Long wait between tracks

[mangel]

I am a long time user of MediaMonkey. Well over 10 years using this program.

I just set up the latest version on an Asus Maximus VIII Hero Alpha and have encountered a new glitch of sorts I didn't have on my Asus X99 Deluxe (Alpha is Intel Z170).

When I double click on any music file (mp3 or flac) I have an unprecedented wait before the next track starts up - the previous one continues to play maybe 15 seconds or more.

I added a SoundBlaster Z card to my system but I still get the long delay before the next track plays. Used to play immediately when I would double click another audio file in windows file explorer or whatever it may have been called at the time depending on the version of Windows I was using.

My system specs are as follows

Win 10 PRO
Asus Maximus VIII Hero BIOS 1402
I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor
Corsair DDR4 2666 16 GB (4 X 4)
Samsung 950 Pro 512MB (C:)
Samsung 850 Pro 2 TB (MZ-7KE2T0BW) (2 x D:& E:)
Seagate SSHD 4TB (F:) not always on.
LG BH16NS40 SATA Blu-Ray Rewriter (G:)
Gigabyte GV-R939G1 GAMING-8GD G1
Creative Sound Blaster Z
BenQ 32" 4K Monitor 3840x2160
Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R Windowed Computer Case
Corsair HX 850i Power Supply
Corsair Strafe RGB Silent

[rovingcowboy]

sounds like more background items are running and hogging the cpu cycles. see if you can set the options for mm exe to run in high priority and stay that way after a reboot. if not find a process manager that does that for your op sys.
then set mm.exe to run in high, that gives it the line jump pass to get through the cpu faster then programs not in high priority, this should cut the time down. if you have multiple cores then set up mm in realtime and on one or two cores where it is only thing running on the one or two cores that will make it like running mm on its own computer.

oh yeah you will need a 3rd party process manager to do this one, but find the way to add in programs to the manager and set up the decoder exe in the mm programs folder to it and set it up in high or realtime, if you are able to just type in the name of the program and not the directory path, then just use decoder.exe and all the ones on the computer will run in that speed then.

[nealrogers]

I'm getting the same thing here with MM 4.1.11.1783 on latest Win 10 build. Long delays of 15 seconds or more when I click on a music file. So I ran some tests and discovered the following...

With MM not running, if I click on a music file MM loads and the file starts playing with no delay.
If I then (with MM still running) click on another music file there is a delay of 15-30 seconds before the file plays. If, instead of double-clicking a music file, I drag and drop it into the playlist, there is no delay.

If I start MM by clicking on the MM icon (i.e. no music file specified), then click on any number of music files, there is no delay.

During the delay there is no noticeable processor or disk load shown in Task Manager. The delay occurs even if there is no music actually playing.

[Peke]

Hi,
This is normal behavior when you double click in Windows Explorer. reason for that is what windows itself chooses when to parse double click parameter to app.

Using MMW own My computer tree node should eliminate any delays like you pointed.

[nealrogers]

Yes I realize that, but it's not the case here. If I arrange for double-clicking a music file to start VLC or any other music player on my system, there are no delays. And really, a delay of 15-30 seconds would not be caused by Windows itself unless something is really screwed up.

I wonder if you saw the bit in my post which I'll repeat here...

If I start MM by clicking on the MM icon (i.e. no music file specified), then click on any number of music files, there is no delay.

The delay of 15-30 seconds only occurs if I start MM by clicking on a music file; there are no delays if I start MM by clicking on the MM icon.

[Peke]

Hmmm, this is interesting.

Looks like if started that way MMW is started under different credentials (protected memory heap) and each new start actually starts new MMW which takes time to load and then when it is loaded it detect already started MMW, closes and then send file to existing version.

Not sure we can do anything as it is windows controlled which process is parent one for starting application, but we will try to investigate.

[nealrogers]

Cheers.

If there's anything I can do to help test and/or isolate the problem, let me know.

Neal

[MMFrLife]

I agree that 15 -30 seconds is way too long for an MM cold start.

I'm not sure if what Peke is saying is something that would show up in Task Manager (processes), even if briefly, but you might try having your
process manager on top of everything when you click a file to start MM. Just to see if you notice anything interesting.

[nealrogers]

Yep, I wrote previously...

During the delay there is no noticeable processor or disk load shown in Task Manager.

I'll do some better analysis using pstools and report back if I find anything interesting.

[MMFrLife]

I was thinking more in terms of the list (to be certain), but I'm sure you already looked at all elements.

[Lowlander]

This is a long standing issue with several forum topics dedicated to it. I do hope it gets looked at.

[nealrogers]

Ah thanks. I did a search before posting but only found this one thread.

Do you know if anyone has narrowed it down? For example is it a win 10 issue? I don't remember this happening with win7.

[Lowlander]

I don't know, but the problem is between Explorer and MediaMonkey and it's been reported for many versions of Windows.

Using My Computer or Location in MediaMonkey bypasses the issue while still giving folder based browsing.

[nealrogers]

Thanks - I've found those other forum threads now and yes, this issue has been around a while. It does appear on Win 8 too, not sure about 7.

I wonder if anyone else can confirm that the delays do not occur if MMW is started by clicking on the MMW icon, but do occur if it's started by clicking on a music file in Windows Explorer. Just to be clear, in the second case, there is no delay when loading the initial file; the delays occur when subsequently clicking music files in Windows Explorer.

[mangel]

I'd like to clarify that I did not get this on my previous Win 10 x64 Pro build running an Asus X99 Deluxe with same hardware as this current rig, same drives everything.

I changed rigs because I broke the primary PCIE slot - outside of that and the processor, all my components including Blu-ray drive are mostly the same. I did change my Asus GTX 970 to a Gigabyte Radeon r9 390 mainly for the Freesync to match my monitor.

Now that earlier rig (X99 Deluxe) was running on Windows 7 as well and it did not have this problem. I always do a clean Windows install so nothing preset carried over. Either way the suspect now is the Z170 Motherboard or the on board audio. I did set up the onboard audio first and then installed my old Sound Blaster Z when I ran into this problem which continued after that. I did not do a clean install (for what it's worth) with the onboard audio disabled and the Sound blaster installed.