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Support => Questions => Topic started by: Edward Janusz on August 28, 2018, 07:55:01 PM

Title: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Edward Janusz on August 28, 2018, 07:55:01 PM
I've been using MusicBee mostly to play a playlist when I'm supposed to wake up, using the Windows 10 Task Scheduler to activate it. And it has been working well, until recently.

The only difference I can find is that I have finally gotten around to ripping my CDs (through another program, fre:ac, that I've used for a while) and playing them in MusicBee at night. I know that if I pass out and leave MusicBee open all night, the morning playlist won't come on. That's fine, and I can live with that. But even when I close MusicBee at night, I don't get any sound in the morning. I have noticed that when I do get up, MusicBee is open to the playlist I selected, but nothing has actually played - or if it has, it hasn't reached my speakers.

The other "trick" here is that when I'm listening during the evenings, it's through some Bose speakers that are plugged directly into the computer. When I go to bed, I switch the computer over to a small Bluetooth speaker and put on something to go to sleep (edited to add:) playing something from Spotify.(end edit) The Bluetooth speaker powers itself down when it hasn't received an audio signal for 20 minutes, and the computer switches back to the Bose speakers. That still works as designed.

The only difference between what I did before my playlists stopped working and after is that I'm listening to more .flacs and .mp3s via MusicBee in the evening. Is MusicBee by some chance leaving some process open that is blocking Task Scheduler from opening the playlist properly? Or if I should be looking into some other issue?

I can't think of anything else that has changed. I have Windows set to tell me when updates are available, not to install them on its own; but I don't know if Windows always obeys me.

Sorry for the length of this; I'm trying to type up everything I can think of.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Steven on August 29, 2018, 07:03:16 AM
try the latest version from the first forum topic:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=24754.msg149459#new

and are you using a command line to invoke a specific playlist?
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Edward Janusz on August 29, 2018, 01:48:51 PM
Hello Steven,

Yes, I invoke a specific playlist from the command line in Windows Task Scheduler; I edit the very end (*.mbp) every few days. This is a typical one.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe" /play "C:\Users\mourningdoves\Music\MusicBee\Playlists\Morning\Umphreys-01.mbp"

That particular playlist has worked in the past, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

I just downloaded Update 2, so I'll install that and report back.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Edward Janusz on August 30, 2018, 02:30:35 AM
I had a couple of hours to install the new version and work on a few different scenarios today.

First, I created another job in Task Scheduler; it's like the one whose command sequence I copied in the last post, except that I kept changing the times on it and running it every fifteen minutes or so.

The selected playlist loads the tracks into the right window - the one that is labeled "Playing Tracks" - but the player doesn't automatically start up the way it used to.

One thing that may or may not be related: On three or four occasions, I tried to clear whatever was in the "Playing Tracks" window before I closed MusicBee. I tried deleting the tracks one by one, and I also found the "List > Clear" in the right-click menu. The idea was that maybe the player was getting input from both the Playing Tracks list and the playlist I was trying to start through the Task Scheduler, and maybe it was getting, uh, confused.

Either way, either the most recent track, or several of the most recent tracks, were back in "Playing Tracks" when I started MusicBee up again. I'm new to this and I'm not sure if it is supposed to be that way.

I also tried starting a single .flac - not a playlist - from Task Scheduler. Same symptoms, same results.

Any other ideas?

Does the syntax I used in Task Scheduler look OK? Only the playlist name has changed in several weeks, but it is worth asking, I think.

Even with this little kerfuffle, MusicBee is really the first music player I've actually enjoyed running. Getting the wake-up playlists to work again would be like icing on the cake.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Steven on August 30, 2018, 12:58:44 PM
send me a link to your settings file and i will have a quick look (help/ support/ view settings)
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Steven on August 30, 2018, 07:09:29 PM
i cant reproduce any issues using your settings ie. the playlist passed as the parameter plays as expected
Title: Re: Wake-up playlists stopped working
Post by: Edward Janusz on August 31, 2018, 03:18:08 AM
Hmm. I guess my next step is to prowl the Microsoft forums and try to determine if some obscure Windows setting has been altered. I can't think of anything I might have done to change anything.

Anyway, it would be cool to have the wake-up back, but it's even cooler to have MusicBee around in general.

Thanks!