1.38 MP Stops Accepting User Input (2 Viewers)

[AberDino]

Every so often, when I switch to a TV channel, my MP client stops accepting user inputs, either from the remote or keyboard/mouse. The channel keeps playing fine and when I bring up task manager MP is not reported as 'not responding', i.e. from an operating system perspective the program is not 'stuck'. I then have to end MP through task manager and restart it.

I haven't been able to establish a pattern yet and I appreciate there are many variables at play, but hopefully the attached log files might reveal something. There is an error in the log pointing to madVR:

[Error ] [madVR - RenderOverlay] [ERROR] - render exceptionystem.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.

Note that I copied these log files after bringing up task manager and before ending MP, i.e. MP was running in the background and not accepting my inputs.

Any feedback greatly appreciated and as always I'm happy to assist / test as required.

 

[emphatic]

Sounds to me like MePo's focus has been lost. I made a small autohotkey script that re-focuses MePo when I press Volume Up on my MCE remote. This issue comes and goes on my HTPC, I haven't found the culprit. Do you have MediaPortal set up as "always on top"? If you do an ALT+TAB on a keyboard when this happens, do you regain control of MePo?

 

[CyberSimian]

There is an error in the log pointing to madVR:

I am not an expert at reading log files, but I noticed these lines at the point where the error is diagnosed:

[2025-10-09 21:43:01,520] [Log    ] [MPMain   ] [DEBUG] - WindowManager: route TvPlugin.TvFullScreen:602->MediaPortal.Dialogs.GUIDialogMenu:2012
[2025-10-09 21:43:01,521] [Log    ] [MPMain   ] [DEBUG] - DialogWindow: MediaPortal.Dialogs.GUIDialogMenu init
[2025-10-09 21:43:05,605] [Log    ] [MPMain   ] [DEBUG] - WindowManager: unroute to MediaPortal.Dialogs.GUIDialogMenu:2012->TvPlugin.TvFullScreen:602
[2025-10-09 21:43:05,605] [Error  ] [madVR - RenderOverlay] [ERROR] - render exception:System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.

Perhaps I am misreading this, but:

• Panel id 602 is what I call the "Pause OSD", although it is also displayed for fast-forward, fast backward, jump forward, and jump backward.
• Panel id 2012 is a menu pop-up that is used for multiple different menus, and it is not possible to see from the log which particular menu was being displayed.

The log suggests that you displayed the pause OSD, then caused a menu pop-up to appear, spent around 4
seconds on that menu, and then returned to the pause OSD, at which point the MadVR error occurred.

Is this what you did? What menu was displayed?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

I made a small autohotkey script that re-focuses MePo when I press Volume Up on my MCE remote.

It might help others if you could post your AutoHotKey script for anyone who has a similar problem.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[emphatic]

It might help others if you could post your AutoHotKey script for anyone who has a similar problem.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Sure:

Volume_Up::
  {  
        Send {Alt Down}{Tab} ;Bring up switcher immediately          
        KeyWait, F1, T.5  ; Go to next window; wait .5s before looping
        if (Errorlevel)
       {      
        While ( GetKeyState( "F1","P" ) ) {
            Send {Tab}      
            Sleep, 400 ; wait 400ms before going to next window
        }
    }
        Send {Alt Up} ;Close switcher on hotkey release
}
return

Just change the first line "Volume_Up" to which ever key on your remote you want to use for this, it basically does an alt+tab which shifts focus to MePo, unless there's other windows active.

 

[AberDino]

Is this what you did?

Hi @CyberSimian, it would have been either of these two options:

1. Watch channel (no pause), press 'OK' on the MCE remote which brings up the 'mini' guide on top of the video stream, up/down to select the new channel, and press 'OK' again to switch to that channel.
2. Watch channel (no pause), press 'back' on the MCE remote to go back to the 'full' guide with the video stream in a windowed box above the guide, up/down to select the new channel / program, and press 'OK' to switch to that channel.

Does that make sense in relation to the Panel IDs you are seeing?

 

[AberDino]

Do you have MediaPortal set up as "always on top"?

I suspect so, but I'll double check and confirm.

If you do an ALT+TAB on a keyboard when this happens, do you regain control of MePo?

I'll try that next time, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[CyberSimian]

it would have been either of these two options ...

Thank you for posting the details of your actions.

I had forgotten how MP uses its windows, and what I said previously was not quite right . Panel id 602 ("MyTvFullScreen.xml") is in fact live TV, but with the pause OSD suppressed. If you press the PAUSE button (or FAST_FOWARD/BACKWARD, or JUMP_FORWARD/BACKWARD), the pause OSD is enabled and appears on screen.

I have been trying your sequence of actions on my system, but the log file is not consistent in showing WindowManager transitions:

• The log does show going from live TV (id 602) to the mini guide (id 3009) and then returning to live TV.
• The log does not show going from the full-screen TV guide (id 600) to live TV (id 602) and then returning to the TV guide.

Your log does not show panel id 3009, so I think that you were not using the mini guide when the error occurred.

As I said previously, I am not an expert in reading MP log files, and the inconsistent logging from the different parts of MP does not help in understanding what is happening.

I have no experience of MadVr, but I think that @joecrow uses it. He has not been around recently, but it would be interesting to hear if he has encountered the same problem.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[joecrow]

I have no experience of MadVr, but I think that @joecrow uses it. He has not been around recently, but it would be interesting to hear if he has encountered the same problem.

I do indeed use Madvr as my renderer altough not for TV, at some point in the past I selected the "Use EVR for TV" option but I can't remember why! I have not encountered any loss of control following channel changes but I have now reset that option so I will be using Madvr also for TV and will monitor the situation.
One thing I have noted recently (last few months, also with1.37) is that sometimes with TV playing it takes a long time (10-20 secs) to respond to the stop button (no problem with OLV and movies, not sure about recorded TV)) and also it can take a long time to display the EPG and the recorded programs list, though most times the reponse is almost instantaneous. Not sure if this behaviour could be related and as mentioned previously that was with Madvr turned off for TV. Anyone else seeing this?
As @CyberSimian mentioned I am currently not very active here but I still check out what is going on pretty much daily and log in occaisionally.

 

[CyberSimian]

One thing I have noted recently (last few months, also with1.37) is that sometimes with TV playing it takes a long time (10-20 secs) to respond to the stop button ... and also it can take a long time to display the EPG and the recorded programs list, though most times the reponse is almost instantaneous.

Response times on my system can vary, but not to the extent that you have experienced (e.g. 3 seconds to show the "Recording Schedule" panel). I ascribe my slow response times to the fact that my "C:" drive (which contains MP) is a slow Western Digital "Green" drive (5400 rpm).

Every time that you transition from one MP panel to another, MP reads the XML file from disk. And for the EPG and list-type panels, MP has to read the EPG info and file list from disk too. Of course, after the first time that an XML file is read, it will probably reside in the Windows disk cache, so subsequent reads are likely to be faster. And if the "C:" drive is an SSD, response times should be faster.

Another possible factor might be whether you are are using a single-seat system, or separate clients and server. The one time that I tried using my laptop as a client connecting to my HTPC server system, I was impressed by the response times, which did not seem to be noticeably longer than the single-seat case. But this is likely to depend on the speed and utilisation of your network connection.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK