Call for tester for 1.4.0 features and fixes (2 Viewers)

[Vasilich]

it brings nothing to the table

how should MP react to "power off" remote button while recording? surely i don't want to leave my xx inch plasma on while i am not at home.
Another case: automatic resume of MP for scheduled recording. I don't really want that MP switches my display/amp on at 3am so i can hear that HTPC is awake and ready to record...
When we say "away mode will not be supported", then we have to suggest alternative solutions to those cases above.
(i personally use EventGhost for switching my display/amp on/off, because current implementation of away mode in MP is too unreliable)

 

[Scythe42]

I would not say so. The Away Mode makes MP behave like an appliance and that is what it "should" be for me. The basic thing is that a shutdown request can not be aborted by normal software since vista (or 7). So the only thing we can do, when recording is to register for away mode. This way even if the user presses the power switch, the PC will stay awake (just shut off sound & display) and continue recording.

Why should there be a shutdown request under normal operations of MP? Don't get it. MP just runs.

Users hit the remote power off button and the system suspends. And when some task is due the system wakes it up as much as needed. Exactly like standby on an appliance.

Maybe you should check the Power settings of Windows. You can control what is done when which switch is pushed. And you can control anything in a lot of details.

The problem guys is: the long standing MP support in regards to suspend/resume was buggy like hell.

I corrected it as good as I could for now. So far, no one complained about it. Because stuff did not work in the past, does not mean it is still broken.

Using Away Mode = workaround instead of fixing bugs or properly configuring a system. WMC Away mode has the right to be there on legacy systems from an XP release date point of view.

And "turning on the monitor at night". Nah, does not happen unless of course you configured Windows to do it or an application forced it. But that never ever happens on Windows on automatic wakeups. And guess what Windows 8 even prevents it at all. So if you have some hardware/software combination where is happens, maybe it is time to upgrade

Test the build for youselves guys and don't make any assumptions.

You will probably be surprized.

And maybe you should look into the detailed power management settings of Windows, too.

And if you find something that does not work, please report it here.

Also the screensaver in MP is not needed anymore. That is not an argument about preventing burn-ins or stuff like that of course. But you can rely on the built-in features of Windows.

Again, test it. Do not use Away-Mode, do not use the MP Screensaver. Configure Windows accordingly and give it a try

 

[Vasilich]

Wolfgang,
i am not against removing AwayMode from MP, but i can't test it on my productive system for now.
So maybe you can explain in short what will happen if some recording is active and i hit PowerOff remote button while using your fixes/branch?

 

[Scythe42]

how should MP react to "power off" remote button while recording? surely i don't want to leave my xx inch plasma on while i am not at home.

Then you probably should configure windows to blank the display after x minutes. Does not come one again without user interaction (unless a software wakes it up on purpose on < Win8). Don't see the problem here.

If you want to have immediate blanking then just issue the SC_MONITORPOWEROFF event. No biggie. One liner. If that does not work properly in current stock MP let me know and I put it in. Create a Mantis and assign it to be, and it will be done.

And you may have noticed there is even an Mantis issue to enhance all this stuff, like briging HDMI CEC on board or even detecting when TV is shutoff and do things in the MP side then.

So maybe you can explain in short what will happen if some recording is active and i hit PowerOff remote button while using your fixes/branch?

Windows will turn off the display as configured. Diplay turning off happens when no human interaction was detected. Meaning a HID device was used. And the power off button does exactly what you configured it to do.

The thing is: with this series of builds you should be able to leverage the features of Windows itself now properly.

 

[elliottmc]

So maybe you can explain in short what will happen if some recording is active and i hit PowerOff remote button while using your fixes/branch?

Windows will turn off the display as configured. Diplay turning off happens when no human interaction was detected. Meaning a HID device was used. And the power off button does exactly what you configured it to do.

The thing is: with this series of builds you should be able to leverage the features of Windows itself now properly.

Is there any possibility that hitting the power button while a recording is active could turn off the PC ? If so, can this be prevented within MP and within Windows? Is the documentation clear on how to do this?

 

[Scythe42]

All well documented on MSDN.

The question is more: what is our user story? Meaning what behavior would we like to see from an end user perspective (forget all technical terms when describing it). Honestly, I would just go with the same end user result you seeing in any appliance. MP probably already wants to do the same, but maybe it does not always.

So we need to summarize somewhere what the user story is, so we can check if there are defects in the code (stock 1.3.0 and my changes as well).

I personally would go that far:
- Remove tons of stuff in PowerScheduler that is redundant. Can be done nicely while making PS++ official.
- Remove any Away Mode stuff and rely on Windows Power Mangement - defaults should be nice.
- Raise some Power Management Events when needed on our own.
- Remove the MP screensaver as Windows can already do the same. The idea of "render at reduced frame rate" but do not turn display off does not really fit in with the rest of our screen blanking/prevent burn in strategy. In fact it contradicts it a bit.

But as said this is out of scope for this work. At the appropriate time I will provide my idea for use cases for review prior to beginning implementation.

 

[azzuro]

it's the spring cleaning !

 

[megahorst]

Again, test it. Do not use Away-Mode, do not use the MP Screensaver. Configure Windows accordingly and give it a try

It's me again ;-)
I had not to go to office this morning and did some tests with recording, waking up the htpc for a recording and the screensaver.

I did a clean install of 1.30 yesterday evening and have installed PS++. The only thing that differs from most other installations is that I'm using a MySQL 5.6 DB not the 5.1. But this should not be a problem here.

Screensaver:
I have disabled the MePo inbuilt one and have configured the windows one. I starts as it should. But it is not possible to stop it with the remote. My remote is not a hid-device. MePo reacts to the remote while the screensaver is running. TV starts also in the background. My keybolard was stopping the screensaver and MePo with fullscreen-tv was visible than.
I have attached the logs.

Recording and wakeup ect.:
With this build MePo wakes up as it should. TV stays off as it should. After recording everything goes to sleep again.
No problem here, everything works as it should.

PS++ and away mode:
This plugin deals with the away mode. I have mentioned some problems with this. It is again regarding the muting thing that I had wit the legacy PS but it differs a little. @michael_t should have a look at this. Should we discuss this in the PS++ thread or here?[DOUBLEPOST=1366019470][/DOUBLEPOST]

Is there any possibility that hitting the power button while a recording is active could turn off the PC ? If so, can this be prevented within MP and within Windows? Is the documentation clear on how to do this?

No, it is not. With this build and PS++ it is not possible to switch of the pc just by pressing the power button while a recording is ongoing. I haven't tried to press it until the hard switch off will rise but I think that this would not be a valid testcase ...

 

[legnod]

I found another issue... The windows screensaver is not working if "keep mediaportal always on top" is enabled. Can someone else confirm this or should this be the expected behaviour?

 

[Scythe42]

I have disabled the MePo inbuilt one and have configured the windows one. I starts as it should. But it is not possible to stop it with the remote. My remote is not a hid-device. MePo reacts to the remote while the screensaver is running.

What remote are you using? As per definition a remote should be a HID device. Does not mean it is sending keystrokes. It still can be HID device though.

But it is no problem for MP to terminate a screen saver when it received an action (unless password protected screen savers or course, that cannot be even prevented from kicking in). That is something different as a display that had been turned off.

Does it apply both to screensaver and to blanked display by Windows or only on screen-savers?

Will check the logs. It is probably a one-liner as the right place to terminate a screen saver in case it is still active or a current call that does not work properly. Will check.

But that is one I like to re-visit for the next build.

Should we discuss this in the PS++ thread or here?

Please in the PS++ thread as this is not really related to my fixes. But now as suspend/resume works for way more people it will be a more prominent issue.

No, it is not. With this build and PS++ it is not possible to switch of the pc just by pressing the power button while a recording is ongoing. I haven't tried to press it until the hard switch off will rise but I think that this would not be a valid testcase ...

Isn't that exactly what people want? Not to terminate the recording. How does it work different without my builds? Did I break something?