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MBC Freezes When Playing Music Album, Genre Folders


gochiefs88842
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gochiefs88842

First off, I have tried to dutifully research this issue on the forums.  That being said, this is my first post, so please be gentle...

 

My understanding is that the built-in music interface is meant to utilize WMC's player, which makes perfect sense.  I have read that when hovering over a folder (such as an album) in MBC and then pressing "play," you should then see some form of pop-up that asks whether you want to play the entire album, shuffle, queue, etc.  

When pressing "play" (whether on harmony remote or WMC keyboard) while positioned on an album folder or genre folder, my MBC freezes and will not let me reverse my path; I am forced to logout of MBC altogether. My music plays with no issues when selecting a song directly.  This issue does not occur on MBS (and the expected play menu appears as desired) or with the Android client.  Thus, it appears to exclusively be a MBC issue.  

 

1) How do I fix this behavior? (log attached)

2) Am I correct in assuming that music genre folders can be played (as in WMC's base interface) with options such as "play all" or "shuffle" or something to that effect?

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance. 

MBClassic-672014bde2cfca201542a0ba25909c5bb09660.log

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Cheesegeezer

First off, I have tried to dutifully research this issue on the forums.  That being said, this is my first post, so please be gentle...

 

My understanding is that the built-in music interface is meant to utilize WMC's player, which makes perfect sense.  I have read that when hovering over a folder (such as an album) in MBC and then pressing "play," you should then see some form of pop-up that asks whether you want to play the entire album, shuffle, queue, etc.  

When pressing "play" (whether on harmony remote or WMC keyboard) while positioned on an album folder or genre folder, my MBC freezes and will not let me reverse my path; I am forced to logout of MBC altogether. My music plays with no issues when selecting a song directly.  This issue does not occur on MBS (and the expected play menu appears as desired) or with the Android client.  Thus, it appears to exclusively be a MBC issue.  

 

1) How do I fix this behavior? (log attached)

2) Am I correct in assuming that music genre folders can be played (as in WMC's base interface) with options such as "play all" or "shuffle" or something to that effect?

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 

Hi and welcome, may I ask what theme you are using.

 

Pressing * key will bring up the context menu.

 

Is your library still scanning, check the server dashboard under scheduled tasks.

 

If you are pressing a play all on genres and you have a lot of music, MBC is will be creating a playlist so it will take time, how long did you wait, before giving up?

 

Just a few ideas as the log is massive and no errors are on there, just thinking that all those calls in the log are it actually generating your playlist.

 

Try Chocolate theme as its the most stable out of all MBC themes. See if you still get same results.

 

Cheers

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gochiefs88842

Hello Cheesegeezer,

 

Your advice re: the asterisk (*) key entry solved my problem; thank you kindly for your assistance.  While I am not in front of my HTPC/Harmony Remote currently, I do not believe that the Harmony has an asterisk button by default (maybe the closest thing is a plus sign), so I will likely have to configure that in. 

 

I'm not certain if this is the appropriate forum for a wish list, but I think it would be more intuitive to either (1) be able to bring up the play context menu by simply pressing "play," or (2) allow both key entries (pressing * and pressing "play"), particularly given that guest users would likely not recognize the need to press * to play an album. Also, this would prevent the freezing issue that other users may similarly encounter.  If there is a more appropriate forum for this suggestion, please advise.  

 

Thanks again.

Edited by gochiefs88842
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Cheesegeezer

Hello Cheesegeezer,

 

Your advice re: the asterisk (*) key entry solved my problem; thank you kindly for your assistance.  While I am not in front of my HTPC/Harmony Remote currently, I do not believe that the Harmony has an asterisk button by default (maybe the closest thing is a plus sign), so I will likely have to configure that in. 

 

I'm not certain if this is the appropriate forum for a wish list, but I think it would be more intuitive to either (1) be able to bring up the play context menu by simply pressing "play," or (2) allow both key entries (pressing * and pressing "play"), particularly given that guest users would likely not recognize the need to press * to play an album. Also, this would prevent the freezing issue that other users may similarly encounter.  If there is a more appropriate forum for this suggestion, please advise.  

 

Thanks again.

You're welcome. Glad you got it sorted.

 

Which harmony are you using? I have harmony one and cant get the asterix button to work on mine, but i think that is a limitation of my mce ir receiver rather than the harmony remote, as you can map mce * to harmony clear button. Let me know how you get on.

 

Cheers

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Deihmos

The * works fine on my Harmony remotes. I have it as one of the shortcuts and the clear or + button but they are too awkward to reach.

Edited by Deihmos
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(1) be able to bring up the play context menu by simply pressing "play," or (2) allow both key entries (pressing * and pressing "play"), particularly given that guest users would likely not recognize the need to press * to play an album. Also, this would prevent the freezing issue that other users may similarly encounter.  If there is a more appropriate forum for this suggestion, please advise.  

 

Actually, that is already exactly how it works.  If you press "Play" or ctl-p on any container type (folder, album, genre, etc.) you will be presented with a menu asking you if you want to play all or shuffle, etc.

 

So, back to Cheesegeezer's original question - what theme are you using?

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gochiefs88842

Hello ebr,

 

I am using the Chocolate theme.  Unfortunately, pressing "play" and/or ctrl-p essentially freezes my MBC.  This is not only for genre folders (large), but also albums (maybe 1-10 songs).  My assumption based on Cheesegeezer's input was that pressing "play" would not call up the play context menu, only pressing * would result in the desired effect.  If I misunderstood, I would still like help in assessing what the problem is with my system.  Again, this does not occur on MBS or the Android client, only on MBC (which is on my main HTPC).  I do not have any issues playing individual songs.  I also have no issues selecting "play all" within the standard WMC interface, thus this appears to be a MBC issue.  I am also not using an external player for audio files.

 

Please help!

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Are you sure it is "freezing"?  What happens if you hit "back" when you think it is frozen?

 

What is the resolution of your screen?

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gochiefs88842

Nothing happens when I hit "back."  I have waited for several minutes to make sure it's not a matter of being patient and waiting for a playlist to generate or for the play menu to pull up. My apologies if "freezing" is an inartful term. The behavior is such that after clicking "play," nothing on the interface is clickable (config icon, user icon, etc. in the upper right) with the exception of the green button to exit.  Of course, MBC remains frozen upon re-entry.  Essentially, WMC must be restarted altogether to escape the "freeze" effect in MBC.

 

 

My television's resolution 1152 x 648.  

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How big is the folder you are trying to play?  I mean what, exactly is it and how many songs are nested underneath it?

 

From the log it doesn't look like a single album or artist.

 

Can you try it from a single album and see what happens?

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gochiefs88842

Basically every time I try this process it's with an album (to rule out a genre folder being too large/requiring more wait time).  That being said, I've tried it with some genre folders that have only a handful of songs with similar "freeze" behavior.

 

I have attached two logs.  The first (12:59) is for an attempt to open Black Keys - Brothers album (~10 songs). The second (1:03) is to open Alexi Murdoch - Away We Go (two songs).  Both attempts behaved the same way.

MBClassic-772014a932679fa1a6477cb96ce999ea6e73d5.log

MBClassic-772014101a8ff947c0466e82050b8f2572954b.log

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Cheesegeezer

Have you messed with any codec packs?

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Cheesegeezer

May i establish something, when you try your music playlist/queue thing...

 

1. You open MBC

2. navigate straight to music

3. Find your album

4. Play the queue

 

Because if thats the case there is a problem!! It keeps finding new items all the time in an infinite loop.

 

Next question... Have you set up a custom cache folder in the server? If so delete the path, SAVE it, then try again.

 

Also restart the server.

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gochiefs88842

No (to the codec question).  This was an Assassin HTPC with LAV filters pre-installed.  No Shark's codec, K-lite, etc.  I tried installing MBT and I know it required installing some codecs for subtitles, but ultimately uninstalled and went with MBC.  And I don't have any external players assigned or third party programs assigned to music files (Windows Media Player is the default).  The music files are also playable when selected directly.

Edited by gochiefs88842
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Cheesegeezer

What about the other question mate

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gochiefs88842

Hi Cheesegeezer,

 

I am following your sequence when trying to play an album; I can't tell from your statement if you're saying I'm doing it wrong or if you just mean that there's a problem with the configuration.

 

With respect to the cache folders, I've uploaded a handful of screenshots of my directory setup.  I haven't added anything (aside from approved plugins) with a "custom" folder name.  The only thing I can remember adding was a "General" folder in the ImagesByName folder so that I could create a "Movies by Genre" and a "Music by Genre" image (which never worked, btw).

post-4652-0-94142700-1404758450_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-33596600-1404758451_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-94915700-1404758451_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-30199200-1404758452_thumb.jpg

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Okay, you said "Open an album".  I thought you were hitting the "Play" button (on your remote) on an album in a list of albums - that's what would produce the playback menu.  Opening it is a completely different operation.

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gochiefs88842

No ebr, I do mean the latter.  The freezing occurs when I am positioned/hovered over a selected album and I either (1) press "play" on my Harmony remote or (2) enter ctrl-p on my keyboard.  This is when I am expecting the playback menu to open up, but it never does.  I have no issues clicking on an album and then entering that folder to explore individual songs.

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Okay, well I'm a little lost as to what is going on then.  If I do that - even on the "Music" entry on my EHS I get the playback menu in under a second.

 

So, something related to your setup is causing an issue but I'm not sure what.  Can we see a screen shot or diagram of what your music folder structure looks like?

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Cheesegeezer

Hi Cheesegeezer,

 

I am following your sequence when trying to play an album; I can't tell from your statement if you're saying I'm doing it wrong or if you just mean that there's a problem with the configuration.

 

With respect to the cache folders, I've uploaded a handful of screenshots of my directory setup.  I haven't added anything (aside from approved plugins) with a "custom" folder name.  The only thing I can remember adding was a "General" folder in the ImagesByName folder so that I could create a "Movies by Genre" and a "Music by Genre" image (which never worked, btw).

 

I just wanted to check that's all your doing, so it was left open ended for that exact reason.  Yeah I am or no i'm not ;)

 

The cache folder I'm referening to is the one in the MB server generally located here 

 

D:\Users\[YourUSERname]\AppData\Roaming\MediaBrowser-Server\cache

 

But will look something like this.  https://www.dropbox.com/s/uexu08t1zm30srq/Screenshot%202014-07-07%2020.19.59.png

 

I'm with ebr, i'm getting a bit stuck and running out of ideas.  All the logs are telling me is that it's constantly trying to get information from the server, but it can't and it even ends up looking for the same stuff a few times.

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gochiefs88842

I have attached two additional cache screenshots (per Cheesegeezer's directions) and two screenshots to show my music directory structure (per ebr's request).

post-4652-0-51081800-1404761946_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-75070600-1404761946_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-96591100-1404761946_thumb.jpg

post-4652-0-16105600-1404761947_thumb.jpg

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Cheesegeezer

I have attached two additional cache screenshots (per Cheesegeezer's directions) and two screenshots to show my music directory structure (per ebr's request).

 

 

See my hightlighted Screenshot

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyr01ds9103d50t/post-4652-0-16105600-1404761947.jpg

 

I think this may be your problem   "..." in the title, try removing those see if that works

 

Are those folders underneath that one highlighted Artist folders or specific to that album?

 

Our supported folder structure can be found here

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/674-media-files-folders-structure/&do=findComment&comment=21480

 

Hope this gets us somewhere

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gochiefs88842

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I am following the advised music directory structure.   ...And You Will... is actually the name of the first artist in my list (because of their strange name).  In hindsight, I should have chosen a more traditional artist name.    I've attached an additional screenshot of a more traditional music - artist - album - song(s) example.

post-4652-0-96550800-1404763458_thumb.jpg

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Cheesegeezer

Hi Cheesegeezer,

 

I am following your sequence when trying to play an album; I can't tell from your statement if you're saying I'm doing it wrong or if you just mean that there's a problem with the configuration.

 

With respect to the cache folders, I've uploaded a handful of screenshots of my directory setup.  I haven't added anything (aside from approved plugins) with a "custom" folder name.  The only thing I can remember adding was a "General" folder in the ImagesByName folder so that I could create a "Movies by Genre" and a "Music by Genre" image (which never worked, btw).

 

post-4652-0-33596600-1404758451_thumb.jp

Aaaaang on a second here 

 

you have an image in that post (No.2) that shows different path to your cache. That's the old format from MB2 days.  Please make sure you have this path available.  

 

C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser-Classic\Cache

Edited by Cheesegeezer
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gochiefs88842

I do have the path you are referencing (see screenshot), I just wasn't sure previously what cache directory I should grab screenshots from.  My subsequent cache screenshots (post #21 and this post) were from MBS and now MBC.

post-4652-0-05829100-1404767228_thumb.jpg

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