Cannot play back the audio stream: the audio format is not supported.

[pmac 132]

Lately I've been having a problem with MBTheater Crashing when I play Movies.

 

It doesn't seem to happen with all movies, but with the vast majority of them, it does.

So far, I haven't had any problems with TV shows for whatever reason, and everything seems to play perfectly fine in MBClassic, but with MBT I can hardly seem to get any movies to work, as soon as my intro video finished playing, I get an error saying: "Cannot play back the audio stream: the audio format is not supported"

 

I just finished uninstalling all of my codecs, etc. (I was using Shark007), I did a fresh installation of LAV filters, as per the tutorial linked from this site, and MBC still seems to work fine, but still having the same problem with MBT not playing movies for me. I've saved my logs from the crash. I believe I started getting this error after that last 1 or 2 updates.

 

Logs:

• Server
• Theater
• Crash

 

EDIT: Also getting THIS error when playing some titles, which causes MBT to crash, and a THIS one when trying to mark certain TV episodes as watched. The latter error doesn't cause a crash, but it forces me to use the web client to mark some episodes as played.

Edited December 14, 2013 by pmac

[Dunker2390 1]

Hi, yes I am having the exact same issue with the most recent server download(Version 3.0.5083.27698) and the MBT(version 3.0.5086.905).

 

When I try to play a newer movie it has an onscreen error of: "There was an error processing the request". I looked in the logs and get the same Audio Format not supported.

 

I checked out the movies that I tried and caused this. It looks to be an issue of MBT either not supporting or running into an error with DTS audio streams. If anybody could help clarify this that would be great.

 

I am also not sure if any other streams are causing it.

 

Update: It seems it happens with audio streams of just AC-3 as well. 

Edited December 15, 2013 by Dunker2390

[pmac 132]

Dunker, are you able to play any movies with MBT? For me it seems like 99% of my titles aren't playing anymore, which is frustrating because I was loving MBT, and now I'm forced to go back to MBC until this issue is resolved... I'm really missing the speed and stability of MBT up until this issue started. I loved how with MBT everything was just so FAST compared to MBClassic.

 

I really hope a dev sees this post, and can chime in on it soon!

[Luke 36997]

i have another contributor who works on the video player, so he'll look at it in his own time.

[Dunker2390 1]

Pmac, the one type of file that will seem to play consistently are MP4 files. I am not sure why but the ones I have tried that were MP4 have played fine. Now those Movies are also almost always older movies.

 

And I agree, this is very frustrating as MBT is such a good front end. Now one thing I see that could use improvement is the speed of the front end. For me it does take a while for all of the posters to show up when I am scrolling through them. But keep in mind, I have more than 1000 titles which I am scrolling through.

 

One final thing, when I try to play the AC-3 or DTS videos on the web client I am able to play them. So it seems to be something specifically with MBT.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Dunker2390

[pmac 132]

One final thing, when I try to play the AC-3 or DTS videos on the web client I am able to play them. So it seems to be something specifically with MBT.

 

Yes, I have no problems playing any type of files with the web client or MBClassic. I haven't narrowed it down to which files work for me in MBT though, but I'd assume it's the same as what's going on with your files as well.

[Tikuf 663]

One final thing, when I try to play the AC-3 or DTS videos on the web client I am able to play them. So it seems to be something specifically with MBT.

 

This is not relevant to mbt at all as all files are transcoded for the web client. where mbt/mbc play direct.

[Dunker2390 1]

Yes, I just wanted to clarify that though since someone might ask that. Because it could happen where it doesn't play on either if the files are corrupt somehow.

[pmac 132]

Bump... are there really only two of us having this problem?

[Luke 36997]

You guys are just going to have to be patient, sorry. I've got another guy working on the video player and he works on his own schedule. And I've got two others helping out with other parts of MBT so I'm not going to put builds out with things that are halfway done.

[pmac 132]

I decided it was time to clean up my PC, so I did a complete reformat and system restore. Deleted everything that came pre-installed from the manufacturer (They always load too much junk on the computer anyway), and just finished a fresh install of MBServer and MBTheater. From what I've tested so far (Server is still scanning my library), everything seems to be working fine now. I haven't been able to test much yet (I'll wait until the scan is complete), but so far, I'm hopeful everything is working again. Although, I wouldn't recommend this method to other users having this problem, haha. My system was just long overdue for a fresh start...

[Luke 36997]

because the player is based on direct show, it is subject to be affected by other installed software on the system. over time we will learn how to prevent this from happening

[pmac 132]

Well I'm glad I've got it working again for the time being!

[Dunker2390 1]

Thank you Luke for mentioning that it uses Directshow. I downloaded ffdshow and reinstalled it. Now all of the files play beautifully.

 

One other thing I have a question about is the aspect ratio when playing a blu ray movie. It looks like the standard(default) setting for movies is 21:9. Due to this 2/3rds of the screen is a black bar. Is there any way right now to force it to change the aspect ratio to 16:9?

[Luke 36997]

well ffdshow should not be utilized. if it is then we still have work to do to block unwanted filters.

 

no AR controls yet

[Dunker2390 1]

What would you recommend we use instead of ffdshow? Is there any other way to customize/reinstall direct show options as ffdshow I assume will be locked out when you guys fix it. Because it sure seems like installing that is what fixed the problem.

[pmac 132]

Starting yesterday, the problem I was having with playing movies is back. I haven't installed anything different on my fresh system install since I had it working fine for a while...

[tobias-tobin 9]

I just put MBT on one of my machines and tried it out.  I cannot play stuff and the log says 'Cannot play back the audio stream: the audio format is not supported.' I added VLC as the external player and now it works.  May not be the solution but a temporary work-around.

 

I'm getting ready to mess around with this but is it possible we are seeing this because the LAV filters did not get installed?  I'm not seeing them.

 

*Update

 

I just installed LAV filters from here http://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/downloads/list and now the internal player is working fine.

Edited December 29, 2013 by tobias-tobin

[chef 3745]

I think Tobias is right. I am having major issues across the board as far as audio in mbc and the theatre. No errors in mb classic, however the audio seems to fade out to just the background music for the movie in mbc, with the actors voice becoming non-existent. I will download new LAV filters Tobias has linked to and see if this corrects any issues with both clients.

[pmac 132]

Should I uninstall the old LAV filters first? or will the new ones simply update the existing ones?

[pmac 132]

Installing a fresh copy of LAV filters had no effect, I did however, find something else interesting.

 

How many people here experiencing these problems have MBIntros installed?

 

I noticed, that if I resumed a movie that I had previously watched part way though, it played fine, but when trying to start from the beginning, I got the audio error after my intro finished playing. So I uninstalled MBIntros and tried watching the same movie from the beginning, and voila! Works perfectly.

 

So could there somehow be an issue here with MBIntros? Seems strange that it works fine periodically, but for the most part, movies are unwatchable for me with Intro's installed. However, I've never had a single problem with TV episodes, which leads me to believe that somehow MBIntros is the culprit, at least on my machine.

 

Any idea's? Maybe EBR will have some theories on this one...

 

But either way, for now I seem to have mine working fine without MBIntros, but I'd love to have my Intro's back!

[pmac 132]

Seems I've spoken too soon, the file I was having problems with before seems to be working just fine, but I seem to be getting the "Error processing the request" dialog when I attempt to play almost anything now, whether TV shows, or Movies.

 

Here is an excerpt from the log where my last error was:

 

2013-12-29 16:40:13.1694, Info, DirectShowPlayer, Playing Part 1. Reclock: False, Madvr: False, xySubFilter: False
2013-12-29 16:40:13.1694, Info, DirectShowPlayer, Playing Path \\PATRICK-HP\Media Browser1\Television\Spawn\Season 1\S01E01.mkv
2013-12-29 16:40:13.3654, Error, DirectShowPlayer, Error beginning playback
Cannot play back the audio stream: the audio format is not supported.
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method)
  at MediaBrowser.Theater.DirectShow.InternalDirectShowPlayer.InvokeOnPlayerThread(Action action)
  at MediaBrowser.Theater.DirectShow.InternalDirectShowPlayer.<PlayTrack>d__d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
  at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
  at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
  at MediaBrowser.Theater.DirectShow.InternalDirectShowPlayer.<Play>d__2.MoveNext()

I seem to get the same error on almost everything I try to play, regardless of media type. Although, 90% of my collection is now .MKV

 

[tobias-tobin 9]

@@pmac - out of curiosity, if you change your player to something like vlc, does it work then?

 

Also you asked about should you uninstall the old first.  Mine installed into C:\Program Files (x86) directory.  If that is where your 'old' ones are, then I would guess it will update them.

Edited December 30, 2013 by tobias-tobin

[tobias-tobin 9]

I noticed something I believe probably sums up why I had a problem. 

 

I installed MBT on my PC, and after the install I had this 'audio not supported' issue.  I then installed the LAV filters and the problem went away.

 

A bit later I installed MBT on a PC downstairs and the install process was different.  This time I was prompted about installing the LAV components and other (I cannot remember now) and everything worked.

 

So it is as if the installer did not work right on my PC.  It only installed some items, but not everything.  I think that is where the problem came from.  Whatever caused the installer to skip some steps was my issue.

Edited December 30, 2013 by tobias-tobin

[CBers 6766]

Have you guys read "Windows Media Center internal player, MB Classic, and LAV filters guide" ??

 

Some people say there is no need to configure anything, just install and go.

 

Not saying it's gonna fix everything you're seeing, but it might help.