RDC/2.06a Issue

[boleary]

Set up a RDC connection using a Netgear Wifi Range Extender which is hard wired to the audio PC. Control PC is a laptop using RDC to connect to the audio pc. In XX settings the LAN and Persist buttons are active and were set in full OS mode in the base version and then rebooted into minimized then booted to RAM-OS. All seems to work fine and the sound, with the video card removed is great, however there are times when I hit play in unattended that the "shutting down services" message stays on too long and then I lose my RDC connection.  Apparently the LAN controller in the audio pc  gets turned off and I'm unable to reconnect using RDC. Having no control over the audio pc I wait till music stops and then have to reboot using the reset button on the audio pc. Not good. Don't know if this is related but it seems that it doesn't happen with redbook wave, but does happen with AIFF and HiRes. Not sure what to do.

[boleary]

Type of file is unrelated. It might be that I need to move the extender to a better spot but am limited cause I don't have a long network cable. Will try that on Friday as I'm just headed out of town till then.

[acg]

I have had this issue, and still have it in fact.  I just assumed it was a W10 issue.  It seems to happen less often to me when the RAM-OS disk is NOT ejected, but that could be coincidence.

[PeterSt]

Hi,

May it be helpful : I never have this issue (and RAM OS Disk is always out).

On a side note : when that popup about the to be shut down services stays too long, the connection has already been lost and the remote's screen is not refreshed (so in reality that popup has gone already).

Maybe I have read it form Anthony (acg) earlier on, but I sure have read about such a thing before.
All I can always say is : try it with a minimum of services to be shut down (just switch on in MinOS again) to find out which helps (if any). From there I may get smarter ?

Peter

[boleary]

Well, switched on W 10 services in XXHighEnd and all is well. Didn't know the Switch Off W10 Services button included LAN services since there's a separate button for those? RAM-OS ejected is no problem. Strange that with the Switch Off W10 Services button active the RDC would initially work and then it would stop working 5 minutes later.

[PeterSt]

Brian,

Still, the combination must be different. I am playing with W10 Services off ...

Do you have anything different from what you see below ? And I am not saying that you must do it like that - I'm just looking for the culprit.

Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

PS: It was set like that when in Normal OS. And say that this requires 2.04 or later (I forgot, but at some stage and for W10 things could not be set in Normal OS and trickery had to be applied).

[boleary]

Originally my settings were exactly as in your picture and that was the worst; I'd pretty much lose the connection as soon as I played in unttended. Then, after reading the tooltip for the persist button, I ticked persist and it seemed to get a bit better, the connection might last five minutes in unattended. Now, unticking W 10 services button with persist button also active, all works, though sometimes, while playing music, I'm unable to change volume, but if I disconnect/reconnect RDC that problem gets solved. Before when I activated shutting W10 services I was never able to reconnect via RDC once the connection was lost. Hope that makes sense. Am headed out for a run and then some chores; be back in a couple of hours. Thanks for the assistance!

[boleary]

One more thing, I wonder if there isn't something in my BIOS settings that might be causing this?

[boleary]

Also not sure I understand the persist button. When it's not ticked and one is in unattended and is playing music via RDC its my understanding that the LAN is shut down. How then do you change volume or do anything while the LAN is shut down? Do you have to wait till music stops for the desktop to come back before RDC will reconnect? Sorry for being slow on this!

[boleary]

LAN is enabled in BIOS. Any other settings that might have an effect?

[PeterSt]

The Persist for Keep LAN means that when Keep LAN is active, the LAN will also stay On during Unattended Playback.
The confusing part emerges when you deactivate Keep LAN (and which is to be done when in Normal OS prior to going to MinOS) because in that situation Persist is meaningless (does nothing).

All I know is that each of these Services Settings are guaranteed (ahum ?) to work when set while in Normal OS. But better say this the other way around : nothing has been made for changing those settings while in MinOS; Side effects can be multiple (and stacking) because something which was set to shutdown in Normal OS may most probably not start working when the setting is reversed in MinOS and something which was set to stay in Normal OS may not shut down at all when the setting is reversed in MinOS.
Moral : if you want to change something regarding this, do it in Normal OS.

You once told about that "strange" connection of your music disks. I suppose this has been eliminated now (or otherwise you would not have the question in the first place ?) but maybe it is related (to possible left-overs of it ?).



Peter

[boleary]

The Persist for Keep LAN means that when Keep LAN is active, the LAN will also stay On during Unattended Playback.
The confusing part emerges when you deactivate Keep LAN (and which is to be done when in Normal OS prior to going to MinOS) because in that situation Persist is meaningless (does nothing).

Peter

Okay, and I see in your signature as in the picture you posted in reply #5 that you "Keep Lan - Not Persist.' So does that mean that when you are playing a track in unattended  your LAN in the audio PC is turned off? How then do you change volume or do anything while the track is playing? Or does any input -- change volume, stop, next track, etc. automatically turn the LAN on first?

I think at this point I should start over. By this I mean put a clean copy of W 10586 in the boot menu, update XX to 2.06 and apply all settings in full OS mode as you have them in reply #5 above.

Regarding my music disc, I have had it connected to the MB USB 3. I know this is not preferred; however, I just wanted to give RDC another try, as I had never tried RDC with the video card removed. If the sound was better with the card removed I was then either going to connect the USB3 music drive to the remote PC (laptop) USB 3 port or get a NAS, but that requires figuring out how to have the audio PC see the drive which is another area to learn about. Clearly, with video removed the sound is fantastic and I want to get this sorted out. So another question: Can I map the USB3 music drive connected to the remote PC--laptop- or must I use a NAS? 

Thanks for your patience.

[PeterSt]

Okay, and I see in your signature as in the picture you posted in reply #5 that you "Keep Lan - Not Persist.' So does that mean that when you are playing a track in unattended  your LAN in the audio PC is turned off?

No, or almost. What it means in combination with the "Use Remotre Desktop" is that all of the LAN shuts down, except for a minimalist piece that allows for RDC.

I just wanted to give RDC another try, as I had never tried RDC with the video card removed.

There is something here and it reminds me of why I did not respond to this right in the (my) morning. I am positive someone else experienced the very same, but this was not discussed on the forum and I have to look it up in email. I know who it was though, so I should be able to find it.
Or ... or it was plain easy and related to the necessity of making the connection by means of IP number and not by Computer Name. So if you're not using the IP to make the connection to, then that's it.

Can I map the USB3 music drive connected to the remote PC--laptop-

Yes you can. But you imply a cabled connection (not WiFi). So in that case, Yes. But in XXHighEnd set active "Always copy to XX Drive" (which remember, has become RAM now, the RAM-OS Disk assume).

Peter

[boleary]

Thanks Peter. I was using RDC with the computer name -RAM-OS- and just switched in full OS mode to the ip address but I have the same result. One thing that's a bit strange is that the username for RDC only works with RAM-OS\XXHE. If I just use the XXHE username it won't connect. Is RAM-OS\XXHE correct? I believe I got that name when looking for the ip address.

[PeterSt]

Brian,

I only now read this (somehow) :

Set up a RDC connection using a Netgear Wifi Range Extender which is hard wired to the audio PC.

Maybe the culprit is in there. I mean, possibly the PC responds differently to that than to a direct connection.
Can't you try a cable and see whether then the culprit does not appear ? Thus, Audio PC and laptop directlty connected by network cable ?

Peter

[boleary]

I suppose so, for testing purposes, but I'd need two 60 to 75 ft cables as the router is on the first floor and music is on the third floor. Long term I'd have to figure a way to get them up here without running up two staircases and through three rooms...Not likely I'll be able to get those cables today. Was hoping an easier fix might be reinstalling the 10586 OS, given your post about how things will go wrong if you change XX service settings in unattanded, which I did several days ago.

Brian

[boleary]

Brian,

I only now read this (somehow) :

Set up a RDC connection using a Netgear Wifi Range Extender which is hard wired to the audio PC.

Maybe the culprit is in there. I mean, possibly the PC responds differently to that than to a direct connection.
Can't you try a cable and see whether then the culprit does not appear ? Thus, Audio PC and laptop directlty connected by network cable ?

Peter

Only yesterday did I realize that the text in bold meant connecting the Audio PC and server PC to each other. As my reply above indicates, I interpreted your statement to mean that  I needed two cables directly connected to the router. I had been using WiFi on the server PC for the RDC connection to the hard wired Audio PC -- I had the Audio PC directly connected to the Netgear WiFi extender. Yesterday, after purchasing a USB3 ethernet adapter, I hard wired the Server PC to the Netgear wifi extender and then directly connected the Server to the audio pc and all works perfectly. Don't even need the two 75 foot cables......

Again Peter, thanks for your patience and for all the email support.

Old dogs new tricks, nah.....

Brian

[Rmalits]

Hi folks,

a few days ago a had similar issues: When playing with XXHE in unattended mode I got stuck, not always, sometimes it was doing ok. Then again I got stuck almost every time I played in unattended mode.

But I should start from the beginning:
Since almost half a year I am using XXHE on the audio PC, which I bought from Peter with my Synology NAS. So the audio PC loads the music files directly from my Synology NAS, what I really like, becaused I am used doing this that way for years with various DACs and network players. And there is a way to have the audio PC in the home network without running into the Windows 10 update trap. I will put the infos, how do that into another post soon.

Now back to the RDC issue in this post:
As the RDC frontend, it's a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 notebook, is only used as control, because the music files are directly loaded from the Synology NAS to the audio PC, I started to use RDC via Wifi for the MS Surface notebook about three weeks ago.
And... bingo! That worked perfectly! I always was playing in unattended mode - no pronlems at all. I did not get stuck even once with RDC.
Then I tried to use my iPAD for RDC instead of the Microsoft Surface: The same result: Controlling thr audio PC directly with my iPAD worked the same way without one single problem.
For me that was a big improvement of usability: no notebook needed, no LAN cable across my living room, just great...
All the time I was using XXHE version 2.05.

Then the days came, when I suddenly ran into severe RDC problems. Unluckilly, what happened was a time conincidence of several changes during the same hours and days:

1) I installed the update of XXHE version 2.06a. After some minor problems it worked the same way with RDC over Wifi, but the stability was gone, as I described above in the beginning of this post. RDC got stuck frequently, but only when playing in unattended mode. So I thought, that this must be a XXHE 2.06 issue (now I know, I was wrong)
A dozen and more of emails were transmitted between Peter and me (a big, big thank you to Peter for this great and so fast support!).

2) The same day, right after the upgrading to XXHE on the audio PC, I installed XXHE on my MS Surface notebook for the first time, to be able to use Tidal in future. So we thought that this could also have caused the RDC troubles in some way.

3) The same days, when we were doing all these installations and trouble shooting there was somehing else different in my home network, what I did not take into account:
I had new IT stuff installed into my home network, like a new TV set, Google cromecast and so on. My house was full with guest, some of them using the home network intensivly. Imagine two boys in the age of 14 doing video games through the internet all day (and night).

First we found out, that changing back to the LAN cable worked. No interruptions of RDC any more. So I was using it that way again and I could enjoy music played in unattended mode again.

Then I thought about all that a bit and found the most simple sollution:
I switched off all the devices connected to my home network, switch off all the internet devices, firewall, routers, hubs and started the network from new.
And bingo again! Everying is working now again the same way. I can use RDC over Wifi again without any poblems.

So what is the experience of all this long story:
Using RDC in unattended mode needs proper and fast network connections. When it is used only as a control for the audio PC, it also works over Wifi. But Wifi must be stable and fast responding!

Learning about this issue, I will have one more change to my home network: I will install a 5 GHz Wifi router in my living room area. It works well now again with the 2.4 GHz router, I am using now. But 5 GHz will probably make it even more stable.

Best regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

Hi Richard - thank you for sharing this all !

Please keep a close eye on this, because I wonder whether this is speed or bandwidth related indeed. Maybe it is, but I have never heard of the issue (BUT which would be hard to detect, unless by the person involved, like you ).

Btw, very coincidentally I had my share of the similar situation myself just around the time of your posting. So, this is about the blue screen with the circle circling forever (OK, for a few minutes because then the RDC screen just disappears), which is the "proof" of the actual same situation. But what did I do ? IIRC I closed all down nicely, and then rebooted the server (which is the Remote to the Audio PC). But then I forgot to reconnect and now we have the different situation that Windows 10 is not able to cope with that for very long, and something falls asleep. Whatever that is, this does not occur when the RDC connection is active, which in my case is always (say for many weeks in a row). Possibly it is the Audio PC itself falling asleep (I did not watch it) which next goes unnoticed because the RDC re-connect will wake it up (uhm,  does it ?). Anyway, for me this was the very same situation now by this cause.
And as I told by email ... I think the same happens when the server is rebooted without disconnecting the RDC connection.

Btw this is 14393.0.

Maybe this too helps someone in the future.

And Richard, great that you solved it !
Kind regards,
Peter

[acg]

I had the RDC waiting, waiting, waiting screen as described and to solve it I changed the power scheme on the MusicServer so that the computer would not sleep.  That seems to have solved the problem for the last week or so.

[Rmalits]

Concernings Peter's reply above:
In my case most likely it was RD on the audio PC what got stuck (blue screen with the clock turning). What ever client I was using, the notebook or the iPAD, there was the same behaviour.
Kind regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

In my case most likely it was RD on the audio PC what got stuck (blue screen with the clock turning).

Richard, Yes, it is the Audio PC providing that screen and actually disallowing (re-)logon.

Peter

[PeterSt]

I had the RDC waiting, waiting, waiting screen as described and to solve it I changed the power scheme on the MusicServer so that the computer would not sleep.  That seems to have solved the problem for the last week or so.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks. So it seems that this implies a similar situation as (my) rebooting the Music Server PC;
The Audio PC unexpectedly does not see its host any more (your Server which went to sleep) and then something goes odd.

Regards,
Peter

[Rmalits]

Hi Peter and all others interested in this issue,

I had been in downtown Vienna, when I wrote these posts yesterday. Today I am back home and did some more testing using my MS Surface notebook as a control like usually. I also did some tries with my iPAD as a control for the audio PC.

The only time when I got the blue screen again, was when I was doing it with my iPAD, playing in unattended mode and switching to other tasks on my iPAD to do something else. When I moved back to the RDC task on my iPAD, I got the blue screen. It's seems to be that RD on the audio server falls asleep in this situation, as Peter described it. And the iPAD does not really do multitasking. So RD get frozen, which ends in the blue screen.

With the notebook it is working fine, no problem anymore, what ever I do during unattended playback. And I am still using Wifi 2.4 GHz, did not move to 5 GHz yet.
So it is mainly solved. The point is: It's important that the RDC does not get interrupted especially during unattended mode.

I like the way it works now again, but I will keep on doing some testing with my iPAD too, because until one week ago I could use it well to directly control the audio PC. We will see...

Kind regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

Thank you for sharing, Richard !

Peter

[PeterSt]

Hi,

What for sure implies the circle is when Unattended Playback is going on (LAN Services not kept, and Not Persistent - thus shut down during playback except for some small RDC stuff kept alive) ... is crossing away the RCD screen (from the remote first in line (which is the Music Server PC in my case). Thus :

Start Unattended;
Close the RDC screen on the remote controlling the Audio PC;
Restart the RDC screen;
-> Circle.
--> Requires a reboot of the Audio PC.

Thus, anything which implies this situation will run into the same.
I think it was said in this topic that when the remote is not a "windowed" one, switching to another task incurs for the same. Thinkin of it ... if this particular RDC task would be set to "runs in the background" then the problem would not occur (?). But not every app can be denoted that and I don't know about the RD apps for IOS and Android. I can't easily try that either because I don't directly control the Audio PC through these devices.

Peter

[boleary]

Not sure if it's been discussed before, but enabling the audio pc as a trusted device in the remote pc's antivirus software's firewall settings is essential for maintaining the RDC connection during unattended playback. Found that out the other day when I installed Norton 360 on my control  laptop (windows). I could make the connection and play unattended but would lose the connection once music started in unattended. Going into the firewall settings and making the audio pc a trusted device made the connection stable in unattended. Does an ipad have firewall settings?

[PeterSt]

Hi Brian, thanks for that. And No, this has not been discussed before.
Thank you for sharing this !

Peter

[Rmalits]

During the last weeks I was using XXHE a lot with my MS Surface as the remote PC controlling the audio PC. The audio PC loads the music files directly from my NAS, which is connected directly with the LAN/Wifi router.

This setup works perfectly, when only one thing is taken into consideration: If the RDC would get interupted during unattended playback, it cannot reconnect and gets stuck in the blue screen So when using a Windows PC as a remote this usually never happens, because Windows is doing real multitasking.
I case you want e.g. to reboot the remote (music) PC, this should not be done during unattended playback on the audio PC. So before doing this unattended playback should be ended. Otherwise you would get stuck in blue screen after rebooting. And it is most likely the audio PC, what is not able any more to do the RDC properly.
Attended playback would be no problem. The remote (music) PC always reconnects again with RDC to the audio PC.

Using an iPAD:
The above behaviour is the reason, why it is unstable to use an iPAD to controll the audio PC directly via RDC. It works as long as your iPAD is active in this RDC task. If you change into another task during unattended playback and switch back later, you may get stuck in the blue sceen.
The reason for this is, that iOS does mutitasking but switches off the Wifi connection of every background task after about 2 minutes to save battery power. There is no way to change this behaviour of iOS, exept maybe with the newest types of iPAD, which are able to run two tasks equally, one beside of the other (I don't have one that is able to do that).
I got these infos about iOS from my son Clemens who is creating iOS apps professionally.

So, to use an iPAD directly as a remote to control the audio PC, it works well with playback in attended mode but is unstable in unattended mode.

Kind regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

Hi Richard - great stuff, actually. Thanks a lot !

Best regards,
Peter

[boleary]

Happy to report that for the last two days I have been using my netgear wifi extender hard wired to my control/remote laptop. Wife is especially happy that the LAN cable going from the router in the kitchen through the dining room, then up two flights of stairs and down two hallways has been removed. The excuse of "just for testing purposes" was getting a bit old! So now its wireless to the extender, hard wired from extender to the control laptop then hardwired from laptop to audio PC. I believe now that the source of ALL my unattended problems that prompted this thread was the failure to designate the audio PC as a trusted device in my firewall settings in the control laptop.

[PeterSt]

Hey Brian, that sounds super !
But if I read correctly you now don't have a wireless remote - am I right ? If I am right then this may be what you want, but later you may come up with the excuse line again !

haha

[boleary]

No wireless remote, only wireless to the wifi extender and all is well.