error for sure, and *hope* it is the solution for the silent playing in the mean time.

I am not sure whether things are related to playing over the internal speakers, which is the same as using a soundcard with output to the (pre)amp. But with above experience I now can test the same with a DAC behind the soundcard, and see whether that matters, of which I expect it just can for the "silent" part of the problem.


I thought you were entitled to know that this has my full attention, and it was just before I left for my brake that I got the hunch of
a. it happens with Attended Playback only (as described a few posts back);
b. it could be related to playing from the souncard (without a DAC behind it). Thank you Russ.
Thus, the latter might not be true, but it gave me the idea of using the laptop and just let it run forever if needed. This by itself needed the conversion of all the albums I brought to 48K, because the Conexant "hi def" driver allowed 48K only, and Engine#3 obviously doesn't swallow that when fed with 44K1.

I let you know when I know more, and if you can contribute to this, don't hesitate to do so !
Thanks,
Peter



PS : In one occasion throughout everything (days of playing), an "Engine#3 did not start etc." occurred.

But can I ask what means "crashes" in this case ? When there's a message there's no crash.
Also, I think if you clear the Playlist Area after this message, the problem has gone. True ? Untrue ?

It is true that Russ told me this, but I can't invoke a real error, apart from a normal one, which then can be avoided (press CLEAR).
Btw, I don't think you would want me to remove those tracks from the Playlist that are not there anymore. You wouldn't understand ...

?


PS: If I am right about the CLEAR and all helping, I could make the message (which now is a system message really) more clear, including a hint what to do (or make the non-existing tracks highlighted, leaving you to right-click and Delete from Playlist). But I sense that you mean something different. Russ ?

Not without having insight in your folder structure. Could you please show me from both Pink Floyd (one album) and Vivaldi :
- The path to the music files (like breathe.wav)
- The path to the coverart and a file name of that (like folder.jpg)
Please start with the root (like c:\).

Peter

Hi Andrey,

I don't think it was explained somewhere because I kept it for myself.

Of course it can't be bit perfect, but it sure can be 100% without loosing data *except* for the data that disappears in the noise anyway. This was rather extensively explained somewhere in here (I just tried to find it (two topics I think) but failed on that).

What it comes down to, is that when you do *not* calculate (in whatever bit depth domain) anything, but know you will loose the bit, you better throw away that bit and keep everything else untouched. It is this latter doing the trick (combined with the appropriate attenuation levels !), and which even allows to use the digital volume in the 16 bit domain. But : with 16 bits one must be very careful not attenuating too much, because the audible level (range !) is very close to the noise level (96 dB).

This topic(s) I can't find now is about this range of what one can hear.
Peter

What I can imagine is that at startup you receive a message something like "Couldn't restore all settings" and then you can press continue or cancel. Now, when you press continue, the thing you have may happen. When you press cancel the problem should be over (but you will have to set the settings once from the start).

Does this help ?
Peter

I have always thought the latter. Never saw it in a standard case ... was never looking for it either. Oh well, you've seen my pic in the beginning of this topic ...

This largest upgrade ever goes accompanied with the major release notes only. Possibly later the minor ones will be added in a separate post in this topic.

• The manipulation with the Embedded Explorer has been changed largely (not much visible at first glance), with the objective of a more easy navigation, also with relation to the Library Area next to it.
  
  
• Rightclick on a folder in the Embedded Explorer now shows an option "Count Subfolders", which brings back an earlier existing functionality, but now only when asked for (the counting takes some time).
  
  
• Rightclick on an item in the Library Area a.o. shows a new option "Show / Compare Tracks". This shows the tracks in a more covenient way than the "Show / Load Tracks" from before.
  When more items are selected before this option is performed, they show up along eachother (11 max).
  The form showing up may be resized more intelligently (opposed to "not" right now), but that is for later.
  
  Note : Some (nah, a lot) effort has been put in recognizing the Artist Name properly, hence differentiate properly from the Album Name, and this is not worked through the rest of the program (only where it's really needed, subject to this version). So, i.e. the data shown on the wallpaper remains as it was for now.
  
  
• Before mentioned "Show / Load Tracks" option has been renamed to "Load Individual Tracks", but works the same as before.
  
  
• Still at the rightclick on a Library Item, the function "Play Each - First selected, then per n tracks" appeared not to work at all, while it was intended to do so for a long time. This is now solved.
  
  
• Then there's the new option "Get data from the Internet". Yes, you will need an Internet connection for it to work ...
  It depends a bit on the Artist, but generally this will bring you a boat load of data and images from the album.
  Note : this may take a while, and during the process XXHighEnd can't be used (but will keep on playing if all is right), which can be seen by the CoverArt Area (the right pane of three) getting a gray background until finished.
  
  All Amazon websites are examined and as much data and images as can be found, are retrieved;
  Everything shows up in the CoverArt Area, and appears with a yellow border to let you know that that is the data which just has been retrieved (opposed to what you already had stored on disk).
  
  The "data" as such is all summarized in a file which is prefixed with "Review-" followed by the date you retrieved it, and with .html extension. It appears at the bottom with an Internet icon. It can be double clicked to open, and generally it is great to learn the history of the artist(s), and so learn about others.
  
  Issue :There may be french, german and japanese text in there, which really isn't readable because of a wrong "code page" applied. This is an Amazon problem and generally known as hard to solve. It may though in the future.
  
  The images can be opened as well to see them in full scale (e.g. double click) and note that you can open each image in a separate instance of the Vista image viewer (just double click the next one), *or* you can use the image viewer to scroll through them.
  In the end you are browsing your current XX folder, where these images are temporarily stored (you could copy paste them from there, but see below too). They go when you ask for another album (but again, see below).
  
  Important for data geeks : The images as well as the data need not to be unique, although it will be per Amazon site where they came from. Note that you can see where they came from (the data as well) by means of the prefixes US, FR, UK, CA, JP, DE (the latter is Germany). Now, each very same version of the album should have the same number following this prefix. And as you know, often various versions exist, some with an additional track, others with additional volumes (or a DVD), etc. Now, a very same number on a different Amazon site, does not need to have the very same picture. They often have, but often have not. Thus, when you are about the pictures, pick the best you see.
  
  Each picture has a name starting with XXImage follwed by a number like (500), this 500 indicating the width in pixels of the picture.
  Behind the picture width a sequence number is shown (the sequence that they were downloaded), but the sorting is on picture size (width).
  
  Important : It can happen that you get a mixture of various (really different) albums of the Artist, or even differen Artists are shown. Both are Amazon problems, but the latter is more probably caused by a wrongly interpreted Artist Name, which then is caused by  ... well, you (or an error in the program hehe). You will see for yourself whether the program was ever able to make something of your folder structure and namings, and if you can't see how, you can bet the program can't either.
  
  
• If we now step to the CoverArt Area (the right of three panes) and rightclick on one of the items there ...
  The option with the Amazon icon tells you that using that option will bring you to the exact location within the Amazon websites to buy the album. Keep in mind, when you are looking for that special version (which the cover picture could have told you, but which you can also have found in the before mentioned review file), it is not so that Amazon only sells new items. You could sell your albums just the same, and I could buy it from there. So it is really a myriad of stuff there, and quite fun to examine.
  
  
• Here too a "Show / Compare Tracks" option is available, but this time it takes the (in general) one selected album from the Library Area and compares it with the selected pictures in the CoverArt Area (now you'll understand the max of 11 somewhat better, which applies here too). Now it becomes rather useful, because it is here when you can find out the albums containing more tracks than you know easily.
  Note : The track times, sadly, are not available from items in the CoverArt Area, because they are not available from Amazon.
  
  This option may come off very handy when you see a back cover of an album, and you want to check whether it belongs to the album you have on disk (with front cover), and you like to have the appopriate back cover too.
  
  
• Underneath the previous option, is the one you were waiting for : save images to disk. As the option says "Save yellow bordered selection to disk", only the temporary retrieved images can be saved (not the others, because they already are on your disk somewhere).
  After the selection is saved, you can rename the file names if you want.
  The review file can be saved just the same, and note that a saved version is suffixed with -S right before the extension.
  
  Important : As how it is right now, you have one chance of saving, because after that the contents of the CoverArt Area is refreshed in order to show you how it is now. Did you intend to save more, then you have to retrieve the data from Amazon again.
  
  
• Important : Do not save your pictures and all (see above) into Galeries, unless you just rebuilt them with 0.9v-4 or later.
  
  From off this version (0.9v-4) the program knows to which Galeries you distributed the music, and if you now save a picture via XXHighEnd to one of the Galeries or the original location, the picture will be distributed the same.
  
  Note : In the folders concerned strangely named files will occur, which look even more strange when you look at them with Explorer (meaning : outside of XX). They show up in the Library Area as well, and in fact they tell you by there name where the album has been distributed to. Inside it is somewhat more detailed.
  
  And as important : There is no provision yet for renaming folders (from Galeries or original data) and keeping track of those changes towards the Galeries. This will be there in a next version.
  
  
• The same accounts for Renaming or Deleting, as well as the option "Rename to Folder.jpg".
  
  Please use these functions with care and some attention, meaning : check whether all comes through as you think it should, and although all was tested, you will find your ways ...
  
  
• Now up to some real fun : "Show more Albums from Artist (Internet)" which can be found within rightclick on again an item in the Library (!) area;
  You thought you'd seen much, right ? nahh ... maybe not. Try this one, but be prepared for many hundreds of pictures, depending on what is available (which is probably more than you knew) and depending on the settings (which speak for themselves) you will see when choosing this option.
  Note that this option downloads the largest pictures only.
  Of course this may take a while really, and you better start off slowly with this (one site only, or 10 results per site).
  
  Here the pictures are not sorted by size, but just at the sequence of retrieval (although upside down). This way it is more easy to choose from an Amazon site to buy (if you want), because the sorting is actually per Amazon site now.
  
  

The various new options do not show ToolTips yet.

The next version will contain logfiles for debugging the "stop playing" and other issues some of you have. This may take 2 more weeks.

Hi there Adrian !

Assuming you want to drag from Explorer, the sequrity rights are not equal. Thus, when you start Explorer also with Administrator Rights, then it works. Better is to switch off UAC though. All is described here : Vista Users ... prepare yourselves ....

About the error ... this most probably has the same cause. In this case though, it looks like you may have Activated XXHighEnd with other (higher) rights than now, at playback.
If you applied the UAC thing above and this error still occurs, you could try to delete that folder, and install XXHighEnd again (with the UAC thing applied properly).

I hope this helps !
Peter

Nah, no needed Mike. But this is *very* important anyway ...
I played several albums yesterday over USB and ATtended, but you know ... nothing went wrong. Anyways, it is most obviously it is there (Attended Playback) where I must look for your culprit;

I will finish off my current activities, blow off some from it, and then will create a version (or more) of which I expect may help your Attended Playback (which btw you shouldn't want at all, because it sounds "worse" IMHO). If you then can bear with me ...
That will take another week though at least, just to take some breath outside of this environment. Pffff

Ehhm, but that would be the most normal Mike. XXHighEnd is not for nothing still in beta, just because I know these kind of problems are there for some, and as soon there's a small thing I can grab on to, I solve it ASAP. But as you'll understand, for cases like this I can only hang on to you guys out there (who helped a LOT already).

If XX only was a normal player, then it would behave normally, but it is not (mainly because it plays all from memory for the good cause) and things are a 100 times more complicated. Add to that the in fact buggy Vista Exclusive Mode WASAPI stuff, and there we are. But I hope you know I try my best.

No, there isn't anything of a manual or help system yet (apart from the ToolTips and what's said in the Release Notes) which is just because we're still in beta (I just added functionality over the last few weeks which can use 30 pages of help alone ...). And indeed, by now there are so many things nobody knows, just because all is stacked in those Release Notes only. But a manual will be there ...

With what I just added, the one but last major thing I wanted from the beginning is in there, and after the last thing only bug solving remains. But I guess I have to travel the world so solve some of the things you have out there (may be 3 or 4 things only, but difficult enough (because I can't copy them) to travel around a bit ... maybe ... ).


Btw, don't tell me you're playing for 24 hours without problems now ... ?

I don't think it's a problem. Or wouldn't know why anyway.
Note though there's some kind of gadget in that the FF can be controlled from two PC's at the one time. Both should connect to the 400 ports then (is what I heard).

Remarks :

Watchout for this mobo, which seems to have one IDE connection only.

Yeah, the 8800 is a complete overkill. Unnecessary hot too ($$).

Nah, we don't need floppy's. And see the IDE remark, thinking of the combination with the DVD drive (which is IDE ?).

So you linked to a FireWire card without reviews, right ? hahaha. But this one seems to have 800 ports only ... they do NOT connect to 400 ports without a conversion cable. -> not advised.
Maybe never mind the reviews. They are not about SQ anyway. If it's about lacking speed : not important ... you'll have enough of it (as long as you don't connect the hdd's to it.

This is an indication of what I said too. This just CANNOT happen with Unattended Playback. But there's another thing ...

I only now realize that the problem from your quote above shouldn't be mixed with the WP error thing. And I don't think it is ...
*Then* it becomes a familiar problem, which was reported by some in the very beginning (I think Werner was one, although he had a Mac or something), and this is about the driver not releasing the sound device properly and this can also be brought down to USB and the larger buffer it uses. So ... you have a lousy driver somewhere ? ... maybe. But maybe not. I did change something in that area, and this was at March 19 2008. I can change it back in order to see if that helps.

Then, I just looked into the program, and without being sure right now, I think that the "control" of the larger USB buffer size as mentioned, has been eliminated with the switch from being able to play in shared mode to exclusive mode only.

Either way, this just cannot happen with Unattended Playback.
Could you please try ?

Hi Mike,

As you know this all started with my idea that everbody should be able to use the software, the PC unexperienced as well. Therefore it is even the more sad that you have the idea that it is just that what bothers you now. And it could be ... I can't tell.

For me the major problem in your case is that we don't know when it started. And of course this is to be combined with that it doesn't bother me.

Since you're giving up anyway, couldn't you start playing unattendedly ? I think you never do, and I also think that matters (IIRC the reports in this topic about elements of what happens with you, are about Attended Playback).

I really wonder what the heck it is that can make things so instable ... I am playing and playing and playing and nothing (but one time -> the WP error).