Topics

1

Bug Reports / bass.dll version above 2.4.14.0 causing stop Creative X-Fi CMSS-3D to work

« on: April 23, 2023, 05:36:20 PM »

Hello,

recently a nightly version of MB was released together with an updated version of the un4seen bass.dll in version 2.4.17.0.
This bass.dll version and some earlier ones will breake the x-fi CMSS-3D functionality, at least with the DirectSound-API.

Why DirectSound?

Well, x-fi CMSS-3D is only working perfect with the DirectSound-API and and allowing shared mode with that.
CMSS-3D doesn't work with WASAPI at all.
CMSS-3D work with (Creative) ASIO, but only in exclusive mode! This constantly interferes with any additional application outputting sound.

I'm using a quad active speaker setup together with an X-Fi sound-card with enabled CMSS-3D in the Stereo-Xpand mode. This configuration sounds truly amazing to me and I just can recommend it to everyone else too.

That i was investigating so far:
bass.dll 2.4.14.0 is the last good know version for CMSS-3D with DirectSound-API
bass.dll 2.4.16.10 : no CMSS-3D with DirectSound-API
bass.dll 2.4.17.0 : no CMSS-3D with DirectSound-API


Some related liks from the un4seen-forum:

WASAPI, DirectX and 3D audio
https://www.un4seen.com/forum/?topic=18095.0

Changes beta-version bass.dll
https://www.un4seen.com/forum/?topic=19874.0


This very likely isn't any bug related to MusicBee, but maybe bass.dll 2.4.16 and above provides a new way to initialize the plugin, or something like that.

I already was aware of that bass.dll 2.4.17.0 will breake CMSS-3D, because i already tried this version earlier. But since bass.dll 2.4.17.0 will start to become distributed with MB more official now, I would like to use this as an opportunity to point on that issue, and hopefully to cause an review on that.

I know this is a truly special case here.
For now, I just assume that there are still a meaningful number of audiophile peoples out there, with one of the widely distributed X-Fi cards, that have recognized the please of CMSS-3D and still want using it


Thanks in advance.

p.s. Depending on the reply on that issue here, I also will consider to contact un4seen and inform them about this issue.

MB v. 3.5.8432
bass.dll v. 2.4.14.0

2

MusicBee Wishlist / MilkDrop Visualizer Fresh-Up : Butter Churn Viz

« on: May 30, 2021, 02:31:51 AM »

Hi there,

I love the original Milkdrop visualizer a lot, but struggle with the old fashioned plugin, which started working unreliable recently and causing constant crashes for me nowadays.
Right now - I just found Butter Churn Viz (https://butterchurnviz.com/)

"Butterchurn (2018) is a web implementation of the original source code of Milkdrop released on the WinAmp forum in 2007."

https://webamp.org/ Butter Churn in Action!
https://github.com/jberg/butterchurn/ Butter Churn SourceCode
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/MilkDrop



Immediately I tried to find a way to use it with / respectively getting it implemented into MusicBee somehow.
Since it can be displayed in a browser natively, I just wonder if it could get loaded/displayed into MusicBee as a Website somehow too ...

"Butterchurn v2.6.7.1e-complete (2020-08-20) is easy to implement with example webpage and extended functions and implementation manual."

There exist a Butterchurn Chrome Extention as well.

Otherwise, it's maybe just an inspiration but also a reminder to focus the attention again onto a very beautiful aspect of musical enjoyment - Visualization - and the support of these kind of plugins.

Greetings

3

Bug Reports / "Window resize failed" crash @ starting Milkdrop visualizer (in Fullscreen Mode)

« on: April 09, 2021, 10:47:33 PM »

Hello,

since more then one month now I've experience constant crashes when starting Milkdrop visualizer.

Steps to reproduce :
1. MB Visualizer is set "Milkdrop 2.2"
2. Press "V" to start visualizer
Result: "Window resize failed" > MB crash
(there is no difference when set to "Fullscreen" or "Normal" (tab))

Workaround:
Unknown so far - sometimes (20% chance) Milkdrop is just starting fine, without crashing MB!


This behavior did never happen 2 or 3 month before and unfortunately I can't say if it is now caused by a recent ...
- MB update
- Windows update
- AMD Adreanline driver update

Any one here who is facing the same issue too or already has resolved it ?

Greetings.

MB 3.4.7754
AMD Andrenalin 21.4.1
W10 20H2 Built 19042.928

(effort-benefit ratio for rolling back one of the mentioned updates unfortunately will be a pain and isn't intended by myself)

4

Bug Reports / MilkDrop Key-Mapping Problem

« on: November 24, 2019, 12:33:37 PM »

Hi There,

I discovered that currently it seems impossible to use the Mildrop preset-editing menu (open with "M") or the preset selection menu (open with "L").



As far I remember this menu should work with using the cursor keys and enter to select.
At the moment I'm unable to navigate and select any entry in this menu.

Could this be checked please?

Thank you and greetings.

MB: 3.3.7234

5

MusicBee Wishlist / display Dialog Windows on MB screen @ Multiscreen Setup

« on: May 04, 2019, 07:36:06 PM »

Hi,

I'm using a multi screen setup with an beamer. Sometimes I'm experience the situation that MB open dialog windows on the second screen (the beamer) which is off usually. These dialog windows obviously does not represent an separate window instance, so they can't be focused either moved between the screens with WIN+LEFT/RIGHT keys. In this situation you HAVE TO switch on the second screen (the beamer) to manually drag'n'drop the dialog to the first screen where the MB window is located.

My wish is that MB open dialog windows AUTOMATICALLY on the screen where the MB main window is displayed/located.
Implementing an option therefore would be welcome too.

Thank You in advance.
Greetings.

6

MusicBee Wishlist / displaying ENLARGED Artist Artwork/Picture by Double-Click

« on: April 28, 2019, 02:02:45 PM »

I would like to suggest implementing a function to open the current displaying Artist picture in an separate window by double-click on it.

Currently this is already implemented for Album Artwork to view it enlarged, but this action doesn't work for Artist artwork unfortunately.

Greetings.

MB: 3.3.7051

7

Portable Devices / General Android Playlist Sync Problems

« on: March 09, 2019, 07:30:32 PM »

Hi there,

playlist issues seem to be a very frequent problem when it comes to sync a mobile device with MB. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why somethings went wrong or simply doesn't work. One reason obviously is the huge variety of different devices, OS's and apps that support only different formats or simply have a very own strategy storing or handling playlists.

I decided to start a new thread here because to me it seems it could be a good way to sum up some basic knowledge about how Android devices handling playlists. So I hope this thread can keep seperate and will not be merged into a existing one.

Because I use an Android (6.0.1) device in connection with the Smasung Music App, I will focus on this setup in the following.

During testing the new MB WiFi-sync feature, I've experienced playlist sync problems again, even though it still work fine through MTP sync. So I've just started investigating and testing some things to find what's probably going wrong, respectively why my Android device has problems with synced playlists sometimes and sometimes not.


Problem 1:
Playlist files seem to be discovered totally random by a media app like Samsung Music, if copied (manually) to any folder on my device. Most times they seem to be never discovered by any music app.

Problem 2:
Playlist sync via MB WiFi-sync doesn't really work. Playlist files are transfered corretly and the Samsung Music app display them too, BUT the playlists shown in any media app are all empty - so they can't be used! To avoid any misunderstandings, the m3u files are totally intact and containing the correct paths to all media-files.


Long story shortened already - so far I've discovered following:

+ Android uses an own internal media scanner, which builds up a database about all you media-files and also playlists. This database should be loacted somewhere here in most cases:
 - /data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/external-{some hex here}.db [or]
 - /data/data/com.google.android.music/databases/music.db
  I'm unsure which database is used under which condition, but that shouldn't be important here.
+ Music Apps like Samsung Music and others I suppose, just using this Android media store database.
+ Most times new files or playlists can NOT be discovered by any media app, just because the Android media scanner did NOT YET detect them!
+ I'm unsure if the Android media scanner can be triggerd by any command via MTP or which events will lead to initialize a rescan. Anyhow, the Android media scanner can be triggered MANUALLY whith apps like these here:
 "ScanMediaPlz" https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.zhuoweizhang.scanmediaplz
A few seconds later after you getting run it, you should find the playlists shown correctly in your media app, if they wasn't there before.
+ As long MB weird MTP-sync is used, the Android MTP handler always directly updates the Android media store database, so a rescan is unnecessary.
+ MB Wifi-Sync does/can? NOT use the Android MTP handler so the Android media scanner will be called by the app right after sync process is finished.


What I have observed:

+ It should not matter where the playlist files located are. However, I'm unsure how the Android media scanner deals with relative or absolute paths inside the playlist files. I've used absolute paths inside M3U files, but putting them in a subfolder and it just worked!
+ No matter if using MB wired MTP- or WiFi-sync, in both cases paylist files themselves will just be copied fine in the specified folders on your device without problems.
+ Using MB MTP-sync, MB additionaly seems to dicrectly write playlist information into the Android media store database or just trigger a media rescan automatically the Android MTP handler directly updates the media store database, because so after the sync process is finished, playlists imediatly appear correctly in my media app!
+ Using MB Wifi-sync, the Wifi Sync App seems also to dicrectly write playlist information [names only] into the Android media store database, because so after the sync process is finished, playlists imediatly appear in my media app - BUT as mentioned above, they are all empty! Under these condition a manual media rescan with "ScanMediaPlz" does NOT help. To recover this situation, I manually have to delete the playlists inside my media app (Samung Music), which in fact means, remove them from the Android media store database. After that, a manual media rescan with "ScanMediaPlz" leads to the expected result: Playlist listed corectly!


Questions and Answers Open questions and possible recommendations:

+ Is it possible for a MTP host or any Android apps like "MB Wifi Sync" to directly write into the android media store?
A: This is done by the Android MTP handler but also can be done by an Android app, and it's currently done by the MB Wifi Sync app.
+ If so, is it really neccessary to transfer the playlist-files onto the Android device too?
A: If playlist informations would be written completely into the Android media store DB it would NOT be neccesary (my understanding so far).
+ Could it be possible that the app "MB Wifi Sync" just write faulty data to the android media store, or why it just generate empty playlists and why they can not be recovered by manualy trigger the Android media scanner?
A: MB Wifi Sync currently only writes playlist names but do not write the referenced files inside of these. Due to an obvious misbehave of the Android (6.0.1) media scanner, these playlist does not became updated (my understanding so far).
+ Could "MB Wifi Sync" just trigger the Android media scanner right after finishing the sync process, if it does not already?
A: Yes, and this should happen already.


I hope, I could bring some light into the topic for a few of you.
In addition I also hope to get even more light in to that topic, by some one who can answers the questions above.

The most important goal, however, should be to make the synchronization reliable and robust for everyone. That would be awesome.
Wifi Sync definitely seems to be the way forward here!

Please also correct me if I made wrong statements here and there.

Thank You in advance,

Greetings


MB 3.3.7003
MB Wifi Sync 0.2.6
Android 6.0.1

8

MusicBee Wishlist / Prevent lyrics retrieval for Various Artists

« on: February 15, 2019, 06:06:53 PM »

Hello,

I would like to suggest prevent automatic lyrics retrieval for tracks with Artist = "Various Artists",
just in case it isn't already working like that.

Here are some reasons why it make sens from my view:

- IMHO it can be considered that ALL automatic identified lyrics for above described tracks are incorrect
- if "auto-tagging" > "auto-retrieve missing lyrics for the playing track" is enabled, wrong lyrics are saved into these files

Thanks for any consideration.

Greetings

9

MusicBee Wishlist / Central setting of Thumbnail Size / Thumbnail View consistency

« on: January 05, 2019, 01:42:18 PM »

Hello and Happy New Year to everybody  

I've discovered a minor but somehow disturbing issue with the thumbnail size (setting) and thumbnail vertical space in the Artist view.
If you use a MB layout like mine below, you preferably would like to have the SAME thumbnail SIZE and SPACE in every view.
Because currently this isn't possible - especially because of the size-fixed radio station thumbnails - it's almost impossible to set the hight of the files- and now-playing-bar in that way, that the same count of vertical thumbnails PLUS the belonging text below always is visible in each view.




I know X-Mas is over now but here is a delayed Wishlist

1. It would be nice to being able changing the Radio-Station thumbnail size.

2. Due to the size-slider, available in some header menus, isn't shown a precise value (px,%,...), I think it could help to have a central setting in general settings for being able to adjusting the thumbnail size for ALL VIEWS (Album, Artist, Radio Stations) TOGETHER.

3. It would be nice if the Album-Count text size in Artist View beneath each thumbnail could be changed too.


Thank you in advance for any consideration.

Greetings

10

MusicBee Wishlist / External Visualizer + Embedded Visualizer

« on: June 03, 2018, 06:26:14 PM »

Hello there,

if MB is configured to run an embedded visualizer, it isn't possible anymore to run an additional one outside of MB in a separate window - like milkdrop.
Now everyone will start to ask: why this should be possible? Does it make sense?

Well, let me explain why it could be a great feature if MB is able to run 2 visualizers in parallel.

Currently I use a Visualizer called "Classic Spectrum Analyzer" embedded in the MB GUI - located in the bottom:

+

More infos about the "Classic Spectrum Analyzer" can be found here:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23345.0

Currently it's still impossible to run a "real" graphic visualizer like Milkdrop in parallel to an GUI embedded one.

If a GUI embedded visializer (e.g. "Classic Spectrum Analyzer") is running all the time, but an full-screen visualizer should become startet, the MB settings currently must be changed laboriously each time, when starting end closing the full-screen visualizer.

This is frustrating a lot

So, it would be VERY WONDERFUL if there where an possibility to run an external visualizer plug-in simultaneously and in addition to an GUI embedded one.

Thanks for Your attention and support.
Greetings

11

Bug Reports / Visual Glitch with transparent PNG-images in Radio Station List

« on: April 25, 2018, 08:03:57 PM »

Hello,

I've recognized an visual glitch when radio stations became cover images assigned which are in the png-format and containing transparency. The problem comes to bear in the radio station list. Stations with transparent png-covers showing another radio station cover from the list underlayed.



MB 3.2.6684

Hope this can be fixed.

Greetings

12

Questions / NowPlaying adaptable color gradient disappeared / intentionally removed?

« on: April 20, 2018, 06:00:37 PM »

Hello,

recently I've update from MB 3.2.6666 to 3.2.6679 and currently using 3.2.6684.
I've recognized that the adaptable color gradient background in the NowPlaying bar disappeared.

I wonder if that was intended?
If so, I think that this is a step backward in terms of a beautiful interface design.
If not, I really hope it cant be fixed and look like before in MB 3.2.6666.

For comparison:

Before in MB 3.2.6666:




Since MB 3.2.6679 adaptable color gradient is removed obviously:




Furthermore it seems that the now solid background color became derived from the cover artwork instead of the artist artwork.
I my opinion it was more convenient before, because of long texts (e.g. the filepath in my case) was overlapping the artist artwork and there - in most cases - it was producing a good visual consistency.
Now it seems that overlapping of any texts for the artist artwork is also removed - intentionally?


Thank You and Greetings.

13

Questions / How to replace a the Unknown album artist Artwork?

« on: April 15, 2018, 05:01:29 PM »

Hello everybody,

I'm sooo curious about: How to replace a the Unknown album artist Artwork?




I've not found that image in my .XML skin file coded as Base 64 - ore anywhere else.
I wonder that it may comes from flickr.com and can't be changed?

Any Ideas? Than You in advance.

Greetings.

14

Bug Reports / Wrong Radio Station Cover Displayed / Completely Disappear - solved

« on: April 15, 2018, 04:33:15 PM »

Hello there,

I'm experience a problem with radio station covers (manually assigned) displayed as album artwork in the "Now Playing Bar".
It is wrong almost every time, or even completely disappear.

Steps to reproduce:
1: Local album with cover art is playing - everything is fine, album cover is shown correctly.
2: Open a manual created radio station "A" with manual assigned cover under the "Radio" node.
> Radio station "A" is playing BUT the album cover in "Now Playing Bar" STILL showing the previously shown album cover!
3: Open another Radio Station "B".
> Radio station "B" is playing BUT radio station "A" cover is shown!
4. Re-Open radio station "B" again when playing already.
> Cover (Album Art) in "Now Playing Bar" completely disappear!

my current MB Version 3.2.6666

This problem persists already since about 2-5 months over many builds - not sure anymore when it appears the first time.







Greetings.

15

MusicBee Wishlist / Visual/functional GUI enhancements

« on: April 15, 2018, 12:38:31 PM »

Hello There,

I would like to suggest two things to add/change in the Musicbee GUI:

1. Making the folder path in "now playing bar" click able. It already working if the "now playing bar" is shown in a "sidebar", but not if shown in the "main panel".

2. Adding a space on the right side of the "now playing bar" in the same width as the scrollbar above, to get an better visual alignment.

... please have a look in the following screenshot:




Thanks for the attention.
Greetings.