XXHighEnd

I changed the location of my music files from an USB drive to a NAS. It works fine but now I don't see the coverart of the album during unattended playback.

In the settings I have "Keep LAN services", "persist" and "keep wifi services" all on and in "drive substitutes" I adjusted the drive letter to the new location (d:=X:, from usb location to NAS location).

Any clue what's the matter here?

Regards,
Stanley   

Hi Stanley,

No, not really an idea. But maybe one question for some possible short cutting :

Do you use the latest (2.02) XXHE version ?
So that (or maybe it is 2.01) allows for no network connection at all (during playback) and Coverart still "works".

Let me know,
Peter

Hi Peter,

I use version 2.02.

Stanley

Stanley,

I take it that it is coincidence. I mean, that because of the changes you applied, other things changed or went wrong as well, and that this now bugs you.

Is the normal Wallpaper still there ? I suppose you know what I mean. So the screen can be black in the normal situation (no Playback going on) or the (a) Wallpaper can be there.
When black, usually the Coverart Wallpaper won't show either.

I always have difficulties myself when the normal Wallpaper does not show and how to get tat back;
it is a combination of deleting the Wallpaper.bmp in the XX folder, press Stop in XXHighEnd at the right moment (after deleting that file I guess) and re-instatating a Wallpaper picture (rightclick on the desktop etc.).

But possibly I talked too much already because your screen is not black in the first place (when no Playback is going on).

?

Peter

Hi Peter,

The normal Wallpaper is there (just grey in my case, but it can also be a flower or something).

When unattended playing starts the only thing that is visible is the running time counter of XXHE.

?

Stanley

And what happens when this Running Time is switched off ?
or
When the OSD Text is additionaly switched on ? (or off when it is on right now)

And with Attended all is fine ?

When Running Time is switched off I get a black screen and music just playing.

OSD Text doesn't show when switched on.

Attended playing is just fine.

Then all I can think of is

a. The Priorities may influence -> set both to Normal for fun;
b. Q3/4/5 are at 1/1/1 -> set all to 0 for fun.
c. Maybe even the Processor Core Scheme can matter.

Just thinking ... when the above does not help, you can switch on Logging, play for a minute or 2, and post the X3PB log file of that. Maybe I can see something in there.

Peter

Hi Peter,


Changing the priorities and changing Q3/4/5 doesn't change things.


Changing the Processor Core Scheme influences the Running Time counter, with schemes 2-3, 1-2, 3-4 the counter doesn't show, with the other schemes the counter shows.


I switched on logging, but I can't find the X3PB file.

Stanley

Stanley - in the TemporaryData subfolder to your XX folder.

Maybe kill XXEngine3 after switching on the Logging, if it is not there indeed (but I think it should be).


At least that tells (me) that something odd is going on in your system. Never heard of such a thing ... (and I can't tell why either).

What (kind of) monitor are you using ? Graphis card ?

Peter

I mailed you the X3 file (I looked on the C: drive, but of course in was on the ram A: drive  :blush1:).

Normally I use a tablet, but for making adjustments I use the 1600x900 monitor on the mobo graphics connection (no separate card).

Stanley

Thanks.

If the track plays and you apply Alt-u (or Alt-d) does the Wallpaper appear then ?

If Yes, what happens when a second track starts playing ? (you can use a short track for the first one to speed up testing).

No, the wallpaper doesn't appear.....

Stanley, I am about to say : I don't know and I give up.

Now I wonder why this never happens to me - it happened 2 times within one month now, and both is related to something with you.
:yes:
But I don't give up YET.

- Quit XXHighEnd;
- Restart XXHighEnd;
- Start playing a Track Attendedly;
- Navigate to the CVTemp folder under your XX folder. In there there's a "1" folder and sub folders with the name of the album you are playing.
- At the deepest end of that, you see the coverart.
- Double click it, ask for its properties, observe those properties. Done ?
- Quit and Restart XXHighEnd.
- Play the same track now Unattandedly.
- Bring up XXHighEnd and press Stop.
- Again investigate that Coverart location. Is it there ? All looks similar as when you looked previously ?

... which brings be to another question :
You run the XXHighEnd.exe as stored on the Audio PC, right ? I mean, you just as well can start it from a storage location on the NAS but THAT would not be good ...

Peter

I don't see any difference between the 2 files.



No, I run XXHighEnd from the Audio PC as always. The only thing that is changed (by me consciously) is the location of the music fles from d: to x: (NAS).

Stanley

Last resort :

Put a bit of music on the Audio PC, in the exact same structure (start with the root directory) and play from there without changing a single setting.

Grr :)

Done. I put it on the C: drive in the same structure: Music/Music Type/Artist/Album/files.

And now the album coverart nicely does show in unattended.

So, good or bad news?

Stanley

 :scratching:
Playing and trying I found out that flac file albums don't show coverart when playing unattended, but that wav file albums do show coverart.
 :scratching:

Furthermore, when pressing play it takes much longer (45 seconds) for an album to start playing compared to the usb external HDD. But it takes around 2 minutes (!) before a wav album starts playing (but then it does show coverart).

Something wrong with the speed of the network connection (the NAS itself?)?

Stanley

Hi Stanley,

Reading this, indeed my initial response would be that your network is very slow. Whether too slow for something ?
Anyway, envision the size of the FLAC vs. the WAV and the difference in speed.

But it is not so easy ...
In this situation you MUST use a RAMDisk for Playback Drive. Are you doing this ? N.b.: The "must" counts for FLAC (and WAV is all right with it just the same).

For your reference :
A FLAC album maybe takes 3-4 seconds to start playing (Unattended and loaded over the LAN) and a WAV can take 15. This is because WAV tracks can't be dealt with in parallel; FLAC does.

Let me know when you find more, but you are on the right track (pun) now.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Yes, I do use a RAMDisk for Playback Drive.

Concerning the speed, I observed speeds of between 5 and 12 Mbps when an album is being loaded from the NAS.

Stanley

No, I don't get it. Sadly, the procedure for FLAC *is* a bit different, compared to WAV. But all what could come from it, is the other way around (FLAC shows them, WAV does not).

By now I feel it can be a bug on my side, but how or what - no clue.

There's the field (in Settings) Copy to XX Drive by srtandard (or something like that); what have you set it to ? (active or not). And what happens when you set it to the other state ?
Try WAV with this as well ! I mean, I want to know whether that now maybe stops working too.

:scratching:
Peter

"Copy to XX-Drive by Standard" was not set, but when set it doesn't change the problem, either with FLAC or WAV files.
But it does make the whole proces around 4 to 5 times slower.

 :(
Stanley

Hmm ... If you mean that what 2 minutes was, now is 10 minutes, then I would ditch that PC and blame it for this problem in the mean time.

Also, if this happens with FLAC just the same (slower) then I can't even believe that. :sorry:

Peter (out of ideas :swoon:)

Hi Peter,

I know, it's Christmas... So please... take your time... I don't expect any answer before all your celebration will have ended  ;)
We caught a bit of a flew during Christmas and we have to be in bed. So I took my MS Surface to find out a bit more about my wallpaper problem.

When we met in Holland about 10 days ago, I told you, that I never see a wallpaper during unattended playback when playing flac files. It is like this:

1) Playing music from my Synology NAS:
When I play flac files in unattended mode, what I do most of the time, no wallpaper appears at all.
When I play wav files in in unattended mode, I get the wallpapers when the the first track starts to be played, but for some seconds only. Then something strange happens: XXHE starts again automatically, so if I would have pressed Ctrl_X (but I didn't).

2) Playing music from local drive (C:, D:)
To test it for music from the local disk I copied some folders with flac files to the harddisk of the audio PC.
Playing these files from there the behaviour of wav and flac files is the same as for wav files in 1)
The wallpaper appears for some seconds only and XXHE is mystically started again automatically.

As I wrote above: All this is not urgent. I am used to XXHE without wallpaper for more than half a year now.

Happy hollidays!
Richard

Hi Richard,

After reading your post I started to search for something unknown, but my search terms were
starts automatically
(no quotes) and it brought me right away where I wanted to be : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3605.msg38547#msg38547

I seriously did not see the relation with this even unknown I sought, but now seeing it - I think it is related. So ...

Do you use Start Playback during Conversion ?

Stanley, did you already solve this ?

Kind regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

In my case too no cover art with Flac files. With Wav no problem. 2.06/2.07 both have this issue.

Best regards,

Arvind

Aha ... now we are getting somewhere for real ... Thank you for sharing this, Arvind !

Are you saying that 2.05 did not show this issue ? (I think you can't know really because you received the Stealth PC with 2.06 .. correct ?)

With Attended the (FLAC) Wallaper just appears as should ?

Are you (all) sure that the right coverart appears when WAV ? I mean, that you always see the correct track playing, assuming you also show the back (no real back cover being present to begin with) ?

Suppose - when just in Minimuzed OS ! - you enable all Shut Down Services (so let as much stay as possible), is there a difference to be seen ?

Thanks !
Peter

Hi Peter,

Don't recall with 2.05, too long back & at that time no Stealth LPS.

With NAS cover art shows in attended but not in unattended. For Flac files. Wav is fine in all respect.

With hdd/Flac files cover art/wall paper shows in attended as well as unattended.

So the problem lies with Flac files on NAS, at unattended.

With NAS/Wav files no problem in unattended or attended. Shows correct track playing.

Best regards,

Arvind

Arvind, super.
Can you also try what happens when you set all services to stay in Settings ? (just do so in MinOS so all what's needed is a sceencopy so you can revert to how you had it after the trial (just set back and no reboot orr anything needed)).

Thank you once again,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Attached a pic of the settings...is this what you wanted?

With NAS/Flac/unattended, wall paper doesn't show.

Best regards,

Arvind

Arvind, perfect. One thing though which quite explicitly can matter : the Persist on Keep LAN Services. So what that does is NOT shutting off LAN services when the system ir brought into Minimized Boot State, but (not persist that) shut off those services after all when Unattended Playback starts. So if you make the "Keep" persistent (make the Persists active/red) all keeps on running as with Attended. So this fir sure can matter.
If you have lust for one more attempt regarding that ... yes please.

Kind regards,
Peter

Hello and arvind,
it's great that both of you try to find out about this issue!
In my setup, playing music from my NAS in unattended mode, I get the same behaviour as arvind: no wallpaper for flac files, but wallpaper for wav files. Playing from the local harddisk the wallpaper is displayed for both, flac files and wav files.
I also tried to change the buttons for the services, actually not to switch off any of them: again no wallpaper for flac files (only SQ changed to become significantly worse).

The persist button for the LAN services was always on (red).
So I tried to change that to off (blue) half an hour ago for the first time. And that failed in my setup: The LAN connection to my NAS got lost after the first track was played in unattended mode. The audio PC could not "see" the NAS any more. Only a reboot of the audio PC helped in this situation.
Important notice: In my setup everything is conneted directly to the router: NAS, audio PC, remote PC (using RDC over Wifi).
Maybe that is the reason that the persist button for the LAN services has to be on.

Additionally I have got one other problem with the wallpapers:
As already described in my post above: If the wallpaper is displayed in unattended mode (always for wav; from local harddisk also for flac), XXHE restarts automatically a few seconds after the first song starts to play.
When I received the audio PC from Peter more than half a year ago, this was working well for the demo files on the harddisk, but I soon lost this feature, using my NAS and now it even does not work correctly any more for music files from this local harddisk.

Btw: It would be great to see the wallpapers also in unattended mode. But... as SQ is the most important for sure, I got used to live without it. And I somehow have the feeling that too much graphics data being transmitted over RDC would harm SQ (at least a bit).

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Peter,

Sorry, but even with persist activated no wall paper with unattended, with Flac files.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

While we are at this subject, there's another issue; if I minimise RDC on music server ( work on music server laptop) & then maximise it again, the wall paper disappears with Wav files too. With & without persist activated.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hey Arvind,

This is because with that activity you're wiping the screen (literally). So FYI : there is no Wallpaper as such; it is a drawing (done by XXHighEnd).

And to be complete : this is only so for Windows 8 and beyond. Prior to that (Windows 7 etc.), it *is* the normal Wallpaper (which can not be "wiped").

Peter

I feel that the key to the problem is here somewhere. So I read it all through again, and here is where it all stops. But I'll bet you that someone like Stanley says : "this is too slow now, so I set it back to what it was".
Wrong. Wrong for a basis always, just because it is not supported like that (throughout and in consistency).

So what is actually NOT supported ?
Have the music somewhere on the LAN and *not* engage "Copy to XX Drive by standard".

Read this the most thoroughly and try to understand :

The logic in this little rule is that you won't be able to shut off the LAN (most of the services of it) while playing unattendedly, because logically a next track would not be available when WAV. Why especially WAV ? well, because nothing needs to be done to it, so it nicely stays on the LAN wherever that might be (shared volume on another PC, NAS, etc.) and when the communication with the LAN is cut, no next WAV will be availabe for playback.
FLAC, contrary, has to be decoded and the output always goes to the "XX Drive" so this is now always local. And so, when you state "Copy to XX Drive by standard", then also WAV is copied to local and now all is in the same state. You would now be able to disconnect the network and playback continues (it really will). One thing : no RDC in such a situation. This is how a few services keep on running when you denote "Use Remote Desktop" in Settings.

In this situation you'd have Keep LAN Services active (at the stage of going to MinOS from Normal OS) and Persist needs to be inactive (Persist can be dynamically changed while in MinOS). Yes, I know how confusing this is ... (see picture below).

(http://www.stordiau.nl/xxhighend/LanPersist01.png)

If in the above situation your NAS has dropped off, it only means that it is not 100% compatible to Windows and I can't help that (because I can't test a 100 different NASes, not even owning 1). But the solution would be to additionally activate Persist (relative to the picture above). Now theoretically SQ is a bit worse, with no idea this can be perceived as such.

---

So far for some rules. Additionally though, there's something special going on and you can not guess it (but can know it from a longer past) : with the music on the LAN somewhere and when you do not have your XXHighend folder in a RAM Disk, FLAC conversion will be undoably slow. This is related to how the bits and pieces of FLAC decoding emerge and how Ethernet communicates with, say, the internal PC at the destination end (which would be your Audio PC). This culprit does not submerge with a RAM Disk, and it thus does with a normal disk/ssd. Let's say that "undoable" is the 2 minutes Stanley was talking about.

If we all read the above carefully, we can see that nothing really is wrong and I'd say for each of you three situations. Stanley was asked explicitly (quite many things) while Richard and Arvind use the Stealth PC which inherently runs the OS from RAM so there is really no other way and mind you, a RAMDisk is *not* to be additionally created in the Stealth situation, which BTW is about the RAM-OS Disk really.
Let me stipulate that Stanley might be using the settings wrongly at this moment because otherwise it is too slow, but if he wants to sort the problem he too has to comply to the recommended settings first (again, see picture). I mean, only for trials. And might things work lateron, we can always see how to get the NAS faster, which *is* totally slow.
On a not unimportant side note, I suppose that Richard and Arvind already have Copy to XX Drive by standard (which this is about) active, so it would not be the culprit.

Guys, this post is only about some prerequisites, not only for you but also for myself. I am pretty sure it won't solve the problem so I am going to dive in the program now to look for "something".

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

You're right "copy to xx drive by std" is active.

Thanks for the wallpaper erasing explanation.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

thx a lot for your so detailed explanations!

Yes, you are right, "Copy to XX drive by std" is active.

Peter, I didn't answer yet one of your questions from a post above:
"Start playback during conversion" is off and always had been off.

Kind regards
Richard

Thank you Richard, thank you Arvind.

Just read through this too quickly, so I apologize if this isn't helpful. If you are losing the NAS or RDC connection during playback have you designated the audiopc and or the NAS as a device that is allowed to pass through your antivirus firewall on the music server pc? I had problems losing my RDC connection during unattended playback until, in my antivirus software on the music server laptop, I designated the audio pc as a trusted device.

I have been playing a little without Coverart (Don't do anything Coverart - and rebooted) but ...

- I don't think I liked it better or otherwise such a little that it is not worth while for me, because :
- I can't survive not seeing the volume;
- I certainly can't survive not knowing what is playing.

Ad the latter : Believe it or not, but sound can change so vastly that I don't even recognize a track from being played before, while I played it a 100 times. So I *have* to know what is playing.

Something else is that without Coverart at all, how to select the music ? So that "Don't do anything with Coverart" did not even last two track (selections). However, switch that back on (deactivate the button) and that was solved of course, thinking that the Wallpaper is all what could influence. But as actually already said, that did not last long either - I need to know what is playing and I need to know the volume.

About the speed of volume change : I experienced no difference at all. It is 3-4 seconds but a bit depending where it "falls" in my SFS of 120 (with the notice that the Audio PC runs at 720MHz).
So maybe there is a difference, but then too hard to detect (because relatively fast already).

Regards,
Peter

Hello boleary,

thanks a lot for this hint concerning the antivirus firewall!
I read this already a few weeks ago in another topic and didn't pay enough attention to it, because in general RDC is working fine in my setup, even over wifi and only in certain rare circumstances it failed.

I tried it today and yes, you are 100% right!
After installing special rules in the Windows firewall of my music PC (actually it's only used as a remote PC as all music is stored on the NAS), I now can play in unattended mode with switched off "persist" for the LAN services. The music as always is loaded from my Synology NAS. That's great!
So this contributes once more to even better SQ!
And probably there are more situations where RDC will be more stable now and may reconnect better with unattended playback.

Best regards
Richard

Hi Peter,
the posts above describe the wallpaper issue when using a NAS.
In attended mode coverart always works fine.
In unattanded mode it works well for WAV files now, but coverart never shows up for FLAC files, although all tracks are already loaded before playback starts.
BTW, this is the only problem when my audio PC loads the music files directly from the NAS.

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Richard,

I am sorry, but this all makes no sense to me. It seems that the only one who can solve this is you, by means of finding the merit of things. Also it looks that you are the only one experiencing this issue, meaning that I don't even think that Arvind suffers from this. But if he reads this I hope he will tell.

Please notice that by now "half of us" draw the music files over the network from a source elsewhere. "Music files" is the contents of a folder (plus sub folders when there). There shouldn't be a difference between NAS or "Music Server PC" in the sense that XXHighEnd doesn't know what either is. It is just a network connection and you can virtualize that a "copy command" copies them from the network source to the Audio PC. So all I can imagine is that the source doesn't let go (does not enumerate) everything and therefore it just lacks later, when needed.

My advice for now : Try to connect to a random other source on the LAN and see whether it makes a difference. Maybe not easy to set up if you actually don't have one (but it could be a laptop), but I don't know what to do otherwise anyway. Doesn't happen often but in this case it does. Sorry !

Kind regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Unfortunately I still have the problem of no cover art using FLAC files. Whether the music data is on hdd or NAS, there is no cover art.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

I will try it using a windows PC with its HDD as a server. I will tell you about the result.

As I remember, there are more posts mentioning this cover art problem for FLAC files in this forum. So I am not the only one for sure.

There is also an impact on SQ: kind of short time cracking when cover art display fails for FLAC files a few seconds after unattended playback starts. There are posts about that too.

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Peter,

I did some more testing about this issue this evening.
As reported, when playing FLAC files from my Synology NAS (connection via LAN cable over the router) in unattended mode cover art is not displayed. It's like that since about 2 years.  :(

Next I connected a USB harddrive, which I use as a backup device for my music, to my music PC and played music with my audio PC from there. All fine in this case. Cover art is displayed in unattended mode too. The interesting point is: My music PC is connected only via Wifi (no LAN cable installed). So that's a pretty slow access for the audio PC, significantly slower than to the NAS through the LAN cable, but cover art still works fine in unattended mode.

So, it's all a bit strange. I have no idea what could cause XXHE not to display cover art after the tracks had been loaded from my Synology NAS. I am doing some more testing....

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Peter,

just now I found something interesting what may help to locate this cover art issue:

Using the Windows Explorer, I watched the temporary files beiing created in the 2.xx folder during attended playback:
When tracks from the USB disk of my music PC (Microsoft Surface) are played, the file Wallpaper.bmp is created a few seconds after the UnicodeTracknnnn.wav has been created. It's not displayed in attended mode but nevertheless it is created.
When I play the same tracks from my Synology NAS, no file Wallpaper.bmp will be created! So, most likely the same happens during unattended playback.

Peter, maybe you have an idea why it fails to create Wallpaper.bmp even in attended mode, when playing tracks from the NAS.
Will this help to solve this issue?

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Arvind,

Great that you responded. Thanks !

OK, so what do you mean with "hdd" ? To me this is apples and oranges because a hdd has to be "in" something and the least it can be "in" is in a USB enclosure. OK, more less would be in the Audio PC of which I reckon you did not do that (in your Stealth).

Don't be confused with me saying : it would be the very best if your music could be directly connected to your Stealth best, indeed. And yes, you could even put in the 2.5" hdd in your removable tray (where normally the OS-SSD sits).
And of course, copying the music to the internal C: drive (the PCjust booted from RAM, IOW don't change anything there) is as good as it gets just the same, but may seem more awkward for you and/as you must think about the space it consumes. And that you must delete it when finished.

Arvind, assumed that you too want to solve this issue (and I completely forgot about it after all this time) I think it would be the best if you (with me) try to get hold of some relevant data here, because your situation is relatively normal (Richard's is less that). So ... ready to help !!

Regards and thanks,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Firstly I must apologise, cover art with FLAC files works ok with music on an external HDD (connected to music server). The problem lies only with NAS, which is also connected to the music server.

Best regards,

Arvind

Thank you very much, Arvind.

See below; this is the structure on my Stealth where the Coverart is stored per album, which also can be a Gallery like in my case here. It is stored there per Unattended Playback session. Watch out : with a new (Unattended) Playback session the contents is deleted from of the "1" sub folder and replaced with the new required Coverart for the Unattended Playback session. When XXHighEnd is just quit (no Playback) the contents is deleted as well.

What is different for the Coverart when you play from your NAS ?
Better : When you comprise the Playlist Area of mixed NAS and attached HDD, what do you see ? This counts for FLAC files, but you already know that WAV does work. So what do you see for WAV vs. FLAC with a mixed Playlist of FLAC and WAV from the NAS ?

When I started this post I suddenly thought of rights. So the rights of your NAS could be different for FLAC and WAV folders, but which expresses through the JPEG files ?? Seems odd, but something like that could be in order. Regarding this, might you just see the Coverart files in all cases, can you actually open them on the Audio PC ?

To be sure, the sequence :
- Start Playback;
- Bring up XXHighEnd (Playback is allowed to be stopped);
- Observe folders.

Apologies for the super late responding; I was busy with something else yesterday.
Best regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Loading a WAV & a FLAC File from the NAS, I can see both cover art in sub folder “1”.

However in unattended playback only the WAV cover art is visible, FLAC File shows no cover art; just a black screen in the Audio PC.

Best regards,

Arvind

OK Arvind, thank you.

So what happens when you try to open the Covert files of concern in the NAS location
a. from the Music Server PC;
b. from the Audio PC ?

Peter

Hi Peter,

From the music server the cover art files open (WAV as well as FLAC), however on the Audio pc neither open; a window pops up saying “Class not registered”.

Best regards,

Arvind

OK Arvind, so that is the problem.
A mere problem is that this is not related to anything I do, obviously. Also it is really difficuly to help as apparently this is a "NAS" (OS) thing. So that it could be something like that became slowly clear to me (finally) but how to approach the solution ... no idea.

For your, and Richard too ! it would be the best to Google yourself for what you see happening and what the solution could be. And oh ... what about trying it in Normal OS briefly ? (I know, this is not really "briefly" (I would hate it))
Maybe it is some service which should run for this, but doesn't. So if it works in Normal OS we will be a giant step further ...

Best regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Nope, can’t see cover art in normal os mode either with FLAC files. 

Best regards,

Arvind

Arvind, then I would blame Windows 10 (for its specific Build you are using - probably 14393.0) in combination with your NAS.

What about trying to find drivers for it (for Windows 10) ?
Remember, if you can find them do not forget to install them under Normal OS BASE.

Also a small thingy many people don't know : The ".0" versions of the W10 OS do not contain third party drivers (or as few of them as possible).

If I can be of any assistance somehow, let me know.
I think eventually it will start to work (I feel you are close already). One more thing :


Re-reading that, I may wonder what you actually say there. I mean, a FLAC file is completely unrelated to an image file which coincidentally is in the same folder. But maybe my yesterday'd question did not come across as intended :
Go to the Audio PC, Start Explorer, locate the folder of concern on the Music Server PC - observe the image file(s) in the folder(s) containing FLAC files which don't show the Coverart in XXHighEnd. I did thus NOT mean to use XXHighEnd for this "test".

Peter

Hi Peter,

I understood what you wanted me to do yesterday. I did go into the FLAC files folder in the music pc through the Audio pc & I can’t open the image folder.

The same thing I tried today under normal OS,with the same end result.

Maybe will try to locate suitable drivers for it.

Best regards,

Arvind

Yeah, well, wait ...
So you have a separate folder under the music files folder with the Coveart files, right ? This makes it a little bit more logic to me. So now it is a complete folder you don't have access to which really is something different as a few image files in the midst of files ending at .flac.
Do you know the source of this (these) particular example ? No need to tell it in the open, but you yourself can maybe recognize that a group of albums from an other source doesn't show the exhibit. Of course it already starts with that separate folder for the images which could be called "rare" or at least not a standard (not that there is a standard for these things, but ...).

Peter

Hi Peter,

I’m traveling until Sunday. Will return & send you a detailed reply.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

Accessing the Cover art image folder from the Audio PC is not possible, a window pops up “Class not registered”. This happens in normal OS as well as Min OS.

All my rips are using dBPoweramp & the cover art image is obtained through their database.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Arvind,


Ehh ... you mean when you start Explorer on the Audio PCm go to the folder where the image files reside and then "they are / have to be accessed through the DBPoweramp database ?
No. That can't be right. And if it is correct then obviously XXHighEnd can't reach for the files. Envision that XXHighEnd would do the same as you do (grab the file via Explorer).

Please keep in mind : the Coverart images reside in the same folder as the music files for an album, or perhaps in a sub folder of that. Not in any different place (like JRiver could do that, but for obvious reasons no random program not knowing about that can "find" them as such). Btw, if I start to be correct about this and thus "knowing" that this never can work like this, how is it related to FLAC ?

So what am I missing ?
(or you :))

Peter

Hi Peter,

It seems the problem of no cover art while playback, at least in my case, was due to corrupt image files in a few of the FLAC music folders. I deleted the image files & downloaded new ones & now it’s working fine.

However starting Explorer from the Audio PC & trying to open the image files WAV or FLAC, does not open the files. From the the music server pc the image files open.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hello Arvind,


Maybe. But maybe it has been a sort of rights problem. So ever back the files got there by "a" means (copied from somewhere via some means and then especially thinking about the PC (or Mac) doing it) and now you do this again in your own environment and all is fine.


So this is a completely different issue and btw again not FLAC related. But also no problem. So in case I got you worried, my examples about Explorer were only virtual so you could understand what internally kind of happens and how you can mimic this yourself. This though, is to some degree as we now see as working really via Explorer is more formal than what happens in a program (or how the program can be manipulative regarding this).
So no problem and don't attempt to view the images on your Audio PC. AND :
Be careful, because thinking about this, you probably won't be able to view any picture on the Audio PC by normal Windows means. This is how IrfanView ended up in the XXHighEnd folder since 209 or 2.08 (but recently). This is all related to MinOS and what 14393.0 can still do (or not do).

Anyway, problem solved. For Richard too I assume, since he doesn't seem to be compelled much to (re)join the discussion :) Haha.

Thank you very much for your help, Arvind. And it helped yourself !
Peter

Hi Peter,

as  release 2.11 of XXHE is on the way, I would like to ask you if a solution could be found with this new release for the cover art problem when using a NAS as music storage.

I am a happy user of your excelent technology for more than three years now, but all this time without seeing the cover art when playing unattended from my Synology NAS.

Therfore I again did some testing with the same results as described above some time ago:
- playing in attended mode, cover art is always there
- playing WAVE-files unattended, cover art is always there
- playing FLAC-files cover art does not show up in unattended mode

Something maybe new to this topic, I found out:
After loading an album in FLAC format into the playlist the folder.jpg on my synology NAS obvioulsly isn‘t closed by the operation system of the NAS. In this state it is for example not possible to rename or remove folder.jpg on the NAS.
When the same album in WAVE format is loaded into the playlist, folder.jpg does not stay open. It can be handler freely.

So, I guess - or better hope - that this could be the reason that the coverart is not shown when playing FLAC- files in unattended mode, because the OS of the NAS may not allow another access to folder.jpg.

Maybe a simple „close“ command after loading folder.jpg in XXHE would solve this long lasting problem.
Peter, is it possible that you include this kind of fix into release 2.11 ?

Kind regards
Richard

Hi Richard,

That could be crucial additional information.
So I put it in the Todo and we will see what happens. I am going to try to make something of it …

Best regards,
Peter

Thanks a lot, Peter!

That would be great!  :tadaa:

Best regards
Richard

Richard, does anything change to this issue when you use  Core Appointment Scheme 1-3 ?

Thanks,
Peter