[solved] Mp restarts when scrolling down list of films (2 Viewers)

[CyberSimian]

I can scroll down from the top of the list to the middle of the "R"s, or up from the bottom to the same point, but not past it in either direction.

I don't have a solution for you, but from the logs:

(1) "MediaPortal-Error.1.log" shows a D3D error from the "GuiFontManager" -- error in "DrawTextUsingTexture". Possibly something for @Sebastiii or @ajs to look at.

(2) "MediaPortal.log" appears to show that you are using "SqLite 3.21.0". I was under the impression that MP1 uses "MySql". Are these two database engines compatible? Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. So my suggestion would be to:

• Uninstall MP1 completely.
• Uninstall SqLite.
• Delete all of the folders in "Program Files" and "ProgramData" that have "Team MediaPortal" or "SqLite" in the name.
• Reboot.
• Reinstall MP1 (which should install MySql as part of the installation process).

But this is all guesswork.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[ajs]

MP1 use SQLite for all dbs, only TVServer use MySQL

-- Tapatalk | WBR, ajs

 

[RobNorthcott]

Thanks for the reply @CyberSimian
I had noticed that it was some sort of Direct3D font error but it's weird that it only happens in this one place on the list (and even weirder that it doesn't seem to be related to any particular entry in the list because it still happens at the same place even if I remove the supposedly bad film from the list). Somebody earlier suggested it was to do with the DefaultWideHD skin not being supported by MovingPictures anymore, but the same thing happens if I use Titan so I don't think it's that.
I think the SQLite/MySQL thing is as @ajs mentioned - it uses both for different parts of MP. The MovingPictures db is definitely SQLite.
Probably what I should do is delete everything and reinstall it from scratch, then set up all the MovingPictures database again, but it's such a petty problem (with an easy work-around if you know where in the list it crashes) that I haven't bothered to get round to it yet (and there's no guarantee it won't still happen if it's one of my film files that's killing it) - I'm still living in hope that somebody might know what causes it and I can edit out the offending entry in the db (although I've had a look through with an SQLite editor and I can't see anything that looks corrupt or obviously strange).
I know I could download the source and try to trace it myself, but I don't really work much with C, and never with Direct3D, so it's not something I really want to dive into at the moment.
As I said, I'm not expecting anybody to put themselves out for this, and it's by no means a show-stopper (it's been like it for a couple of years after all and has only been a mild annoyance) but as always anybody's ideas or suggestions as to something that may be causing that font error at this very specific place in the list (but seemingly not actually related to any actual item because removing the items just seems to move the problem to the next one) will be appreciated.
I really do appreciate the time and efforts people put in on MediaPortal and its plugins so please don't take any of this as a complaint, I'm just fishing for ideas Frankly the last thing I want to do when I finish work is more programming/debugging as a hobby, so I have the greatest respect for those who do!

 

[RoChess]

I'm reviving this old thread in case anybody might have any other ideas. Same thing is still happening and does not go away with different skins like Titan. I've removed some films from around where it crashes in case it was a corrupt database record, but it still crashes at around the same place in the list. I can scroll down from the top of the list to the middle of the "R"s, or up from the bottom to the same point, but not past it in either direction. There is no film that cannot be displayed - there just seems to be an invisible barrier between one entry and the next that can't be scrolled past. Very weird. New logs attached just in case - any new suggestions will be most welcome

Previous crash indicates your videocard has issues at BIOS, driver, or chipset level.

Look into fixing that, or if you're already at the latest then try tweaking the delays before artwork is processed.

Config > Help/About > Advanced Settings > forgot which one, so look through all of them for the obvious one regarding delay before artwork is shown, think default is like 250ms, so try 500ms, etc.

However, most likely your issue is from corrupt artwork.

Had a crash-to-desktop myself over a decade ago if i would just hold down the arrow to scroll through list of movies. Which was caused by a combination of the delay and corrupt cover/thumb images. Some of those covers are stored in original quality, like 8000x16000 pixels and not every system is capable of rendering that quickly without running into issues. There are settings in Moving-Pictures advanced section to resize covers, but that doesn't always work.

To make it optimized and thereby create a super responsive navigation, I created a little script that would resize all the images to a more reasonable file-size (trying to retain resolution if possible, but would resize if unable to bring file-size below threshold). There's usually no need displaying a 28K cover image on a 1080p system for example.

Post is referenced in FAQ, but here it is direct:

Reduce storage size of 'thumbs' folder (MovPic + TVSeries)

Note: This tool is only meant for users who want to reduce their 'thumbs' folder storage size. It is *NOT* required. Moving Pictures and MP-TVSeries store large images in this folder and their accumulated size can add up quick, even causing delays when scrolling fast. At first this batch file...

forum.team-mediaportal.com

Before you run it, analyze the folder containing your images, to see if any one of them is obviously corrupt or huge in size/dimensions.

 

[RobNorthcott]

Thanks for that @RoChess - that's something I hadn't looked at yet. I don't THINK it's the speed of rendering thing because it happens if you stop on the one before the crash then press down once, but I'll have a look and see if there's any dodgy or massive pictures and try changing the delay setting just in case.

The video hardware in that machine is just the onboard Intel graphics on the CPU and AFAIK the drivers are up to date, but that's another thing worth checking while I'm at it.

The weird thing is that it's not actually crashing when trying to display a particular film - I can scroll down to film n or from the bottom of the list up to film n+1, just not past that "invisible barrier" between them.

Thanks for the suggestions - anything's worth a look

 

[RoChess]

Thanks for that @RoChess - that's something I hadn't looked at yet. I don't THINK it's the speed of rendering thing because it happens if you stop on the one before the crash then press down once, but I'll have a look and see if there's any dodgy or massive pictures and try changing the delay setting just in case.

The video hardware in that machine is just the onboard Intel graphics on the CPU and AFAIK the drivers are up to date, but that's another thing worth checking while I'm at it.

The weird thing is that it's not actually crashing when trying to display a particular film - I can scroll down to film n or from the bottom of the list up to film n+1, just not past that "invisible barrier" between them.

Thanks for the suggestions - anything's worth a look

If it's indeed a specific movie (or movies) entry that it crashes on, then it is most likely related to the artwork that the skin needs to load, and when you experience a crash-to-desktop on those there won't be any logging to tell you exactly what movie entry it is.

However, if your movie list is alphabetical in GUI, then you can narrow down what movie it is in config and review if everything is good there, and manually examine all the artwork folders that are used.

Running the script I linked you will take care of the image analysis automatic, and you can review the log file it generates to see what images it failed on and then manually fix them or just delete and have Moving-Pictures fetch them again.

 

[RobNorthcott]

If it's indeed a specific movie (or movies) entry that it crashes on, then it is most likely related to the artwork that the skin needs to load

But that's the point - it DOESN'T crash on a particular movie, it crashes when going from movie n to movie n+1 on the list. I can display movie n fine, or movie n+1 if I scroll up from the bottom. But going from n to n+1 or n+1 to n makes it crash. It's quite happy to display ANY of the items on the list as long as I don't scroll past that point in either direction. The crash seems to be related to the position in the list rather than the actual files because if I delete the entries around the "bad" area it still crashes at the nth entry (I don't actually know the value of n but I'm pretty sure it's constant).

I will check the artwork files as you suggested though - anything's worth a try now this is getting so weird so any suggestions are most welcome even if they don't seem to fit the symptoms directly

 

[RobNorthcott]

No massive files in the thumbs directory - in fact nothing over 1MB or with resolution over 1080p
Graphics driver is up to date
So thanks again for the suggestion but I don't think it's that

 

[RoChess]

Did you check your artwork loading delay settings then?

 

[RobNorthcott]

Did you check your artwork loading delay settings then?

No I must admit I didn't try that because I got side-tracked fishing through the database again, and...

FOUND IT (woohoo)

For anyone who's interested, or has a similar problem in the future...

I was trying to narrow down where the crash was happening. It always seemed to be somewhere in the films starting with "R", but each individual film in the list worked fine - the problem seemed to be "between" two of the entries. And indeed if I filtered on "starts with R" it would crash - any other start letter was fine. If I filtered by genre it worked fine for ANY genre. So that suggested the problem was to do with films starting with "R" and having no genre tags.
So I fired up the SQLite editor and selected entries from the movie_info table starting with "R"...
Turns out there were two entries with no genre tags, both relating to files that were not actually appearing in the list in the GUI. They were two Red Dwarf specials that I couldn't get MovingPictures to pick up any info for so I gave up. But it seems it had added some records to the database that were not complete. These didn't have enough info to actually appear in the list on-screen, but must have been in the SQL query result and crashed the GUI when it tried to process the "invisible" record. I deleted these records and any I could find with the same key in a couple of other tables and that seems to have fixed it. I can now scroll all the way through the list without it crashing.