Wasapi exlusive mode worked with MP1.5 and no longer working in MP1.6 (1 Viewer)

[wawa79]

Hello,

I just upgraded MP from 1.5 to 1.6 today and WASAPI Exclusive mode is no longer working for music. Logs report a WASAPI error in Exclusive mode (see log).

Foobar still runs fine with WASAPI output in Exclusive mode so seems to be limited to MP.

1) Can anyone tell me how I can reset all audio settings in MP without reinstalling AGAIN?
2) How can I troubleshoot the problem to understand what is failing and report it to developpers ?

Thanks!

 

[wawa79]

Answering to myself as I just succeeded getting WASAPI exclusive running after I deleted the audioplayer section in Mediaportal.xml and reconfigured it. The WASAPI exclusive problem is linked with the buffer size. A buffer of 500ms is ok but a buffer of 2000ms causes failure of WASAPI exclusive.
Might be a good idea to suggest reducing the buffer or to limit the buffer when WASAPI exclusive output is selected in MP.

By the way, a side-effect of my problem that should be nice to fix also: when an error occurs when playing a media files, MP tries playing the next item in the playlist. The behaviour is fine but it would be nice to have a cancel button on the error popup in case all media cannot be played (for example if the share is unavailable or some hardware failure prevents playback) and avoid hundred of clicks to dismiss error popups if the playlist is that long!

 

[azzuro]

@hwahrmann

 

[wawa79]

Just back to MP after a few weeks abroad.
And music in WASAPI Exclusive mode with a buffer of 500ms is not working correctly: the player pauses randomly with no reason after a few seconds or minutes of playback. I moved back my music from the NAS to my local drive to check if network could be involved. But same result. And nothing in the logs about this.

I am a bit stuck...

 

[hwahrmann]

Try lowering the buffer even further.
i am runninhg it with 0.1 secs

 

[wawa79]

Try lowering the buffer even further.
i am runninhg it with 0.1 secs

i just tried 0.1sec: too short buffer for music on the NAS. I get some short breaks while playing but at least the player does not pause as it does with higher buffer. i will try increasing the buffer until I get no breaks but before I get the "random pause behaviour".

UPDATE: Tried all buffers from 0.1sec to 1sec with no success. Either gaps in music or music "randomly pausing". Moved back to old driver of my device: nothing changes.
ASIO works fine but sample rate does not follow the source sample rate and does not allow bitperfect playback (all is down or up sampled to the sample rate choosen on the device settings)

How can the buffer cause such behaviour? Any reason (i mean any change in code) that could explain WASAPI was working nice in MP 1.5 and is no longer in MP1.6?

 

[hwahrmann]

Yes, the reason is that in 1.5 Gapless playback was not working and i needed to rewrite the complete code.

 

[wawa79]

Yes, the reason is that in 1.5 Gapless playback was not working and i needed to rewrite the complete code.

Thanks for the reply. At least there is one good explanation to this! Nothing drives me more crazy than inconstant and unexplained behaviour in Windows.
Just tell me how I can help you in troubleshooting the problem.

I even raised a BSOD + reboot in WASAPI a few moment ago (my first one since I moved to Win 7, ha ha).
And after restart, it played music "normally" for around 30 minutes (buffer currently set to 0.3sec)
In MP1.4 / 1.5, I could also run JPlay 'high end' music player through its ASIO driver and it no longer works neither in MP1.6... I have tried to connect it using PureAudio and I have no more success.

So I am returning back to MP1.5 until this is fixed : even if TV is the most used feature at home, music is the functionality I am the most demanding on.

 

[wawa79]

Is this issue being taken into account or should I post something in area 51 to make sure it is fixed in next release?

This is a major point for me as WASAPI is the only way to get bitperfect playback on all sources without having to change settings manually. In exclusive mode, Wasapi adapts sampling rate to match the media. Nor ASIO or BASS do this...

 

[wawa79]

I have just looked at list of changes in MP 1.7 and nothing about this issue: is it being fixed in 1.7?