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