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A lot of questions from a noob...


JarleH

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Hi

 

I am new to the boards (been reading for the last few days) and to Media Browser, and since I have a lot of different questions, and there are no general support board, I post it here. Admin can feel free to move it, if it belongs to another forum.

 

I have made a thread on another forum, but did not get too much help, so I will copy from there in this thread.

 

To begin with:

Setting up the Media Browser server was rather easy and nice, but I suggest adding help texts to the pages/fields in the admin dashboard. This would help newbies a lot!

The Kodi Media Browser (xbm3c) addon install guides that I have found (even on these boards), are all lacking and contain errors, made it hard to install and try to set up (kodi is NOT easy to navigate/understand to begin with).

 

My original post on the other board:

I have spent hours reading all over the net, but I need help in summing it all up, and find the 'best' solution for me.
This post will be long, but I just have some much to ask/settle in my mind...

Current situation:
I have my movies/tv shows, photos and documents spread over a few disks and a NAS (older Netgear NVX+). In my living room I have a Intel Q6600 (overclocked to 3,2 ghz) acting as a HTPC. On this I can play Steam games directly, or Steam Stream them from the new more powerful computer in my 'game room'. I also play Wimp music service on it, or if I want it easier for the wife; Wimp on a Android tablet hooked up to the surround receiver (minijack to phono).

The current setup from the HTPC to TV is HDMI, and optical spdif to the surround receiver (Yamaha RX V-663). But I have lately learned that optical spdif will NOT give me the best audio, it would be better to use HDMI to receiver and then onward to TV. I am not 100% this will work for my (older) receiver, but I guess and hope so (do not want any upscaling or anything, just video straight through to TV). So I guess I need to do some changes here (use HDMI through receiver to the TV). Any comments on this?

But the real issue at hand is this:
If I play trailers, tv-shows or movies (most are usually in MKV format), I play them via MPC-HC on the HTPC. And movies etc are just listings in disk directories. This is NOT a very 'nice' way to do it, or user-friendly. In short I would like a way better GUI/visual way to do the whole 'home theater' thing (kiosk/browser kinda GUI), without losing quality of the playback (MPC-HC gives super audio/video quality). Preferable with added services/features via add-ons etc.

So I started looking into Plex and XBMC, since I have friends using them. Then I stumbled onto Media Browser, and then I also started to read about JRiver Media Center (or what it is called). The reason for considering JRiver is because I get the impression the player have better audio/video quality then both Plex and XBMC, but not sure its correct, is it (music is played via Wimp online service, not via a media player)? And as far as I have been able to find out XBMC can be setup to use MPC-HC, is this correct (via Yatse)? I have no idea what the Plex player is, and what quality it or the XBMC native player gives. Can anyone give some info here?

I have considered getting a new powerful NAS box, and had landed on QNAP since I got the clear impression that brand had the most apps I wanted. But then I also started to consider building a more dedicated 'server' with a hardware RAID card (LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-4i SGL ?) instead of getting a NAS, because you can normally do that far cheaper and far more powerful then a NAS box, and at the same time do more stuff on a Windows PC box then on a NAS. So far I have made a build based on AMD FX-6300, as it looks like the best 'server' CPU for the money in that price range, by far. I may be wrong, so please correct me if I am. This will be a budget/mid-range build, but at the same time more power then I need right now, so its kinda future prof for some years to come. I am thinking 8GB ram will be enough, but not sure, comments?

The 'server' will typical be running file-sharing (media mainly), torrent client/online-syncing, media server software (XBMC/Plex/JRiver/whatever) and a hardware RAID. The front-end/client will be running on the HTPC in the living room, and maybe some DNLA/uPnP devices. Must be able to handle some transcoding, but will most likely not be used. But I do NOT want stuttering when streaming HD movies (over LAN) if at the same time some torrent/sync is going on.

What I am looking for:
- a solution that does not mess up my media collection is important, I want to be able to choose where meta data is stored, and I do not want the media server to edit the source media (no forced name changes, no forced transcoding, no moving files around etc)
- audio bit-streaming to the receiver
- good quality video playback (a las MPC-HC)
- good subtitle control is important, would like to be able to both have auto download and select which to use from local drive
- of course be able to play high bitrate 1080p content, and also future UHD etc content
- kiosk/browser view of media content with texts, pics and preferable trailers
- good control over the media server, and easy to maintain (where files are stored/cached, program updates etc)
- able to switch transcoding on/off, or set criteria
- 'open' media server, with preferable add-ons and options, with good support and fanbase
- server/client solution; want to have a centralized server, and clients connecting and acting as GUIs to the content on the server
- preferable some kind of user access control, but not vital
- preferable able to connect over more then just LAN, but not vital. and if so, easy to set up router config etc to the internet

So... which solution is the best for me to go for? XBMC with Titan skin and XBMB3C add-on, with a Media Browser server backend?

I am thankful for any advice/brainstorming/correction...

 

 

My follow up post:

I somehow got it to work after making my last post, but I do not know why and how. Think I just uninstall whole Kodi, and reinstall and do it again.

If I had Win 7/8 on the HTPC I would just try out Media Browser Theater, but sadly I only got Vista on it. Maybe I should try out Windows Media Center with Classic?..

About Kodi:
1 - Setup/config is kinda horrible, far from intuitive. Settings all over the place, and do not understand when I am actually using/inside and add-on.
2 - When I use add-on for Media Browser, I do not want Kodi to build up a local meta data repository. It doesnt do this right? What does it store/cache locally?
3 - Deleted
4 - Where is a good guide to setup external player for Kodi, like MPC-HC/BE? Is this one good?
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=209596
5- Does MPC-BE work identical to MPC-HC as a external player? Anyone got comments on MPC-BE?

About Media Browser:
6 - I am currently testing out MB on my old bot-computer, and I kinda need to make a new build if I want to make it run good. That means new machine with new RAID and install of MB. I can just install MB on the new machine, and copy over the whole /appdata directory right? But I also need to change the name of the directories/media folders (they will be moved of course to a new RAID/disks, how do I do this without losing all the metadata etc?
7- If I use Classic or Theater on a HTPC/client linked up to a MB server (on another machine), how much does the clients cache locally on the HTPC/client?
8- The server setup opened some port in my router? Just what did the setup do when it comes to router openings? Is there some port on my router now that is open to everyone as long as they know what port to use? Some details on this would be nice! And anyone got a guide to accessing the MB from the net, link up friends etc?
9- Where can I get more info about the Support/Premium/Badge/Online Profile options/features (guess this is under help at the bottom?)? (I think I got answer to this one)
10- Is the opensubtitles.org safe to register and use? I see some spam/popups there, so I am a bit sceptical about spamming my email etc

Would be nice if anyone can help out here, and more questions later I guess...

 

+ next update:

 

Update:
Kodi with Media Browser add-on is up and running, but its sloooooooow.
After startup it takes about 20+ secs for the menus to update.
If I go into a Media Server Movies category, it takes about 10+ secs for it to populate.
If I go into a premade Kodi category like All Movies, it takes about 1 sec to populate.

Same goes with my Media Server category Tv-shows , its slow, vs fast in the Kodi premade All Tv Shows
If I click a movie to play it, it takes 30+ secs for it to start play.
No matter what I do, it looks like Kodi transcode the movies which I do NOT want it to do, also buffers out and laggs. I just want the Kodi (or any other client) to just play the original movie in the format it is, NO transcoding of any sort.

Do not have a problem with my network, playing a movie via MPC-HC is instant, no lagg or nothing.

Any idea what makes it this slow?!

 

 

So...I know this post is long as a bad year, but I would love it if someone can help me out here. I have a lot of questions, and I also have several problems with setting up Kodi with Media Browser Server.

 

As you can read (maybe hehe) the reason for not running Media Browser Classic or Theater, is that I currently run Vista on the HTPC, DOH! So, what do you guys advice me to do, switch to Win7 or Win8? Win10 is still a bit far off, and looks to be a free upgrade for Win7/8 users (even though I hate to do OS upgrades, I like clean installs).

 

Any help from you guys would be great, and yes I know this post is long and hard to reply to...sorry for that ...

 

Thanks in advance!

jarle

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CashMoney

Ok .... yep, long post :P

 

I'm not sure where to begin to be honest, but hopefully a few helpful comments/info for you.

 

Help items should now be in the server dashboard. They link to the wiki which is a work in progress but I believe that most at this point have entries.

 

The slow/transcoding issue. In the dashboard, under library, have you mapped the physical locations to the network locations? Ignoring other clients, does the slow issue also appear with the web client?

 

6 - I am currently testing out MB on my old bot-computer, and I kinda need to make a new build if I want to make it run good. That means new machine with new RAID and install of MB. I can just install MB on the new machine, and copy over the whole /appdata directory right? But I also need to change the name of the directories/media folders (they will be moved of course to a new RAID/disks, how do I do this without losing all the metadata etc?

 

With regards to a new build, there is a Server Configuration Backup plugin. You can use this to backup and restore your server's users, playstates, settings, etc. I'm assuming that since you don't want metadata/fanart stored with the files you've already pointed MB to store this elsewhere. You may need to re-point the new install to the metadata/fanart location before you restore as I'm not 100% sure the backup will use that; I could be wrong and hopefully @@ebr will see this and confirm one way or the other.

 

7- If I use Classic or Theater on a HTPC/client linked up to a MB server (on another machine), how much does the clients cache locally on the HTPC/client?

 

It would depend on the size of your library. I use MBC and I have about 7000 tv episodes, 500 movies, I don't use MB for music (currently) and MBC's cache in the ProgramData dir is using about 200mb total.

8- The server setup opened some port in my router? Just what did the setup do when it comes to router openings? Is there some port on my router now that is open to everyone as long as they know what port to use? Some details on this would be nice! And anyone got a guide to accessing the MB from the net, link up friends etc?

 

The port would be 8096 I guess, but I don't recall MB opening the port for me; I had to do it manually. Maybe things have changed? Anyway, the info you're looking for is MB Connect and the Web Client. https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Media%20Browser%20Connect

10- Is the opensubtitles.org safe to register and use? I see some spam/popups there, so I am a bit sceptical about spamming my email etc

 

I detest spam myself. I personally used a throwaway gmail account to sign up, but that said, I've not noticed any spam to that account. I will freely admit I've not checked the spam folder for the account, but I don't think it's a problem.

 

 

"As you can read (maybe hehe) the reason for not running Media Browser Classic or Theater, is that I currently run Vista on the HTPC, DOH! So, what do you guys advice me to do, switch to Win7 or Win8? Win10 is still a bit far off, and looks to be a free upgrade for Win7/8 users (even though I hate to do OS upgrades, I like clean installs)."

 

If the machine is purely an HTPC, with the server backup plugin, steam etc it shouldn't take you too long to get back up an running after a clean install of an OS. I think most here would agree that perhaps an upgrade would be a good thing, tho not essential. As for which one to upgrade too, if you go 7, you'll get WMC for free with Home Premium. With 8/8.1 you'll have to pay for it as a seperate installation, but 8/8.1 does do much better for handling loading times and memory operations. If it were me, I'd go 7 as on "lesser" hardware, either will be better than Vista plus free WMC to use MBClassic with. If you're happy using Kodi as a front end though, then you may as well jump to 8.1.

 

 

A few questions for you.

 

How big is your media library? I know it's spread over a few disks and a NAS, but roughly how many movies, tv ep's, music, etc do you have?

 

Any particular formats we should be aware of (movies as MKV's, TV shows in ISO's etc?)?

 

Have you tried MediaBrowser Classic as a client? I believe it works on vista but I'm not 100% on that. I've just setup Kodi with the XBMCMB3 addon, and like you found it a bit of a chore compared to MB3. But then that's why I use MB3 and not Kodi in the first place :) That said, the skins/interface in Kodi are nice.

MBC allows you to use external players such as MPC-HC. This is in fact the exact way I have it set up at a customers house; MB3 server and MBC on the same HTPC, with MBC using MPC-HC as the external player. I think you've now got Kodi and MB3 setup, but you may want to try MBC anyway.

 

 

It looks like you're slowly getting things going, and hopefully some other forum users will chime in with some help soon as well. You may however want to post in other related forums for specific client (Kodi) questions to get specific answers.
:)

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A LOT OF TEXT deleted  :)

 

 

Many thanks for the reply!

 

"Help items should now be in the server dashboard. They link to the wiki which is a work in progress but I believe that most at this point have entries.

 

The slow/transcoding issue. In the dashboard, under library, have you mapped the physical locations to the network locations? Ignoring other clients, does the slow issue also appear with the web client?

"

 

No I had not set up the sub pathing, maybe that will help with the Kodi client, it did not help with the web client directly on the server. The web client on the server plays mp3 files directly, but transcodes mkv movies (this MAY be due to sound setup on server in windows is not set up like the movie audio track is, no receiver to put the sound to, no speaker connected at the moment, not sure if this matters).

 

Sub pathing is now set up. But wouldnt the best thing be to put in the in the \\share pathing directly in the library media location, instead of using the local dir path (and then needing to sub path)?

 

I have not pointed MBS to put art/metadata anywhere ('metadata - advanced' and 'library advanced'), those fields are empty, so I guess MBS put them in default location correct? I do not need to put anything in here if I choose MBS to put them in default location right?

 

And the whole Kodi tab under Metadata is hard to understand fully, same with advanced. What is Kodi support only and what is MBS settings are hard to understand on these 2 tabs.

 

I currently just got a few hundred movies/episodes in MBS so far, still testing it out :)

 

Vista is no longer supported for MBC, does not install, also stated on these boards its no longer supported. I found a link to an older versjon of MBC, but I did not install it, because I was unsure if it was the client or the server...

Edited by JarleH
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Beardyname

I'll leave a longer reply later, but i just wanted to point out that both Kodi (xbmc) and MBT can use external players, aka you can still use MPC-HC but use the apps for a more compelling library view.

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Sub pathing is now set up. But wouldnt the best thing be to put in the in the \\share pathing directly in the library media location, instead of using the local dir path (and then needing to sub path)?

 

Yes, you may as well just enter the paths directly as UNC.

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Been testing out both Media Browser Classic and Theater on a Win7 laptop today. Both are set up more or less total, only one thing I can not seem to get to work is external MPC-HC on the Theater version. I like the Classic best, Theater looks unfunished, and got some errors in the GUI.

 

I know there are many guides out there, but anyone got a good guide for installing and configuring MadVR, or should I just follow these 2?

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=209596

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/MadVR_Expert_Guide

 

 

To move the MBC or MBT config from one computer to the other, is all it take to make a copy of the config directories? Install on new computer, do not run, copy in config dir and then start up?

 

Will try out Kodi with Media Browser in a bit, after I changed the sub pathing...

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Been able to set up MPC-HC as external player for Kodi, but Kodi does not work well, does not get it to work normally. Path subing didnt help. Tried to link the Media Browser libs to Kodi shortcuts in different ways, but nothing seem to work. Its very slow, takes many seconds to populate etc etc. Simply does not work for me like it is now, not sure what to do about it...

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One thing; is there a trailer channel where you can download trailers from iTunes? I got the trailer plugin, but can not remember that I can download trailers there, and I am not sure about the quality or source...

 

And one more:
If I run MPC-Hc as external player, will it be able to display somehow the MBS downloaded subs? If so; how?

Edited by JarleH
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CashMoney

One thing; is there a trailer channel where you can download trailers from iTunes? I got the trailer plugin, but can not remember that I can download trailers there, and I am not sure about the quality or source...

 

And one more:

If I run MPC-Hc as external player, will it be able to display somehow the MBS downloaded subs? If so; how?

 

Trailers - You mean to download trailers for your existing movies? Dashboard - Plugins. If you're a supporter, you can install the Trailers plugin, and then in Dashboard - plugins - My Plugins you can check the box to download trailers.

 

MPC-HC should use the MBS downloaded subs, as MBS downloads from opensubs in .srt format and names them the same as the video file, which MPC-HC should pick up automatically.

Edited by CashMoney
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CashMoney
To move the MBC or MBT config from one computer to the other, is all it take to make a copy of the config directories? Install on new computer, do not run, copy in config dir and then start up?

 

Will try out Kodi with Media Browser in a bit, after I changed the sub pathing...

 

That should work, yes. I would personally install the same version on the new PC, then overwrite with the "old" configs. To be honest, since the server remembers your play states etc, it shouldn't take long to be back up and running in MBC from a clean install; just install your plugins and set your preferred views.

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CashMoney

Been able to set up MPC-HC as external player for Kodi, but Kodi does not work well, does not get it to work normally. Path subing didnt help. Tried to link the Media Browser libs to Kodi shortcuts in different ways, but nothing seem to work. Its very slow, takes many seconds to populate etc etc. Simply does not work for me like it is now, not sure what to do about it...

 

And you don't get this slow population in the web client? Which kodi skin are you using? I think some of them can be a bit graphic instensive, although I'm only just now trying Kodi with MB3 myself. Not seen any problems on my gaming machine, not tried Kodi on anything else. You may get better luck asking about this in the Kodi forum on here.

Edited by CashMoney
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Trailers - You mean to download trailers for your existing movies? Dashboard - Plugins. If you're a supporter, you can install the Trailers plugin, and then in Dashboard - plugins - My Plugins you can check the box to download trailers.

 

MPC-HC should use the MBS downloaded subs, as MBS downloads from opensubs in .srt format and names them the same as the video file, which MPC-HC should pick up automatically.

 

I do not know about any option/feature for downloading trailers for my collection, I was thinking this was just a streaming option in the movie info page, and was not thinking this would download anything.

I am thinking browsing and downloading trailers, preferable at high quality. I do not know where the Trailer plugin downloads from. Not a premium member (yet), so do not know how that works.

Ok, but the subs need to be in the same directory as the movie being played right? I am wondering is I should reorganize my movies in 1 folder pr movie, its not like this now, most are just in one big folder. If so I should put subs and extras in same folder as the movie right? Will it then handle extras 'automaticly', and if so how does MBS handle extras?

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And you don't get this slow population in the web client? Which kodi skin are you using? I think some of them can be a bit graphic instensive, although I'm only just now trying Kodi with MB3 myself. Not seen any problems on my gaming machine, not tried Kodi on anything else. You may get better luck asking about this in the Kodi forum on here.

 

The webclient is ultra fast, no slow downs of any kind. Only reason I see for not using the webclient is that the webclient can not launch external player, else the webclient is just brilliant. I am using the Titan skin for Kodi, should not be a problem for the machine (Q6600 at 3,2ghz with a AMD 69xx(?) GPU).

 

Thing is, I do not know how to best set up the home page with the folders/categories. As I wrote 'All movies' and 'All TV' populated fast, only playback had like 30 sec delay. But if I show my MS categories on the home page, they populate slow, each time I open them. And if I try to open a category, then do not want to wait and go back to homepage and maybe even enter another category, the categories gets messed up and shortcuts gets messed up. Also when I start up Kodi with Titan it takes like 30 secs before the homepage has the MB category icons. And I do not get any splash screen showing Media Browser, just Titan. Kodi is a good client, but for me right now its unusable. What is good with Kodi is the gazillion of plugins.

 

As I wrote MBC and MBT on ANOTHER Win7 machine is also fast, only Kodi Titan has this lagg. Webclient on the Kodi machine is also fast, only Kodi client is slow.

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AdrianW

The web client CAN launch an external player.

 

Install MPC Remote 

 

Then in the web client click the "select player" icon at the top right (left-most icon) - and select the name you gave it in the MPC remote setup.

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Vidman

The web client CAN launch an external player.

 

Install MPC Remote

 

Then in the web client click the "select player" icon at the top right (left-most icon) - and select the name you gave it in the MPC remote setup.

It sounds like this is maybe all you need from your posts... It even allows remote control of MPC-HC from the web client
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The web client CAN launch an external player.

 

Install MPC Remote

 

Then in the web client click the "select player" icon at the top right (left-most icon) - and select the name you gave it in the MPC remote setup.

 

Super! If I run this on the laptop on wifi it stream-trascodes, but on the HTPC on cabled it plays the original file  :)

So this is my best option, until I get Kodi solved at least

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The Kodi problem is solved, it was caused by using netbios servername in server field in Kodi, needed to use the IP adress...

Now a minor problem I can not solve is; how to close MPC-HC external player in Kodi when pressing Stop...

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jasonmcroy

The Kodi problem is solved, it was caused by using netbios servername in server field in Kodi, needed to use the IP adress...

Now a minor problem I can not solve is; how to close MPC-HC external player in Kodi when pressing Stop...

 

One way you could achieve this is by changing the keyboard shortcuts from within mpc-hc to use whatever keyboard shortcut Kodi uses to stop a video be the same shortcut in mpc-hc that exits the program. The keyboard shortcut for stopping video playback in Kodi is X, so setting whatever keyboard shortcut is currently set in mpc-hc to exit the program to X will achieve what you're trying to do.

 

-Jason

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One way you could achieve this is by changing the keyboard shortcuts from within mpc-hc to use whatever keyboard shortcut Kodi uses to stop a video be the same shortcut in mpc-hc that exits the program. The keyboard shortcut for stopping video playback in Kodi is X, so setting whatever keyboard shortcut is currently set in mpc-hc to exit the program to X will achieve what you're trying to do.

 

-Jason

 

I tried something like this, but could not get pressing Stop-button in MPC to also Exit the app. Changing shortcuts is not a problem, but changing function of the buttons I were not able to do.

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Does Windows Media Shareing need to be enabled or configured for MBS to work?

I am pretty sure no, but because I got a notification icon in Windows on the server, and also questions about share media to the different machines accessing the server I am asking...

Edited by JarleH
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Now a minor problem I can not solve is; how to close MPC-HC external player in Kodi when pressing Stop...

 

Does Kodi give you the ability to modify the command line that executes the player?  '/close' on that command line will close MPC-HC when the video ends.

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Does Kodi give you the ability to modify the command line that executes the player?  '/close' on that command line will close MPC-HC when the video ends.

 

To get external MPC to close when the movie files ends, is not a problem, the problem is when I press Stop  ^_^

But its not a big problem, pretty sure I would prefer use MPC if I could at the moment. And please make more good plugins for MPC/Theater  :wub:

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The web client CAN launch an external player.

 

Install MPC Remote

 

Then in the web client click the "select player" icon at the top right (left-most icon) - and select the name you gave it in the MPC remote setup.

 

I have one small problem with this MPC Remote; sometimes it just launches MPC-HC, but stops it and closes it right away, no playback. I have done some testing, but do not have a conclusion to the cause of the problem. It MAY have to do with playing the same file several times, but not exclusive in these cases.

 

I have set NO args in either MPC-HC settings or MPC Remote settings. Maybe I should? Any idea what is the cause?

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