Volume Leveling Stops Working on Sync

[phred]

Currently using 3.1.6238 and I've noticed that with all three of my devices when I have 'level volume' enabled for either tracks or albums, that at some point during the sync a window pops up stating that 'volume normalization has stopped working.' When I click ok the sync continues, but without any volume leveling. If I disable the option the sync runs just fine. But it's not so nice listening to music and having the volume all over the place from track to track. I can't pinpoint when this behavior started, but it was definitely fine with 2.5.x and may have been fine with the early 3.0.x series. It's definitely been a problem with 3.1.x.

On a less important note, with volume leveling on, my CPU usage is pinned at 100% for the duration of the sync. Or until the leveling crashes and turns itself off. I say 'less important' because that's likely to me my somewhat older Windows 7 machine rather than an issue with MB.

[phred]

Bump

[Alumni]

Interesting - I always enable volume leveling and never encountered this error.

[Steven]

i am not familiar with that error so can you confirm its a musicbee error dialog. Also check the error log.
Try reducing the number of encoding threads in preferences/file converter

[Steven]

i've made a small change for the next v3.1 that might help but i still need the info asked for

[phred]

Thanks Steven.
I'll be running some sync tests later today and will report back.

Currently my encoding threads is set to 5 and the priority is set to above normal.
Now using 3.1.6245 (still before your small change made today) I will lower the threads to 3 and priority to normal.

[Steven]

with the small change:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_1/MusicBee31_Patched.zip

[phred]

Thanks Steven.
I'll be running some sync tests later today and will report back.

Currently my encoding threads is set to 5 and the priority is set to above normal.
Now using 3.1.6245 (still before your small change made today) I will lower the threads to 3 and priority to normal.

Here's the error from the sync

It doesn't look like the typical MB error window, but it's happening with MB set to level the volume upon sync. With volume leveling off, the error does not occur.

I should add that CPU usage was hovering aroun 100% until this message appear and I closed the error window. Then it dropped down to 30-40%.  Again, the CPU issue may not be completely related as it's an older 2-core CPU. I hope to be getting a new PC within the next couple of weeks.

I'm now going to try again with the new patch.

[phred]

Now using 3.1.6246 I still get the stopped working error message.

And with lowering the threads to 2, CPU usage is a little better but not great. Instead of being pinned at 100%, it bounced between 75 and 100. And again, after the error message was dismissed, the sync continued with much lower CPU usage - 50-70% with an occasional spike up into the 80s.

So at this point I'm convinced that the high CPU usage has to do with the volume leveling. But there's still no explanation for the volume leveling to shut down.

[Alumni]

Does this only happen with mp3/lame encoder?

[Steven]

the high cpu usage is from the encoder used when converting file formats. V3.1 make more efficient use of the encoding/ copying process to minimise the overall sync time but while encoding is running the cpu will max out. If you are concerned then you should reduce the encoder thread count to 1

[phred]

Does this only happen with mp3/lame encoder?

That's pretty much the only encoding I do. I can do some testing with another encoder later today. Is there a specific one you suggest I try?

[phred]

the high cpu usage is from the encoder used when converting file formats. V3.1 make more efficient use of the encoding/ copying process to minimise the overall sync time but while encoding is running the cpu will max out. If you are concerned then you should reduce the encoder thread count to 1

Since it makes the computer fairly sluggish when the CPU > 95%, I'll bring down the encoder thread count to 1 and give it another test later today. But I should point out that when syncing, there shouldn't be any encoding taking place. 'On the fly conversion' is not enabled during my syncs.

[Alumni]

That's pretty much the only encoding I do. I can do some testing with another encoder later today. Is there a specific one you suggest I try?

I'm currently using qaac (x64) for FLAC to AAC on the fly conversion, and it works really well.
The qaac encoder can be download from here: https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/
Note that it also requires AppleApplicationSupport (bundled with iTunes).
In MusicBee this is my configuration setting;

Code

--tvbr 127 --ignorelength - -o [outputfile]

[phred]

I appreciate the advice, but it's not likely I will try it. Since my collection is mp3 I have no use for converting FLAC to AAC. And I'm just about convinced at this point that the high CPU usage is due to volume leveling and not encoding. Or to my misunderstanding of encoder threads.

I'm currently running another test sync with the encoding threads set to 1 and volume leveling enabled. And no on the fly conversion. With 21% copied, the CPU is running around 35% with some spikes up into the 60s. Substantially better than anything else I've tried. I'm still waiting to see if the volume leveling stopped working error appears.