Audio Device could not be determined

[hwk]

Hi Peter,

I love the sound of your player, but I (too) often get the pop up message: "(obtain audio device) Audio Device Could Not Be Determined (file error)"
As long as I don't do anything with this pop-up, the player acts normally: I can put new music in the playlist and play it, but now and then I've to close and restart XXHe to get sound. Is this something in the settings or the configuration of XXHe, or is it something else, like the fact that I've a sound card in my PC in stead of an external DAC?

[PeterSt]

Hi there Henk-Willem,

The comments in my program tell me that this happens when the PC is actually "too slow". But this is the very rough outlay. What really happens is either of this :

You stop Playback, but at an unlucky moment you start Playback again. Just think like pressing Stop with a new track to play already selected, and press Play within half a second of pressing Stop (the half a second is made up by me and now it already depends on the speed of the PC).

You press Play but something in the system is slow, and for example it could be the drive where XXHighEnd resides. Usually that is the OS drive (because you put XXHighEnd on that somewhere) but if it has spun down it must first spin up again. Now things go odd because the Windows OS is capable of making the file already known to the system (thus, no matter the disk isn't even spinning yet) while the contents is not there yet, for another program (and in this case it *is* about another program needing that data).
Notice that the OS disk too can spin down, but it depends a bit on the organization of it all (like in normal OS it will never happen but in MinOS it can, occasionally and very much depending on the OS). Btw, don't ask be about SSD's "spinning down" but I think they officially can (in the realm of being powered off by the OS).

If the Player Priority setting is lower than the Thread Priority setting (see in Settings, Processor Settings section), then you encourage for the program (belonging to the second group) needing mentioned file to be too fast relative to the program which creates the file (this is XXHighEnd.exe, belonging to the first group). Normally this is fine (say balanced out by me) but not really for the slowest PC's. IOW, playing around with those Priority settings may help *if* the issue isn't cause by my first idea, above.

Lastly, I myself have it too some times, but I don't really recall that the problem can be solved by repeating the start of playback or something and I actually like to know what you exactly mean by this :

As long as I don't do anything with this pop-up, the player acts normally: I can put new music in the playlist and play it, but now and then I've to close and restart XXHe to get sound.

You seem to give me two messages here :
1. If I leave open that error message, I can continue playing what I want and all remains fine.
2. But when I close that message I have to quit and restart XXHighEnd or otherwise I never have sound any more.

This is what I derive from your text but I think neither is what you want to tell me. I'd say that #1 can not exist (but I am not sure), IOW, you always need to close the message to continue (with another track or the same).
#2 could be in order (I recall something like that myself) but is then not related to your other half of the story (again, I'd say, but I can't be sure).
There's some times also the necessity to kill the program producing the audio (XXEngine3.exe) which goes by means of rebooting, killing it via TaskManager or by means of clicking the blue led in the right hand border of XXHighEnd. But it seems that you are not talking about this ...

I'm afraid my questions are vague just the same. But proper answers could solve the problem (because I then know where to be) because ... you seem to have this a lot of times, while I only run into it once per say three weeks which is so occasionally that I don't pay attention and don't bother. Still it could be something annoying for others and I like to solve it. So if you can mimic it ... it would be a good thing.

Kind regards,
Peter

PS: I now feel (or recall) that you can be correct in the necessity of restarting XXHighEnd in order to produce sound again.

[hwk]

Hi Peter,

thanks. I read earlier about the speed of the system for this, but I didn't change anything (CPU speed or elsewhere)
I'll try it with changed player priority and get back to you.
And about the two messages: yes! 1 AND 2! As long as I don't touch the pop up. I usually can "go around" the problem.

Kind Regards, HW

[PeterSt]

I read earlier about the speed of the system for this, but I didn't change anything (CPU speed or elsewhere)

OK ... but what *has* changed then ?

Peter

[hwk]

Hi Peter,

I didn't change the speed of the CPU (it is still like when I bought it) Just the upgrade to W10 and the latest XXHe were the only changes this year.
But the problem was already showing before, albeit less often (I think..)
Anyhow, it was not changing the player priority that seemed to help, but the W10 services button in the Settings.
If blue, the problem is away (so it seems: when I press it, the problem instantly shows again)
I didn't hear a change in sound quality so far with the W10 services on (i.e. blue button)

HW

[PeterSt]

Anyhow, it was not changing the player priority that seemed to help, but the W10 services button in the Settings.

Aha ...
That even could be logic because the Services behind that button are dynamically stopped *and* started. So what might happen is that when they are started, your PC is a bit slow (and let's state it just is to some degree) and that when it is needed to run in full (so to speak) it doesn't and now it comes up with that message first.

... which is BS because the issue occurs when you start playback ... (right ??)

It doesn't matter much, because the process can backfire on you also the other way around (when the service is stopped), but this is a bit hard to explain.

Do me a favour ... keep in touch with XXHighEnd 2.07 (should be there one of these days) and see whether things have changed, to this regard. I think I have changed things in the area, but it was not for this reason; still it can help you.
So by the time you have 2.07, try to think of switching on that W10 Services button again and see what happens.

Thank you for your trials and fine observations !
Peter

[hwk]

I'm looking forward to 2.07 and will get back to you then.
Thanks so far

Best Reagards, HW