10074 and the Music Root

[acg]

Hello Peter,

My 10074/2.03 is having an issue where it plays the first track of an album and then just hangs there silent.  I can press Alt-N and it may or may not play the next track and if it does play the next track I have to first click away a dialogue box "Music Root must be a folder".  If I come back tomorrow things may work as intended, with albums playing through, and the next day things will not work properly again.

I think that the problem may be to do with the Music Root folder and the NAS.  When I put in the address of the Music Root into 2.03, XXHE gives me a dialogue box saying something along the lines of "Sorry - Music Root must be a folder".  This happens when I point to a mapped folder on the NAS (eg: z:\ which corresponds to  \\NAS\Music\Music) or if I just enter the address of the music root on the NAS eg. \\NAS\Music\Music.  Music is stored in for example \\NAS\Music\Music\Leonard Cohen\Ten New Songs\*.WAV.

I still have the issue if in 2.03 I enable the "Do nothing with coverart" toggle.  My settings have been updated in my signature below...

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hi Anthony,

This happens when I point to a mapped folder on the NAS (eg: z:\ which corresponds to  \\NAS\Music\Music)

The fact that you not always run into the issue is that it depends on what the systems "needs to" look at for the particular moment. So I don't think this is unstable or something. What will be wrong, though, is this :

In your Settings there will be the z:\ now - nothing else. However, I look at that field and check how it looks like. Say that I want two "\" at least in there (just an example).  But in your case there's only one and you think (are sure) all is fine because internally it points at something with the 2x "\" (NAS\Music\Music).
So what you need to change is let z:\ point at NAS\. I mean, the root of that volume. The effect will be that you now in Setttings will put z:\NAS\Volume\Volume and all checks are performed with good result.

Clear somewhat ?

Thinking further, things will go seriously wrong from another angle;
When the z:\ points to the structure as you have it, XXHighEnd can't look higher than that, which is exactly what is needed ("depending-on"). So the NAS\Music\Music\ will be the root while you are sure it isn't (that's NAS\). So there's all sorts of interpretation mismatches as well (between messages you may receive and what you think of it).

Peter

PS:

I still have the issue if in 2.03 I enable the "Do nothing with coverart" toggle.

You imply a to me known issue here, but I probably forgot. Can you open a new topic for this, if it needs to be worked out ?

[acg]

Thanks for the quick reply Peter.  I will add a further bit of information.  This morning I was trying to get more than the first song of a new (to me) Neil Young album to play.  Could not do it.  So I went and selected another album by another artist and I have got through at least half a dozen songs now without it stopping. 

I have yet to change the drive mapping so will go and do that when this album finishes.

PS:

I still have the issue if in 2.03 I enable the "Do nothing with coverart" toggle.

You imply a to me known issue here, but I probably forgot. Can you open a new topic for this, if it needs to be worked out ?

No, I don't think there is a separate issue, or even a problem.  I just tried toggling the coverart option when the I got the messages about the Music Root needing to be a folder for coverart reasons.

[acg]

Hi Anthony,

This happens when I point to a mapped folder on the NAS (eg: z:\ which corresponds to  \\NAS\Music\Music)

The fact that you not always run into the issue is that it depends on what the systems "needs to" look at for the particular moment. So I don't think this is unstable or something. What will be wrong, though, is this :

In your Settings there will be the z:\ now - nothing else. However, I look at that field and check how it looks like. Say that I want two "\" at least in there (just an example).  But in your case there's only one and you think (are sure) all is fine because internally it points at something with the 2x "\" (NAS\Music\Music).
So what you need to change is let z:\ point at NAS\. I mean, the root of that volume. The effect will be that you now in Setttings will put z:\NAS\Volume\Volume and all checks are performed with good result.

Clear somewhat ?

Thinking further, things will go seriously wrong from another angle;
When the z:\ points to the structure as you have it, XXHighEnd can't look higher than that, which is exactly what is needed ("depending-on"). So the NAS\Music\Music\ will be the root while you are sure it isn't (that's NAS\). So there's all sorts of interpretation mismatches as well (between messages you may receive and what you think of it).

Peter

Peter, I have just mapped a new drive "Y" that points to "\\NAS\Music".  I cannot go any higher than "\\NAS\Music" because Music is the share that holds the music files, and I have to at least map to a share on the NAS.

I then changed the Music Root in XXHE to "Y:\Music" which is the Music folder in the Music Share (I hope this makes sense - both the NAS share and the folder that contains all the music have the same name).

Same problem though...it plays one track of the Neil Young album and then hangs in silence.

I will now try to get another "\" in the Music Root somehow.

[acg]

I will now try to get another "\" in the Music Root somehow.

So I created a new folder in the Music Share called Music1 and copied the  Music folder to it so that it became a subfolder.  Then I changed the XXHE Music Root to "Y:\Music1\Music", restarted XXHE just in case, aded the Neil young album to the playlist and pressed play.  It still played only the first song before sitting silent.

Any further ideas Peter?

[PeterSt]

So I went and selected another album by another artist and I have got through at least half a dozen songs now without it stopping.

Anthony, why wouldn't that be the key to the answer / solution ?

If you're using the Custom Filter, switch to AP and see whether that helps.
Try to set Q1 or the SFS a little higher - possibly in combination with Custom Filter active.

I think it's something like this.
And if that doesn't help, what's the essenetial difference with the Neil Young ? (WAV/FLAC) - Neil Young's tracks are longer ?

Peter

[acg]

If you're using the Custom Filter, switch to AP and see whether that helps.

I have not tried the Custom Filter yet...it is AP 16x

Try to set Q1 or the SFS a little higher - possibly in combination with Custom Filter active.

I think it's something like this.

Will do that now.

And if that doesn't help, what's the essenetial difference with the Neil Young ? (WAV/FLAC) - Neil Young's tracks are longer ?

Peter

I only have WAV files.  The Neil Young first track is 5:15.  The first track of the other albums I played today and had no problems with were 3:28 and 3:53 but I did have trouble with an album with a first track of 2:45.

[PeterSt]

If things stop after a first track, it can be about (the length of) the second one ...

Btw I assume this is Unattended ?
Does Attended exhibit the same ?

[acg]

I changed SFS up to 0.20 (from 0.10 and the Neil Young played just fine.  In fact it still played fine when I dropped it down to as low as 0.12.  First track 5:15, second track 3:54.

But the Daft Punk that did not work earlier today still did not work with SFS at 0.12.  The first track of that album is 2:45 and the second track is 0:29.  Raising the SFS to 0.20 made the album play through to track 4 after which it stopped and returned to XXHE (did not sit silent with the screen off like the other times).

I'm not sure what is going on.

All of this is in unattended.  I will try attend now for the Daft Punk at 0.12.

[PeterSt]

Anthony,

Nothing strange is going on !
Your PC is just slower than mine and it can't bear the low numbers.
Well, something like that and always related to other settings AND the OS.
And then you can have forgotten so many things ...

Hint (prize to win) : look at the Buffer Size of your NOS1 Driver (Control Panel). If that's on 16 then it is almost 100% sure the issue. Set it to 4.

Are you not playing from RAMDisk ? then forget any consistency-behavior in the first place (you now depend on your NAS behavior).

So many things when you're on (over) the lmit ...

Peter

PS: Personally I never saw that 10074 has extra issues regarding this, compared to W8. It's no guarantee of course but it tells you to not look in that direction as the culprit.
The only thing that's a bit weird compared to all of the other OSes is that 10074 must stabilize when Playback is started. Thus, for even up to 30 seconds soft scratching can be heard on SFS intervals (not continuously and fading more and more up to gone).

[acg]

So Daft Punk Homework, attended mode SFS = 0.12 and play stops after the first track and eventually a dialogue box comes up "Engine #4 did not start within the expected time!"

So I set SFS = 0.20 and it played through to track 4 and then went silent for track 5 at the end of which I got two dialogue boxes:  "Audio Device could not be determined (file error)" then "Engine #4 did not start within the expected time!", both on the screen at the same time.

Anthony,

Nothing strange is going on !
Your PC is just slower than mine and it can't bear the low numbers.
Well, something like that and always related to other settings AND the OS.
And then you can have forgotten so many things ...

Hint (prize to win) : look at the Buffer Size of your NOS1 Driver (Control Panel). If that's on 16 then it is almost 100% sure the issue. Set it to 4.

Yes, the USB buffer is already set at 4ms...it was the first thing I changed.  The ASIO buffer size is still 16ms though...do I need to change this?

Are you not playing from RAMDisk ? then forget any consistency-behavior in the first place (you now depend on your NAS behavior).

Yes, I have two RAMdisks, each 5GB.

PS: Personally I never saw that 10074 has extra issues regarding this, compared to W8. It's no guarantee of course but it tells you to not look in that direction as the culprit.
The only thing that's a bit weird compared to all of the other OSes is that 10074 must stabilize when Playback is started. Thus, for even up to 30 seconds soft scratching can be heard on SFS intervals (not continuously and fading more and more up to gone).

Interesting.  The only major thing that is different between my computer and yours as far as I can tell is that I run the Xeon that has larger caches and more cores than the i7.  It seems as though I can play many albums with SFS = 0.05, which is a long way different to SFS = 0.20 for Daft Punk Homework.  I don't understand why some albums (most albums play well with SFS <= 0.10 and not others.


The other thing is that I have my audioPC plugged into a 100MB port on the router and not a high speed port.  Perhaps this may change something.  I will try that tomorrow, and I really should do this anyway because of the slow conversion speeds that I am getting.

Regards,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

I am starting to learn (slowly) that if one doesn't answer, something is wrong with providing it.

So ... no answer to Unattended / Attended eh ? But you play Attended, I see now. You could even be in Normal OS for that matter.

In Attended really nothing is guaranteed because it wasn't made for that and especially not for being at limits.

Interesting.  The only major thing that is different between my computer and yours as far as I can tell is that I run the Xeon that has larger caches

Larger ? maybe not. More of them, yes.
But don't skip the main part : the processor speed. It's 1/3 less at least (it's almost better to name it half of the speed).
Is it important ? no. If you only incorporate the inherent speed at numerous levels of the OS.
Anyway, when such a thing happens at Attended, something surely *is* wrong. Watch the leds at the top of the screen; you'll see one lit 14 secs in advance of the end of the track. When the led is off, the track is prepared. Maybe you can see something there ?
Btw, having two RAMDisks is different from using them (one as Playback Drive). Just saying, because it looks to be the culprit (too slow loading speed for which 14 seconds are available).
Are you using IMDisk ? not that I know it matters, but I do.

The ASIO buffer size is still 16ms though...do I need to change this?

No, doesn't do a thing.

Anthony, why don't you try to play the same issue-album(s) locally. Just to see whether it matters ?

Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

In fact it is easy to make the mistakes myself :

When playing Attendly, you are ALWAYS depending on the network speed (when the Album is loaded over the LAN).

So ...

Peter

[acg]

I am starting to learn (slowly) that if one doesn't answer, something is wrong with providing it.

So ... no answer to Unattended / Attended eh ? But you play Attended, I see now. You could even be in Normal OS for that matter.

In Attended really nothing is guaranteed because it wasn't made for that and especially not for being at limits.

I am usually minOS and unattended with RAMdisk.  I only tried attended because it was suggested by you in this thread.  The rest of the stuff in your reply I will try tomorrow...I am out of time now.

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Anthony,

I don't meant to suggest to try Attended. I did ask whether it exhibits the same, though. Point is :
When the message (with Attended) pops up telling you that Playback did not start in time, this is a complete different situation to begin with (and I seriously must think about what it actually tells, now you told me anyway ).

I think something very else is going on, but I can't tell what.
When you have some time tomorrow, you may post the X3 and X3PB log files of such a situation. Cleanest for me would be to use Unattended. Thus :
Start that Playlist (at this first track), wait until music stops (and XXHighEnd comes up again, I'd say) and then grab the log files.

We'll nail it, eventually.

Peter

[acg]

Hi Peter,

I have tried the things that you suggested, and am back to Unattended play.  Firstly I played back from files on a hard drive in the XXHEpc and I had the same issues as before, namely a song finishes and then the next one fails to start (I have to press Alt-? for music to restart or to bring back XXHE).

Then I tried the logging.  Not possible, at least I could not figure out how to get a good result.  The logging causes stuttering of the music and when when I raise the SFS to a level that stops the stuttering the next song plays on as it is supposed to, so it is pointless I think because the logging is affecting the operation of the playback.  Please correct me otherwise.

Today I played maybe a half a dozen albums until I ran into one that did the stopping:  Tame Impala "Currents".  I decided to look more closely into the behaviour when I restarted the music by pressing Alt-N and realised that when playback was restarted after a stop that it was not the next song that played, but the song three down (i.e. if it stopped on track 6 Alt-N would make Track 9 play next).  This album had two or perhaps three stops in it.

Does this help at all?

Regards,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hi Anthony,

I guess it needs some sitting back on your side to think over how the approach should be. Here's my attempt, based on your data :

First off, I think you sort of claimed that highering the SFS (or whatever exactly) surely did help some (album). I don't think you said that explicitly (so please do) but it was implied.

From this follows that theoretically highering even more, could help the album(s) which now don't play.
Obviously that does not help or otherwise you'd have told so (I assume).
From *that* now follows that you can indeed higher the SFS to say 10 (but over here 2 would also do it) in order to let the logging work. And if not with 10 than with 60 etc.
Lastly, if that all does not allow to let the logging work (the Playback, actually), your problem is just way severe. But I expcet that the logging will work.

?

Peter

PS: Alt-N requires some experience, especially in the not-so-behaving environment. It can happen easily to me as well, hence it doesn't tell much when tracks are skipped in between. Say it is "buggy". So I wouldn't put real value to that.

[acg]

I think that any album that I have had trouble with will play when SFS = 0.20, maybe even as low SFS=0.15, I can't really remember.  Logging works at these levels that enable the album to play properly, whether that be 0.15 or 0.20.

I will keep an eye out tomorrow and check this with any problem albums encounter.

[acg]

Start that Playlist (at this first track), wait until music stops (and XXHighEnd comes up again, I'd say) and then grab the log files.

Hi Peter,

I had the situation today where an album played and stopped as discussed in this thread, and then I turned on logging and played the album again at I had no stuttering problems.  The log files are attached.  I could not find any X3 and X3PB log files at all, but did find *.log files in the TemporaryData folder on a RAMdisk.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hello Anthony,

Your log files are fine, but I can not use them because nothing went wrong (as you told).

Regards,
Peter

[acg]

Hello Anthony,

Your log files are fine, but I can not use them because nothing went wrong (as you told).

Regards,
Peter

Well, the music stopped early and the computer sat there for a while with a blank screen until I pressed Alt-X to get back into XXHE.

[PeterSt]

I had the situation today where an album played and stopped as discussed in this thread, and then I turned on logging

Please be clear ?
Logging is of no use when it is turned on after the event. I'm sure you understand that. And *thus* I don't understand what you want (me to do) now ?


Peter

[acg]

I had the situation today where an album played and stopped as discussed in this thread, and then I turned on logging

Please be clear ?
Logging is of no use when it is turned on after the event. I'm sure you understand that. And *thus* I don't understand what you want (me to do) now ?


Peter

Yes, logging was turned on for the event.  I played the album this morning and it stopped on me, so I turned on logging and pressed play again and the event happened again while the logging was turned on.  You now have those files.  Sorry to not be clear.

[PeterSt]

Anthony,

OK, thanks.

Before I proceed can you explain this to me (with the notice I may misinterpret something again) :

It has been in order that highering your SFS helps the problem. So, a couple of days later you run into the problem again, and if I see right your SFS is at 0.12.
Why, if you know the problem is caused by a too low SFS in the first place ?

If you, for fun, look into your X3 log file, you can see the repetetive procedure each 0.024 seconds. Do you know how SHORT that is ? Normally that wouldn't even allow to write that log data within that period of time, continuously. Meaning : already for that I don't trust what's happening, no matter you, obviously, will say that it was exactly the same as without the logging.

Show me similar with an SFS of 2 or higher and I won't blame your system. Is that OK with you ?

Regards,
Peter

PS: I may also wonder how you lasted so many days with this low SFS (did you ??) while at first (start of this topic) you could let fail about everything (that's how I read it). Shed some light if possible ...

[PeterSt]

And Anthony, if I see it right, then this is HighRes (24/176400 I'd say). Now all your bets are off because this is way (way) more hammering on everything on the "reading" side of matters.

Peter

[acg]

And Anthony, if I see it right, then this is HighRes (24/176400 I'd say). Now all your bets are off because this is way (way) more hammering on everything on the "reading" side of matters.

Peter

Yes, I think that album is hires...I'd completely forgotten.

[acg]

Anthony,

OK, thanks.

Before I proceed can you explain this to me (with the notice I may misinterpret something again) :

It has been in order that highering your SFS helps the problem. So, a couple of days later you run into the problem again, and if I see right your SFS is at 0.12.
Why, if you know the problem is caused by a too low SFS in the first place ?

If you, for fun, look into your X3 log file, you can see the repetetive procedure each 0.024 seconds. Do you know how SHORT that is ? Normally that wouldn't even allow to write that log data within that period of time, continuously. Meaning : already for that I don't trust what's happening, no matter you, obviously, will say that it was exactly the same as without the logging.

Show me similar with an SFS of 2 or higher and I won't blame your system. Is that OK with you ?

Regards,
Peter

PS: I may also wonder how you lasted so many days with this low SFS (did you ??) while at first (start of this topic) you could let fail about everything (that's how I read it). Shed some light if possible ...

Most albums play just fine with SFS at 0.09 or 0.12.  There are just some that stop after a song or two or three, maybe a quarter or less of the albums I try (I have not kept track of the percentage).  I don't know for sure that the problem is caused by the too low SFS, I just know that some albums don't work while most albums do work.

I will do the logging of that album with the higher SFS higher tomorrow and send the files across.

Thanks,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Ok, "looking forward" - haha

Maybe you recall that the other day I responded to someone about HiRes and what happens after I played such an album (or a couple of tracks of it) - always at the limits of course ...
After that my PC is out of order for maybe over a minute (not responsive). So, in my case it is able to do all for Playback, but I guess things stack up so much that when playback stops it needs to catch breath for a while. Understand ?
So I was thinking about a new track, implying catching breath and now that taking priority, perhaps.

Now I don't hear you say that problem albums are always HiRes, but to be honest I can play them unnoticed (or a few tracks) because they're in my Demo Gallery etc. and I just select a few nice pictures, so to speak.
But *if* you can recognize it's always about Hires ... don't hesitate to admit it.

One other thing :
I think I saw you did not use Coverart for that particular (HiRes) Album. Why ?
I'm hinting a bit to other problems I found for 10074 (only) and which could imply anomalies, seen by the Coverart not showing. If that is your case too, then maybe it is virtually solved (over here it is since two days).

Thanks,
Peter

[acg]

Ok, "looking forward" - haha

Maybe you recall that the other day I responded to someone about HiRes and what happens after I played such an album (or a couple of tracks of it) - always at the limits of course ...
After that my PC is out of order for maybe over a minute (not responsive). So, in my case it is able to do all for Playback, but I guess things stack up so much that when playback stops it needs to catch breath for a while. Understand ?
So I was thinking about a new track, implying catching breath and now that taking priority, perhaps.

Now I don't hear you say that problem albums are always HiRes, but to be honest I can play them unnoticed (or a few tracks) because they're in my Demo Gallery etc. and I just select a few nice pictures, so to speak.
But *if* you can recognize it's always about Hires ... don't hesitate to admit it.

One other thing :
I think I saw you did not use Coverart for that particular (HiRes) Album. Why ?
I'm hinting a bit to other problems I found for 10074 (only) and which could imply anomalies, seen by the Coverart not showing. If that is your case too, then maybe it is virtually solved (over here it is since two days).

Thanks,
Peter

I think this is the only hi-res album that I have had an issue with...I think...I don't have many.  No coverart because the album was a download and none came with it, and I have been too lazy to download one from the net, although I should do that.

The Neil Young and Daft Punk were both cd rips.

[acg]

If you, for fun, look into your X3 log file, you can see the repetetive procedure each 0.024 seconds. Do you know how SHORT that is ? Normally that wouldn't even allow to write that log data within that period of time, continuously. Meaning : already for that I don't trust what's happening, no matter you, obviously, will say that it was exactly the same as without the logging.

Show me similar with an SFS of 2 or higher and I won't blame your system. Is that OK with you ?

Hi Peter,

I re-played that MJ album today and logged the results (see attached file).  Note that with SFS=2 the entire album played through and XXHE started up again at the end of it.

Regards,

Anthony