J.River MC plugin causes MC14 to become unresponsive, locks.

Just a heads up:

The J.River Media support plugin causes both J.River Media Center 14 and the Windows desktop and taskbar to become unresponsive. The only resolution is to kill J.River Media Center with the task manager.


EDIT...sorry. Forgot to add details. Otherwise the plugin works, but the trouble starts when you attempt to shut down the Media Center app. It refuses to shut down cleanly, and the taskbar freezes as well. This does not occur with the app until you point the tlb support plugin to the j.river media center executable.

This is with Windows 7 x64, latest TLB, media app plugin and j.river support plugin.

If I can provide further details, let me know.

Yuri: The J.River company said they'd give you a free MC15 license if you want to take a stab at fixing the plugin.

A free MC15 license would be greatly appreciated. What I must to do to get it?

Maybe the registered version working a bit different. I've tested MC14 and MC15 trial versions but can't to reproduce the bug. Anyway I've prepared the updated version. Please try it maybe the bug is fixed.

Also please tell me, is the bug appear every time you close the player or sometimes?

Hi Yuri...

I'll talk to the developer and see what must be done for you to get a copy of MC15.

As it turns out, there was a resource leak in MC when switching window states (from maximized, minimized, to mini skin, and standard skin) that seem to be exacerbating the TLB plugin issue. They have addressed the issue. The problem has improved somewhat, but taskbar still locks on occasion. It doesn't happen all the time. I'll test the new plugin and get back to you.

Thank you!


C

The plugin seems to be mostly working. On rare occasion, when you push the stop button on the TLB media player, the taskbar freezes up for a few seconds until the player stops. Also, there is consistently an two to eight second delay from the time you push the play button on the TLB media player until the MC15 player starts anda few second delay until the time that stats appear in the TLB media player window. In comparison, these operations are virtually instantaneous with other media players, such as Winamp and Foobar.

I have a message into Jim at J.river; I'll let you know what I find out ASAP.

Yuri:

Contact Matt, <!-- e --><a href="mailto:matt@jriver.com">matt@jriver.com</a><!-- e -->.

I've told him to expect you. Just tell him who you are the developer of TLB and need a copy of MC15 for development of the plugin.

Thanks millions.

Thank you very much! I've contacted Matt and get my copy. Also Matt gives me an idea where can be a problem. Please can you test this version. Let me know how it works.

Hello Yuri. Thank you for your efforts, but this one behaves more or less the same as the last one. Is your test machine 64 bit?

Yes I tested on 64 bit Windows 7. Please check the version of TLB Remote plugin in MC: Tools->Plug-in Manager->Interface->TLB Remote

version must be 3.2 Maybe the installation failed?

Yuri:

I've confirmed that it is version 3.2. Try something for me: Once you've launched the player from the TLB plugin, try to change the "mode" of the skin, from "mini mode" to
"standard mode." I wish they would implement a "run in systray only" option. Anyway, does your taskbar freeze for several seconds, and drawn windows on the desktop become black? How about the time from when you first click play, to the time the song starts playing, and displaying stats in the tlb module; how many seconds pass?

Thank you,

C

Anyway, does your taskbar freeze for several seconds, and drawn windows on the desktop become black?

No, I can't to reproduce the freeze

How about the time from when you first click play, to the time the song starts playing, and displaying stats in the tlb module; how many seconds pass?

Right after MC15 starts there are the delay about 10 sec before TLB "find" the player and show the stats, then if I click play MC15 begins play immediately.

Well, I'll make the special support for MC15 not via the Universal Player. I guess this will solves all the problems.

Please test this version of the MC15 support.

Installation
Unzip jRiverMC.dll for your platform (32 bit or 64 bit) into the folder: C:\Program Files\TrueLaunchBar\plugins\mediactl\players2

Using
Open the properties of the Media Control plugin and select the player "jRiver Media Center".

If this version will work stable I'll make the installation and publish in the updater.

Thanks.

Yuri:

It seems more responsive initially, but if I change a song from the playlist from the TLB media module, the cursor becomes an hour glass, and Windows explorer.exe crashes. Similarly, if I change the view of the active windows of J.river media center, from mini-mode to standard mode, explorer.exe also hangs and crashes. I wish I had better news. Would someone else test it and see if my problem is unique? I am using Windows 7 x64. Is there a way for me to debug the process?

Please can you post here the crash report of the explorer.exe You can find it in the Event Viewer->Windows Logs->Application find the error and post the text here. I guess this is not a real crash but the hang, and Windows restart explorer automatically.

Also maybe there are some other plugins for MC you are using? Try to uninstall the old TLB Remote Control.

Also maybe there are some other plugins for MC you are using? Try to uninstall the old TLB Remote Control.

I'm not using any other plugins for MC; only what MC installs by default. I even tried installing on a fresh Windows installation. I could not find an associated error in the Event Viewer for explorer.exe. It would be helpful if someone else would test it to see if the issue can be reproduced.