External Player setup issue. (1 Viewer)

[borgster]

Okay, I'm about at the end of my rope on this one. I prefer MediaPortal over XBMC at this point in time, however I'm having an issue with the external player.

First the odd part it was working and then it stopped working. I've been using Mediaportal for about 1 week now and initially after some playing around I got the external player to launch. However, during the past few days Windows 8 has pushed out an update, powerdvd 13 also pushed out an update and I had added a few new plugins and suddenly it wasn't working. I figured okay a plugin must be the issue so I removed all the plugins and still it won't launch the external player. So I completely uninstalled Mediaportal 1.5, wiped all the user configuration files I could find, rebooted and re-installed MP 1.5. I did a very basic set up, just the minimal requirements. Set up the virtual drive, set up the external player path, the parameters %filename%, left the extensions portion empty so it would play all files with the external player.

But when I go to play the videos it goes straight to the internal player. There has to be something I'm missing somewhere but I can not find it. I'm at wits end here, and it's probably something really stupid that I'm missing.

I've included my logs. I'm just really confused as to why the player won't launch.

 

[robbo100]

Does PowerDVD still work outside of MP?
From your logs, it looks like the external player plugin isn't detecting PowerDVD (only winamp and iTunes).

 

[borgster]

Thank you for your reply. Yes the powerDVD does launch off of direct launch, from autoplay and from XBMC. It's just not functioning or responding from within mediaportal 1.5. I have tried linking it to all of the various .exe programs from within the powerdvd 13 and 10 folders. I'm 99% certain it's something that happened in the windows 8.1 updates that rolled out a few days ago as everything was working before that point.

Than you for your attention n this Robbo100. It's really appreciated as I'm truly perplexed by this.

 

[borgster]

I did check the plugin extension loader and went down to where it show's installed external programs and powerdvd isn't listed there along with Winamp and iTunes, which are defaults. I'm in the process of doing another uninstall reinstall and this time I'm doing a complete purge of any file anywhere that has MP or mediaportal mentioned. Probably a more extreme search than necessary as I'm deleting bookmarks as well but I'm running out of ideas.

 

[borgster]

Okay, an update on this (yes I am persistent and very thorough). I did a complete uninstall, wiped everything remotely related to Mediaportal. I did a reinstall and took the following steps in setup. I did not set up a TV tuner (no TV card so no point in adding to the complexity of the setup).

I left everything to default on install.

I opened Mediaportal Configuration and took the following basic steps only:

Under video folders:
I added the root folder.
Under Video Databases:
I unselected "automatically select nearest match"
I selected Use Internal NFO scraper only.

Under Videos-Video Player:
I selected use external player.
Set Path/filename to "C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD13\PDVDLP.exe"
Set Parameters to %filename%
Left videofiles extensions blank.

Under DVD Discs/Images: Virtual drive:
I selected automount image files. I set path to VCD dameon.
(as an experiment I left the virtual drive field blank).

I opened mediaportal, went to files clicked play for the appropriate ISO. Nothing at all played.
I closed mediaportal and opened configuration and added external player under DVD Dscis/Images with the same settings as under video player under videos.

I closed configuration and opened mediaportal.
I went to play the media and after about 30 seconds a popup window appeared asking if I wanted to play inserted media. I clicked play and it opened powerdvd and played the file.

I closed Mediaportal and opened configuration and went to DVD Discs/Images Autoplay and changed all to "Play" instead of "ask what to do".
I closed configuration and opened mediaplayer and went to play the file and.....it played with the internal player.

I'll cut the description shorter from this point and just list changes and results.

I changed autoplay back to ask what to do. Tried to play the file and it played with internal player.
I unselected external player under videos and tried to play the file and it played with internal player.
I reselected external player under videos and added .iso to the extensions. It played with internal player.
I went under virtual drive settings and added the virtual drive letter, in this case J:, tried to play the file and it played with the internal player.
I added .iso to the extensions under videos and it played with internal player.
I removed .iso from the extensions group and from the extension option under videos external player.
I reset all the options back to basics. It played with internal player.
I reset everything to exactly what it was when it would play the external player as described earlier and it still played with the internal player.

What I can conclude from this is that Mediaprofiler can see powerdvd as it did play properly early on in this installation. However when trying to change the autoplay feature to just play rather than ask it then stopped using the external player and resetting everything back to ask did not change the behavior. This leads me to believe there is either a programming error and/or memory leak somewhere in the process that starts with the autoplay "ask what to do" feature. there may also be an issue with the video's external player feature as well when dealing with .iso files.

It is clear from experimentation that it was working in one specific set of circumstances but ceased to work after changing the autoplay feature.

I am including the latest set of logs from this install (If I had been thinking about it I would have done a log capture for each time I reconfigured)

 

[borgster]

One last update before I go to bed. The problem only persists with .iso files or playing media through the drive. MKV files open properly in powerdvd.

 

[mm1352000]

I'm far from an expert on this area of MP - just interpreting log files. Looks like MP is/was attempting to play with the external player, but the external player returns/stops almost immediately:

[2013-11-18 01:34:38,459] [Log ] [MPMain ] [INFO ] - start process C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD13\PDVDLP.exe "J:\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO"
[2013-11-18 01:34:38,506] [Log ] [MPMain ] [DEBUG] - Util: External player stopped on C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\PowerDVD13\PDVDLP.exe

So, have you tried to run the same command from the command-line/terminal, and what happens when you do that?

 

[borgster]

MM1352000. I can give that a try after work but the external player is launching with other file types other than ISO or Disc in the drive.

But it was launching after I did a clean reinstall of the MP software and continued to work until I changed the option under autoplay form "ask every time" to "play". After I made that change it stopped launching and when I changed it back to asking what to do it never launched again for ISO's or the disc drive. So the command does evidently work, or did, until I changed the autoplay feature inside of MP 1.5. After that point no matter how I tried to change it the player would not launch.

 

[borgster]

Actually had time before work thanks to the car not starting. Yes it does play from the command line.

 

[borgster]

Additional addendum, no changes made but after trying to play a multi part file, IE CD1 CD2 CD3, etc the external player stopped popping up after the MP popup window came up asking which disc to play. After that point the internal player started playing all the files.

The trend that I'm seeing here is that once you get a popup window from MP asking what action to take then the external player no longer responds after that point in time. I'm not familiar enough with the program to go further with that thought or to know why it's happening. The only thing I can say is it started occurring after the last 8.1 windows patch. Prior to that MediaPortal 1.5 was working perfectly.