XXHighEnd

I have downloaded 0.9d and tried to run XXHighEnd.exe, but it immediately displays a window that XXHighEnd has stopped working. Under the "problem details" it displays this:

Description:
  Stopped working

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   CLR20r3
  Problem Signature 01:   xxhighend.exe
  Problem Signature 02:   1.0.2733.34784
  Problem Signature 03:   46871379
  Problem Signature 04:   XXHighEnd
  Problem Signature 05:   1.0.2733.34784
  Problem Signature 06:   46871379
  Problem Signature 07:   b
  Problem Signature 08:   d0
  Problem Signature 09:   System.InvalidOperationException
  OS Version:   6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1033

I am using Windows Vista Home Premium (64bit) and of course I have turned on the .NET Framework 3.0 feature and am using DirectX 10.

Thanks for any help on this.

Hmm ... 64 bit eh ...

I'm not even sure what to explicitly do (my side) in orer to let a 32 bit app run under the 64 bit OS. I'd say nothing. I do recall though, that something somewhere in Visual Studio (that's where development takes place) something is not ready for 64 bit yet.
I must dive into this.

I'll be back.

Ok, "officially" it should just work;
Could you please try withgoing zip ? Put the exe coming from it in your XX directory, and start it.

Several numbers and characters come by (like 001, a, b, c, d, etc.);
Would be so kind to report back what those numbers and characters are before it errors out ?
I hope it even comes up with the first ...

Thanks.

I tried it, but it does exactly the same as before. Immediately displays the "XXHighEnd has stopped working" window (with the details I listed before). I do not see any display of numbers and/or characters as you mention.

This one is explicitly compiled for X64 only.

Also ... In your XX directory there will be 4 Microsoft.DirectX DLLs. These 4 DLLs might bother you and you could move them out of the way temporarily. If this latter helps, do not start playing and listening to this 0.9d-2 version, but go back to the normal 0.9d (but leave those DDLs out).

Edit : Removed the zip (did not help).

This still does not work and behaves exactly as the previous.

Peter - I think it's time to stop right there. You do not mention in your "prerequisites" that this only works with Vista (32bit), but it's clear to me now that this is true. So the first thing you need to do is re-write the prerequisites to say "not currently supported in 64bit Vista". Second of all, you are asking for money for this program which implied to me that you have a finished product, but it's clear that you are still in development and testing. What you should have done is declare this a beta period and select private beta testers to do all your testing, while you iron out the bugs, and do not release (or charge) the public until all testing is concluded. From your comments to me such as "I'm not even sure what to do", "it should just work", "these might bother you", it is clear to me that you do not even have 64bit Vista, nor have tested it before with 64bit Vista. It is inappropriate for you to charge me for a program and then ask me to be a tester for you just to get it to work. I'm sorry, that is not how software development works. If you want (and need) me to be a tester for you, then I would be happy to *IF* you ask me and offer to either pay me or give me your program for free. I'm not trying to be a leech off of you. I'm just explaining how business works. I totally understand that you are new at this and this program is still under development and I can appreciate this exciting process and would like to be a part of it. But this is not how business works and it is inapporpriate to be charging money during this period. If you simply want to tell me that this program is not ready for 64bit Vista (and you re-write your prerequisites) then I will totally understand, and wait for the final version. (Or you can PM me with an appropriate offer)

edward,

I'm not going against you by any means. I want to discuss it though;

First off, maybe you missed a few things ... maybe I did not make it clear in large capitals ... but this player *is* in beta. And it stays that until I find it proved that everyone reasonably can even run it :

Also please note that I was urged to provide for an unrestricted (time) version and that if it were for me the "demo" stage would have lasted for another year.

Then, so far I have had no indications that the 64bit version wouldn't run, but from you (it would be on this forum then, and if not I just wouldn't know about it).

I could add that this player really wouldn't be the only software which doesn't run under Vista or Vista/64 for that matter.


Which is just true, and maybe you (and I) got tricked by my earlier remark "Hmm ... 64 bit eh ...", which is related to unexpetcted activities just over 1 week ago, where I had to change many things because Vista Business lacking of "audio" stuff. And at that moment I did not think about the 64 bit thing anymore. So I guessed I could have (unintentionally) removed the X64 compiler option ... which turned out I did not (and x64 only doesn't help you either, apparently).

As far as I can think of now you probably didn't download all there is to download (like the DirectX Redistributables (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=11.0)) which would be normal behaviour then, as you described.

Whether it's X64 or not, I want to help you. This is unrelated to paying, and trying it out can be done without paying. If you don't want that, it's okay with me, and a pitty for others might it be X64 indeed. It's the way my business works and I'm okay for over 20 years with that. Really. :yes:


It would be nice if someone could confirm Vista 64bit just doesn't startup at all, and gives the message "XXhighEnd does not work anymore". Or that it just does work.
Thanks !

Peter

OK, I apologize, I either did not see that or did not thoroughly understand it. I must say though, I have been using, buying, and beta testing software for 15 years and never had to pay during the beta testing. Of course, I'm still operating under the assumption that I have to pay to use your software. Did I misunderstand that too?


Well, I don't mean to be argumentative, but you would know about it if you had tried it yourself on 64bit Vista. Do you have 64bit Vista and have you tried it? Your comments implied to me that you have not, but if indeed you have, then please be clear about it so I know if this problem is only on my system.


I have checked the link you provided for updating DirectX, however it states that it is version 9.19.1007. I have version 10 that installed with Vista. Are you telling me that I have to go backwards? Or am I misunderstanding something here?

To start with your last remark :
This was (a possibly too unclear) remark that for the life of me I can't find the latest version of this nowadays. Otoh, you should be redirected to the version that works for "your" PC. This, btw, is the typicle example of Vista Business just not allowing you to install any of this. It just won't. DLL hell (and that's why the DLLs come with the player now, *and* that's why I expected them to be in the way of your 64, which I just did not think of. I'm just being honest here).

I have 6 PC's here and it's really not enough. Not since the various Vista versions matter, we also have XP 64 bit *and* the soundcards matter a bunch in Vista. There really is no way to even think things can be solved this way. Do not forget the player (for Vista) is about Exclusively using the soundcard and all (like direct USB DAC), and already that gives dozens of combinations and situations.

If you mean "use it for trying", of course not. In demo mode the player runs for 34 minutes on average, and you can restart it as long as you want (or get fedup with it, and pay to get rid of that). Anyway, it was my intention to (please) let everybody report if things are not working out, with the main objection of this being a real (and IMHO first) highend player. Nothing to mess with the PC, it just works with the best sound quality, not matter what you (in the mean time) do with your PC. Btw, originally meant for cdp'er people, and all the outlay they need at switching to PC playback for the first time. Never anticipating on a whole world just having all the excotic PC's which is NO excuse !!), and it just grew like this.

For now Edward, Vista too just needs these Redistributables. Just the latest you can find (and I honestly never heard someone about the zip not working out for them -> which I *also* can't test because the Ultimate version(s) *I* have just can do without. And I'm not talking about dev environments (those are lost for starters). Go figure).
I really hope you can get it going.
Let me apologize for not being able to test Vista/64 myself currently. Since yesterday I have freed one PC though, and I will create a dual boot on it with 64. When I can find some time.

Hi Peter
I guess you didn't notice my reference to Vista x64 in my very first post... This is the message with 0.9b

& with 0.9d-2 this only...

Sorry, this is what you should see in the above post... (can't preview attachments) Jack

Hey Jack,

It really beats me what you are telling me here. This is from that first post :


and

(http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=16.msg20#msg20)

I don't get from this at all that you didn't get x64 running (nor that you were all that time waiting for a solution to it !!).

Also ...
The first picture seems to tell that 0.9d-2  wasn't made for Vista32 (which is true for that version !).
Then, your last picture seems consistent with what Edward was telling, except *he* told nothing changed from 0.9d to 0.9d-2. One of you both must be wrong on something ...
:wacko:

Could you shed a light on what really happened please ?

Hello
Firstly I am completely happy with XX on my audio pc with Vista 32 & do not need it to run on Vista x64, this is on my main pc & audio server. You said..."It would be nice if someone could confirm Vista 64bit just doesn't startup at all, and gives the message "XXhighEnd does not work anymore". Or that it just does work. Thanks !" So as I implied before if I can help...? I didn't try 0.9d (no need) but do you want me to? If so point me to it.
Still happy Jack

Ahh, ok. Well, I'll grab that offer with two hands. But first I have to be reset, I think. :wacko:

Must I conclude that you never got 64 running (hence just not tried anymore) ?
And that today it doesn't work anyway ?

Yes, it might be important to know whether from 0.9d comes the same as from 0.9d-2. Point is, it should, but again Edward told there was no difference. This is also about the 4 microsoft.directx.* DLLs which are there since 0.9d, of which Edward did not tell that removing them made a difference. I think it just does (and then presents the message from 0.9b you showed).

Don't hurry too much with your answers, since I will be working on some other prio things as well.
Thank you very much Jack !

Peter

Hi
No problem, I'll give it a try later & report back. Misunderstandings are inevitable, think yourself lucky that I'm not trying Dutch! We'd get nowhere...
Jack

OK Peter - every version (0.9d, 0.9d-1, 0.9d-2) all behaved the same (with the same error details). And there was no difference when I ran XXHighEnd.exe with the directx DLLs or without. I even tried running XXHighEnd.exe in a folder by itself and still get the same error.

I also tried to run the DirectX redistributables (even though I have DirectX10) in case perhaps it updates something - it did install something, but with XXHighEnd I still get the same errors. Then I tried to run the .NET Framework 3.0 redistributable, but this just told me that Vista already has this and to turn it on through the "turn windows features on" control panel. (Which I have already done before I started all this)

Peter - If you need to take your time to properly create the x64 version (after you install Vista x64 and test it) then I totally understand. When I have time this week I'm going to create a second boot with 32bit Vista (something I've been meaning to do for other reasons) and I'll just try XXHighEnd then.

Thanks Edward, you both must have different sutuations. Thank you for your efforts.

Hi Peter
My situation is exactly the same as Edwards having followed all the steps he has. Bringing up the message of my second screen capture above. The first capture was 0.9b as I said, which presumably was the result you expected from that.


"Must I conclude that you never got 64 running (hence just not tried anymore) ?
And that today it doesn't work anyway ?"

Correct!

Task manager shows XXHighEnd under the processes tab at 4056k of memory (although this varies slightly with each load up)untill I cancel the message.

Over to you
Jack

Hi Jack, thank you.

I just got the hunch of what might be going on. I hope to have "some" response in about 26 hours after your last post.
Peter

Jack,

Besides that I'm late on things, I just found that what I was looking for (some x64 DLLs) cannot be found where I expected them.
I will proceed on this in an hour or two, but I really don't know your times (you might be even at work right now).

?

Small update : Jack has been graciously helping all evening (offline).
So far, no solution yet ...

Thank you Jack. :sleeping:

Peter - I have discovered something that may be useful to resolving this issue.

I have installed Vista (32bit) and have been able to use XXHighEnd just fine. Until...for some reason I tried running the program from my external NAS drive and then I get the same error that I've been getting with Vista (64). For what it's worth, it is a Buffalo LinkStation Pro (LS-500GL).

Anyway, I hope this is useful.

Hi Edward,

I can't be sure, but this looks similar to having the program sit on one PC and run it from the other. That won't go either. I never found why, nor did I try hard to. It's even inconvenient for developing, because I always have to copy a new build to the PC I want to run it. Anyway ...

Since the message is very general and the program just won't load in such a case, it could very well be that if I find the solution to this "remote" running, with Vista/64 it will run just the same ...

Possibly on Vista/64 there's an official "distance" between the OS itself and its disk subsystem (still being 32bit ??), so it indeed comes down to the same cause then.

What I will do is try to find out is what causes this remote running not to work, and proceed from there.
Thank you.
Peter

Why would someone do this?  It doesn't sound like a very audiophool thing to do.  I'm hoping you keep your niche here as strictly SQ and not try to make things work that are a foolish setup anyway?  If people are going to causally listen from another room and not their main setup (where XXHE should be) then maybe they should use foobar for those applications?  Don't get me wrong.  If you can make things work "all over" in various applications without affecting SQ then fine... but is this a detail you want to spend time working on?  pls don't take the wrong way.  I'm comparing your player to a fine turntable ... you don't just pop it in your shirt pocket and carry it around to workout like an ipod... ie you may need to make sacrifices in convenience to keep the level of SQ up... bah i'm babbling, it's late, and I'm just so happy with the SQ of your player, I just don't want to see it loaded down with "code" to make it work in all applications.  ?? I mean it really does work now... super well... maybe people just need to consider what they are running on their machines and dedicate a computer as their front end.

Dave - I think you are misunderstanding what's going on here. We are trying to resolve why the player won't work with Vista (64bit). I'm not sitting on one PC and playing it from another or engaging in any "foolish setup". I just happened to come across a situation that duplicated the same error when trying to play from Vista (64), so I figured (and Peter seems to agree) that it might be related to each other and ultiimately help Peter make this program compatible with Vista (64). I don't necessarily consider this a foolish setup or waste of his time. If he doesn't want to support Vista (64) then that's up to him and fine with me - afterall I can use it just fine with Vista (32) on my dedicated music only PC. I agree that it is not necessary to load the program down with "code" to make it more "universal", and Peter, if that's the case, then there's no need to make this work for Vista (64) just for me.

Dave, I hope this clears things up and puts your mind at ease - I am all about the SQ as well.

This thread has gone very quiet.

Peter, have you been able to make any progress with Vista 64?

I thought I would just send this post to show that there is at least one other potential user with Vista 64 (and it's the only Windows OS I have).

John.

PS I get the same error message as others have reported - with all versions.

Boy, I just reread my post, I sure can get paranoid when it comes to keeping SQ high for this player.  I hope he can make it work for you 64bit peps.... maybe a separate 64bit version? ... don't they do that for software that is the same?  Make a 64bit version and a 32 bit version?

Hi John,

Actually ... no. A combination of things caused this :

1. Edward, the only one needing it at the time, reported he moved to Vista 32. This would not have stopped me, weren't it that
2. I have a licence to download anything with is more or less in beta phase amongst which Vista, but at the time I wanted to download it it was not available anymore.
3. Once I knew were to get it from, my normal Vista development PC crashed from a lacking driver which was unrepearable, and I had to use the -then- free (Vista) PC to swap OS disks and restore from the original PC all the bits and pieces of over 1 week of downloading it originally took.

Ad 3.
The supplier website of the backup software (Adonis) needed for Vista did not "allow" me to pay for the version I needed. So, no backup.
In the end this caused the need of the original PC (dual booted under XP now) with data to be online for several weeks, and actually 2 weeks ago I could get rid of it.

Is this all a good explanation ? probably not. But sometimes even I can get fedup with stupid computers, and again, afaiknew nobody was waiting for it at the moment.
Right now ? ... I don't even have the computer anymore. And besides all, I think chances are about zero that it even *can* work. It's hard to Google for whatever it is it lacks (Vista64) but the gaming environment seems to have enough problems with it.
Currently I put my money on SP1 and hope it solves "my" problem.
:sorry: :(
Peter

Peter,

It sounds like you've had a real headache with your machine :shout:! I can't understand how it can't be possible for it to work on Vista64 but I understand you don't want to do the work for Vista64 when there are so few pople who need it.

I'm regretting getting Vista64. I assumed 64 bit would be the norm for Vista with so many machines now having 64 bit CPUs, but apparently not. :sad:

If you ever want someone to do a little testing on Vista64, do get in touch. I'm not likely to monitor this forum for much longer as at present XXHighEnd is no use to me, so e-mail me if you want my help, deleting the bits in angled brackets (inserted to stop spam bots finding my address):

denningj<delete this bit>.@gotadsl<delete this bit>.co.uk

By the way, Peter, I'm curious why you went for the option of developing an entire player of your own rather than writing an exclusive mode output plug-in for foobar.

John. 

Hi John,

Currently it is more a matter of just not having a machine with Vista/64 and it is far from easy to create one.
Do you actually "work" with Vista ? IMHO there is no way of getting things running in a normal way. Mind you, I said "work", not play audio because that's okay.
To give you an indication, it took me a full week of downloading the development stuff it takes, without knowing in advance what to get. If things don't work, there is no way to find out why. And please remember, what I do, so far, nobody is doing, so Google will only bring my own posts.

The signature of what happens with 64 is that something in the code causes the compiled code to crash immediately on 64. There is no way to debug because it doesn't even start. This implies that (for me) there's nothing else left than finding someone with the same situation, but who solved it.
As I said before, the gaming world has enough problems with it to kind of "know" it is unsolveable by normal means.
Otoh, all bugs (assuming that) can be worked around, but *now* time comes in. I mean, the trial and error it will take will be very time consuming.
Anyway, I'll see what I can do.


On the plugin thing : can't be done because too many things must be arranged by the, say, "preloading" of stuff. It's not only about passing through audio samples that creates audio quality ...

Thank you for offering your help John,
Peter

My 2 cents.
I want people to think about this and remember what a good stand-alone cd player costs.  Then think about what they want their now computer front end to be doing.  Do you want it to be a part time audio Front End player and serve all your other computer needs too?  Or are you willing to build a new dedicated front end computer dedicated to being your transport.  If you want the best FE and pay a super lot, maybe get DCS gear and have at it... it's never been in my system, but I've heard it twice in others (and I have heard Oracle gear in mine)... but, I'd be willing to put my dedicated FE (only XXHE loaded basically) (US dollars) $1200. laptop; a $100 dollar version of Vista Home Prem 32bit; $100 for XXHighEnd; $750 for Stello 100 USB-DAC; + monies for external HDDs, up against any and all comers.
For me, $100 for Vista 32 bit was a smart upgrade from XP to hear XXHE done as it is.  If and when Vista 64 bit XXHE beats out 32 bit another $100 may be spent to go there... still cheap stuff in Audiophool land.
I know Peter wants his program to work under all circumstances ... good for him... but, I like knowing I'm setting up things for XXHE to work its best, and getting superb (best out there perhaps?) performance out of my Front End at a pittance of what I've paid for optical cd players in the past.
Not trying to come off as too much of a snob.  Just want people to think about changing their views of having a single computer doing all of their computer business/home needs and audiophool needs.... ok, maybe that's more than 2 cents worth of thought.

edit:
Thought of something I wanted to add to this.  As I was getting into and checking out audio gear.. from the late 80s until now... When I started comparing digital front ends it always amazed me how I began to find the transport/cable part of the transport/dac was so much more important than the dac part.  I wondered why the mags always focused much more on the dacs than the transports.  I think my learning how important/vulnerable getting the digits off the disc as opposed to the digital-audio-coversion, is one of my main reasons I started investigating computers/HDD based transports.  I mean, look at the lowly dac I started with (just to get my feet wet) here and I'm claiming it's the best sound I've ever heard in my system.  I'm in the position to spend more on a dac, but just don't feel I need to yet until the usb-dac arena matures a bit? idk, just don't feel a need right now; although I'm keeping my eye on empirical audio, the Crimson by Wavlength, and now the twindac++ (especially nice cause of the price; is it I2S based and do others out there feel that is as important as some make it out to be?).  If I ever get the time to learn more about how to... there do seem to be some good kits available too... something called the "Monica"... anyways, you can tell I'm not ready to jump dacs yet, but I do feel pretty confident about the transport side now.

Yes Dave, I could agree to everything, but I have a few remarks though :

Yesterday I spent 1.5 hours on a reply to you in your Foobar topic, and when I was near finished I wanted to try something with Foobar which caused my system hanging and I lost my post. Wasted time, and I couldn't find the guts to start all over again.
Today I spent a lousy 14 hours on an improperly working xover, and bothered two other people with it during that same time. I had to switch off/on my Fireface to solve the xover problem ...

With this I only want to say that people may for whatever always good reason feel confident with an OS. It won't be me wasting their time by forcing "an" OS. So yes, I hate it when it comes to that anyway. I will solve it, once I stop waisting time on ...
computers.

lol ohh I'm so sorry.  1.5 hours dang sorry.  Sometimes I think, "ya know I shouldn't post this cause then Peter will probably want to respond and poor guys "running" as fast as he can trying to do the good thing coding on the XXHE player".  Sorry about the lost post, I'm sure it would have been a good read; Thanks for spending time plugging away at your player making it the best.  Here's my solution to computer problems.... format and start again heheh
doh and sorry about the wasted 14 hrs.  My neighbor, who is an engineer, always thinks things should work as they should with computers.  If he ever has a problem, I always say, "Have you rebooted?" and he always say, "but, I shouldn't have to ... there's no logical reason to reboot" ... then he does reboot and when it works, I always bug him with the reply "see? Magic" hehe

The below is an attempt to let "a" part which is not suitable for 64 bits run in its 32bit mode. The whole program then will btw, but I don't expect SQ issues from that.

In the mean time I will look further and try to find that part.
So, somewhere viaviavia (most probably) a DLL is used (this would be external software) which just was not made for 64.

The text that goes with it (which I just copied from somewhere) is this :

Open up the advanced settings of the AppPool you're running in and notice the option "Enable 32 bit Applications".

If that is set to Yes, all may run (as a temporary solution).

Another thing :

IIRC offline it was tested to remove the four microsoft.directx.* DLLs. But now I think of it, removing the other 3 msvcm* DLLs might just give better chances. Keep in mind though, that this DLLs come with the "install" just to avoid the problems with Vista systems which do not contain them ...

Even more important might be the contents of the microsoft.vc80.crt.manifest file. I mean, it contains references like processorarchitecture="x86" which sounds all but good to me. This manifest file is only there to coorporate with the msvcm* DLLs, so the manifest file can go (away) too.

Now, if all with Vista64 out there could try this ...
If your Vista64 coincidentally needs those DLLs back in I'm sure another kind of message will popup.

Btw, if the "solution" from my previous post helps first, it just might be because of the manifest file told the system to "be" a 32 bit application.

Peter - as I told you back in reply #16:
http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=134.msg695#msg695
I removed ALL the DLLs and Manifest file and still get the same error message.

When the proccess of xxhighend starts, in the task manager i can't see the *32 after the name of the proccess. All the other programs like foobar for example, the proccess is like this foobar.exe*32. So i think that vista is trying to run xxhighend as 64 bit application and for this reason it crashes. Also i can see, an other proccess show up when i start the program, dr20.exe (framework error reporter i think. take a look at this. it may be related to the problem: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=133881&SiteID=1) and when i close the warning message it closes.
After some search,i find out that one differnce between x86 with x64 is that x64 doesn't support unsigned drivers. I dont know if you use one for your program.
I hope this info is useful to find out what is happening. I use vista x64 ultimate.

Thanks both.

The *32 won't be there because it's compiled for both. But since (external) DLLs won't be recompiled, there might of will be one "old" 32 that's touched during the process. There are hundreds being called ... all not mine.  :(
So, IMO there is a chance that "enable 32 bit Applications" does the trick. Did you try that ?
If that fails, I could compile the lot for 32 bit only and see whether that helps. Awkward, but it may get me on track somewhere.

The only unsigned driver I would used and which is addressed soon after - or during startup, would be "your" primary sound device, or the device you lastly used at a succeeded earlier startup (which can't be the case hehe).

The MS page won't load here at this moment. But I will look into it.

I can't find this . It doesn't appear if i right click on the exe, in the internal tabs.