MP3 skipping in Beta 2
#1
I'm having trouble with my XBMC for Windows setup. I'm running a box solely for xbmc in my theatre room, and all of my music and movies are stored on a windows computer in my office. I share all of my files over my network by mounting all of my windows shares as drives on my theatre PC. ( so my video folder is mounted through windows and mapped to, say, F:\, and music is mapped to E:\)

I have no problems with streaming video files. They all play flawlessly. When I try to play music the song starts playing, but if I stay in the file view mode within 15 seconds, the song will skip as though it were a skipping CD, but after a while continue playing again, and within another 15 seconds of that, skip again, and so on. If I go out to the main menu (Videos, Music, Pictures, Scripts, etc.), it *seems* to get better, and doesn't skip as often or for as long. If I go to the visualization, it gets much better, and sometimes doesn't skip for the rest of the song.

If anyone can give me any idea as to exactly what I should start looking at to see what my problem is, that would be great.

Edit:

I have posted a logfile here. I played a 30 seconds to mars song here, and when I went up a directory, it started skipping, when I went up another, it skipped again, then when I went to the visualization, it no longer skipped.
http://www.pastie.org/290989

Thanks, Jon

ps. it's an Athlon XP 3700+ with 1GB of ram, an ATI HD3650 vid card, and an Audigy 2 sound card using digital out, network is connected at 100Mb.
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#2
Not sure if this is your problem but:

Code:
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve kernel32.dll CompareStringA
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll swprintf
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll wcscpy
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll _wtoi
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll wcsrchr
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll wcscmp
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll ?terminate@@YAXXZ
22:05:44 T:3284 M:737054720   DEBUG: Unable to resolve msvcr71.dll ??1type_info@@UAE@XZ


You can download msvcr71.dll here. Just put it in your %systemroot%\system32 folder.

If you're missing that one, chances are you're also be missing msvcp71.dll, which is here.

The odd thing is the kernel32 error. What version of Windows are you running? Is this a new install or has it been working for a while? Either way, check your %systemroot%\system32\dllcache folder for a copy of kernel32.dll. If there is one in there, try backing up the current one (again, in the %systemroot%\system32 folder) and overwriting it with the one from dllcache.


And as an aside, since this is an XMBC dedicated box, have you considered running the Live version?
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#3
That is not the problem.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#4
I hadn't even considered the live version. What would be the benefit of running that over an installed version?

Oh, and on another note, I also have an XBOX running XBMC on the same network, and it doesn't have any problems streaming anything from the office computer.
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#5
I can confirm this issue... I'm doing something similar, but I've had this issue since one of the alpha versions...
Using XP SP2 Athlon 3200+ ATI video... the same box runs Mediaportal without any issues??
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#6
Unfortunately I can't reproduce it. All my mp3 play fine without skipping when playing locally and via a windows mapped share.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#7
I thought that it might be troublesome trying to recreate this problem. It certainly doesn't make this any easier, does it? heh. So I'll go over more of what I've tried in the last little while, and maybe it'll spark some idea in someone's head, or raise a flag.

Here's what I've tried.

1) I replaced the video card ( different brand, even). Not because of troubleshooting, but I wanted a passive video card. The fact that the skipping still exists means it's probably not related to the video card.

2) I reinstalled my sound card drivers.

3) I installed a different sound card.

4) I installed updated chipset drivers.

5) I installed updated network adapter drivers.

None of these things changed anything. My chipset is an nForce4 Ultra, and I'm running XP SP3.

The strange thing about this, is the behaviour of the MP3s when playing. My folder setup is like this:

E:\A\Artist-Album\01-track1.mp3

When I go into the Artist-Album folder, and I play the file, it starts playing. It usually doesn't skip for a long time if I just let it play. If I go up to the A folder, it starts skipping, every time. If I go up another folder, sometimes it stops skipping, sometimes it keeps skipping. If I go back into the A folder, it starts skipping again. If I back all the way out to the main menu (Videos, Music, Weather, etc.), it stops skipping. If I go into the visualization, it stops skipping. If I browse through the Videos, sometimes it skips, sometimes it doesn't. It's very frustrating that I can't reproduce it every time the same way, myself. The only thing that makes it skip for sure is playing the file, and then going up a directory.

Is it possible that it skips because it's trying to read the network folder again, and maybe reading the network listing causes the program to halt until it is finished reading the network folder? If that's the case, would it be my network drivers, or an operating system cache problem (maybe it writes the file listing to a page file on a hard drive), or is it maybe the way XBMC caches the directory listings (does it cache those, or read them every time?), or is there something else that might be a possiblity?

The one thing that's nice knowing, is that my office computer isn't the problem; my XBOX has no problem streaming the files from on the network and the network setup for my XBOX is the same as the network setup for my HTPC (the only difference is the ip). That means that it's most likely the PC. The other thing is that I have changed all the drivers for my hardware, and that didn't change anything. I might look into trying a different network adapter, but I'd have to go buy one. The only pieces of hardware that I didn't change were the motherboard (the network adapter is integrated) and the processor. I doubt changing the RAM would help. It's pretty much just down to software issues. Now I just need to find out which software is causing the problem.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any consideration you could give this problem. I'd really like to have this small (but debilitating) problem with my HTPC fixed.

Thanks a lot,
Jon
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#8
Well it turns out, that writing out my problems makes me a better thinker, because I figured out what my problem is (well now it's was)!!!

It actually ended up relating to another problem. If I had vSync always enabled, my CPU usage was 100% whenever I was in the GUI at all, the CPU usage dropped to like 16% when watching videos, which was why videos never skipped.

Since the CPU usage was at 100%, whenever I tried to do anything else which needed a clock cycle or two, it would have to interrupt the playing of the MP3 to spare up clock cycles and once it was done doing whatever it needed to do (list the new folder, etc), it would stop skipping. This is why it always skipped when I went up a directory.

I saw that there was a ticket open for the 100% CPU usage thing, and it was flagged as fixed, but I'm not sure where in the SVN it was fixed. All I had to do was switch the vsync from always enabled to enabled only while playing video.

On another great note, this also solved another problem I was having where it took what seemed like forever to update the library. Now it updates very fast.

Thanks for allowing me to work out my problem here. Sometimes all it takes is being able to talk out your problem in a public forum. I hope that anyone else that has either of these problems can find some answers here.

Thanks,
Jon
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#9
Thanks for reporting it and the detailed description. The 100% usage with vsync enabled isn't solved yet on win32. It also behaves differently for every user.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#10
Hey Jon Thanks .... that fixed it for me too Smile
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