Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Thanks schmidj ,

I will have a look at your reply over the weekend.

Cheers.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Regarding sleeping drives, go to "power and sleep settings" in the control panel. Click on "additional power settings" then in that window, click on "change advanced power settings". The USB settings have an item "USB Selective Suspend Setting" Set it to "disabled" in the drop down, best for both plugged in and battery. Then go to Hard Disk (which controls the sleep of the C: drive). I have mine set to never sleep when plugged in, 15 minutes sleep when on battery. If you have a spinning drive, they are power hogs, SSDs are less consuming but still can eat up your battery.

I don't care about how much electricity the USB ports are using because I use a desktop PC and can afford the miniscule extra power use. I would rather the ports remain readily available at all times to prevent possible wonky behavior, so I disabled Selective Suspend months ago when I first found out about it.

On a hunch, I checked the setting after reading this and found that it was changed to "enabled" at some point. I expect this happened during the Windows 10 1803 update.

It would be a good idea to make a list of system settings changes and check them after the biannual major Windows updates at least, if not every one.

[schmidj]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

I have turned off quite a lot of items in the 'start up menu', and disabled as many 'notifications' as I can. But that is all. Win_10 seems to be very evasive an that it can try to do what it wants to do, when it wants to do it! I asked MicroSoft if they could disable all and any AUTO-UPDATES, but they said this is not possible; hence I try to keep this PC offline as much as I can.

One thing I was wondering, please - and this may be totally unrelated but I thought I would mention it purely for the sake of ticking another box - is that a user is able to set how long a period of time lapses before ones 'drives' go to sleep. My 'Western Digital' goes to sleep after about 10 mins of inactivity, and my C: drive the same. So, unless I am listening to music, the 'Western Digital' external-HD is always asleep. It is slow, in my opinion, in waking up. The device is mains-powered. Anyway, would you ever set the 'sleep' timer to permanently OFF?; so that the drives are always running? I am not sure if this would make any different though, and also I think such a setting can be detrimental to a devices health.

If the playback skipping/glitch issue persists then I will look into replacing the USB lead. However, I can confirm that Port *4 is used more or less exclusively for the 'Western Digital' external-HD, and is pretty much always connected.

First, I'm talking about updates to apps you have installed, not Windows. Stopping updates to Windows 10, particularly the home edition has essentially become a lost cause.

The start menu is a place to start, but that basically effects software that runs when you boot the machine. The task scheduler runs tasks based on clock time. Most of these tasks are stuck in there by software you have installed, from all kinds of sources. For instance, have you ever wondered why in the middle of something you are doing, you suddenly get a popup telling you that Itunes has a new version to install. That was triggered by a task Apple stuck in the task scheduler. I just looked and this laptop has 126 active tasks that can run under various conditions often with no intervention from me. And they can easily mess up programs that you are running. They can freeze the keyboard for a short ( or longer) period of time, and they in all likelihood can mess up USB access.

For instance the first of the 128 items on my machine is titled G2MUpdateTask-S-1-5-21-3825242543-108378058-3375148278-1001 In the description it says: "Keeps GoToMeeting up to date. This task is removed when GoToMeeting is uninstalled." You'd see that it runs "on a schedule" starting at 5:05 AM and repeats every hour for one day (when it triggers again for the next day) What does it do? it runs: C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\GoToMeeting\9250\g2mup date.exe every hour. You;ll also see that the programmer (or you if you edit the task) can put limitations on the task like only run if the computer is idle, and many others, and a priority for the task can be set. But these people did not put any idle requirement on this task. So every hour, it runs, no matter what else you are trying to do. And remember this is only one of the 128 tasks currently on my machine. If one of these tasks has a higher priority than the keyboard entry for the program I'm trying to run, then the keyboard will freeze when that task is executing. And, the same thing could happen with USB access when your player is trying to read the music file from your USB drive.

To see the task scheduler, type task scheduler in the search box on your task bar. Click on the link that pops up. If you want to understand what you are seeing, there are help files, and Google can also be your friend.

Now, the task scheduler is something you want to be careful with. You can mess up software or your machine by incorrectly modifying tasks. But I've killed a few tasks that were updating software I rarely use, and changed the conditions on others to only run when the machine is idle and stop if the machine ceases to be idle. If nothing else you'll get a good feel for how all this software you have on your machine has taken over your machine and how little control you have over it unless you know where to look to see what it might be doing.

I don't know if scheduled tasks are messing up your playing back of USB hard drive files, but it is one of a number of possibilities. And why in he!! does Go To Meeting (software for remote conferencing I use once in a dogs age) really need to check for updates every hour?? Why, because some programmer there could do it, so they did. And for the average joe, there is no policing what is going on in the background (and often in the foreground on your machine. Good luck on figuring out which of those 128 tasks might be messing you up. And while many people know about the start menu. few know about the task scheduler.

Now I suggested a couple of other things. First, your machine probably has several USB port jacks. They are not all equal internally. One may work better than another. It costs nothing to plug your USB drive into a different port and try it. On this laptop, a rather fast, well equipped one, I've had issues streaming from USB devices on the ports on one side of the laptop, but not on the other side. You should really experiment with this.

Also, those USB cables are cheap, and many are cheaply made. Buy another one, for a few whatever. Try it. If it makes no difference, you've got a spare. If it fixes things, throw out the bad one right away.

Regarding sleeping drives, go to "power and sleep settings" in the control panel. Click on "additional power settings" then in that window, click on "change advanced power settings". The USB settings have an item "USB Selective Suspend Setting" Set it to "disabled" in the drop down, best for both plugged in and battery. Then go to Hard Disk (which controls the sleep of the C: drive). I have mine set to never sleep when plugged in, 15 minutes sleep when on battery. If you have a spinning drive, they are power hogs, SSDs are less consuming but still can eat up your battery.

Notice how well Microsoft has hidden these settings that were very visible in older versions of Windows. My opinion of all to many programmers goes down daily. One exception, Spoon and Peter are so much better than the average. But Microsoft, Apple, Google (Android) and so many other companies have too many programmers with too much time on their hands. They are constantly playing around with software features that have worked well for ever and breaking them, or at least making them inconvenient to use, all in the name of "progress". Form (in the name of pretty graphics) has taken priority over function, among other issues. Watch out, I could rant on that for hours, with plenty of examples!

I've found the USB shutdown to be an issue if not disabled, it seems that not all USB devices properly tell the computer to leave them powered up when they are in use.

Sorry to have taken so long to reply, I had to repair the satellite service at the radio station I'm Chief Engineer of, turned out to ba a wasp's nest in the feedhorn of the dish. Not fun evicting wasps on the roof of a building in the 90 degree + heat...

John

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

got it. I was under the mistaken assumption that your primary listening setup was via bluetooth headphones and walkman. I too use less than optimum listening setups and an iphone during exercise, traveling in autos, planes, etc.

I can see how things became misconstrued as we have been jumping from one scenario to another quite rapidly.

I dare say that most listeners who purchase a bluetooth pair of headphones have little intention of using them in a 'wired' scenario. When I spent around 6/8 weeks researching a suitable pair for my wants and needs, almost all of the customer reviews commented on how they loved being able to control the play/track/volume directly from the headphones, and how excellent it was to have the freedom of walking around the home (upstairs, in the garden, and all that) without a lead. Obviously these luxuries can only be achieved in 'wireless' mode. And, as I say, I would find it surprising if one could hear any difference in 'quality' whilst out and about. For 'focused/detailed' listening (as I do each evening) having an attached lead does make a noticeable difference (improvement) in this respect.

I think, on the Sony headphones, you have 12 hours of 'play time' if using bluetooth.

[garym]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Because when I am out walking I always use bluetooth. I find it very liberating to not have (as I use to have to put up with) a lead trailing from the device inside my coat pocket to the phones. I never thought it bothered me that much but now I have gotten rid of it, I could never go back to having it!

Secondly, I can honestly only hear the difference in the 'quality' of the audio - when A/B comparing 'wired' to 'non-wired' - when I am listening to music indoors and in the quiet. Outside, there is too much background noise to be able to tell the difference (even with 'noise-cancellation'). In fact I would be totally astounded if anyone COULD hear any difference when walking the streets or listening on a (say) train.

got it. I was under the mistaken assumption that your primary listening setup was via bluetooth headphones and walkman. I too use less than optimum listening setups and an iphone during exercise, traveling in autos, planes, etc.

[mville]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Because when I am out walking I always use bluetooth. I find it very liberating to not have (as I use to have to put up with) a lead trailing from the device inside my coat pocket to the phones. I never thought it bothered me that much but now I have gotten rid of it, I could never go back to having it!

Personally, I would find the glitching audio far more annoying than a trailing wire.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Why. You've confirmed 3 times that with wired headphones it plays through fine. So its not the files and its not the headphones and its not the server. At this point, it seems that only your bluetooth headphones are at fault. And "blips" I've found are not uncommon with bluetooth. (as an aside, if you're doing quality listening, why use bluetooth. Bluetooth is LOSSY so you're going to all this trouble just to listen to compressed lossy versions of your files caused by the bluetooth transmission????

Because when I am out walking I always use bluetooth. I find it very liberating to not have (as I use to have to put up with) a lead trailing from the device inside my coat pocket to the phones. I never thought it bothered me that much but now I have gotten rid of it, I could never go back to having it!

Secondly, I can honestly only hear the difference in the 'quality' of the audio - when A/B comparing 'wired' to 'non-wired' - when I am listening to music indoors and in the quiet. Outside, there is too much background noise to be able to tell the difference (even with 'noise-cancellation'). In fact I would be totally astounded if anyone COULD hear any difference when walking the streets or listening on a (say) train.

[garym]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

mville,

The "Miles On The Corner" album played fine for a 3rd time last night using a 'wired' headphone connection with the Walkman yesterday evening. As always, I will test again shortly...

Paul

Why. You've confirmed 3 times that with wired headphones it plays through fine. So its not the files and its not the headphones and its not the server. At this point, it seems that only your bluetooth headphones are at fault. And "blips" I've found are not uncommon with bluetooth. (as an aside, if you're doing quality listening, why use bluetooth. Bluetooth is LOSSY so you're going to all this trouble just to listen to compressed lossy versions of your files caused by the bluetooth transmission????

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

mville,

The "Miles On The Corner" album played fine for a 3rd time last night using a 'wired' headphone connection with the Walkman yesterday evening. As always, I will test again shortly...

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Most of those scheduled tasks can simply be removed, (You really don't care about those irritating pop-ups that appear telling you that Itunes has a new version...) or the task schedule can be modified (by you) so it only runs when your machine has been idle for some period of time and stops running if your machine is no longer idle; or can be modified to run at 3:00 AM instead of 8:27 PM.

Another thought, since it is a USB drive: Have you tried using a different USB port on your machine? A different USB cable? I've seen issues where some USB ports on computers were unreliable for playing streams because some other task inside the computer was hogging the hardware interfacing that USP port. Also USB cables, particularly USB3 cables, are notorious for not making good connections with the connectors on the computer. The USB3 connector design is far from rugged.

Hi schmidj,

I have turned off quite a lot of items in the 'start up menu', and disabled as many 'notifications' as I can. But that is all. Win_10 seems to be very evasive an that it can try to do what it wants to do, when it wants to do it! I asked MicroSoft if they could disable all and any AUTO-UPDATES, but they said this is not possible; hence I try to keep this PC offline as much as I can.

One thing I was wondering, please - and this may be totally unrelated but I thought I would mention it purely for the sake of ticking another box - is that a user is able to set how long a period of time lapses before ones 'drives' go to sleep. My 'Western Digital' goes to sleep after about 10 mins of inactivity, and my C: drive the same. So, unless I am listening to music, the 'Western Digital' external-HD is always asleep. It is slow, in my opinion, in waking up. The device is mains-powered. Anyway, would you ever set the 'sleep' timer to permanently OFF?; so that the drives are always running? I am not sure if this would make any different though, and also I think such a setting can be detrimental to a devices health.

If the playback skipping/glitch issue persists then I will look into replacing the USB lead. However, I can confirm that Port *4 is used more or less exclusively for the 'Western Digital' external-HD, and is pretty much always connected.

Cheers,

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

I tried the Miles Davis album on the Sony Walkman last night, and using 'wired' connection, and it played fine. I will try exactly the same tonight ...

The album played fine for a 2nd time last night using a 'wired' headphone connection with the Walkman.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

So, it could be a Bluetooth issue. To rule this out, try with wired headphones.

mville,

I tried the Miles Davis album on the Sony Walkman last night, and using 'wired' connection, and it played fine. I will try exactly the same tonight ...

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

Yes, this is as I expect, no problem with the flacs or with foobar2000.

However, it does imply an issue with the external-HD, though this is is not absolutely certain here, as there may have been other software/processes (e.g. anti-virus, security, backup software etc.) that interfered, when it last glitched.

Hi mville,

I did run a 'quick' and 'full' scan on the external_HD using Western Digital's very own 'diagnostics tool'. The later took 7 hours. Anyway, it came out with flying colours.

Incidentally, I removed 'MalwareBytes' from my PC last month. Though circa 80% of my rips were made whilst it was installed.

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

I think you&*8217;ve clearly proven that your files are good. That&*8217;s good!

Phew!

Thank you kind sir! ;-)

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Strange Goings On! (PerfTunes/Foobar/Ripped FLACs)

So, it could be a Bluetooth issue. To rule this out, try with wired headphones.

Ha ha, now why did I think you might say that!? lol