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What happens if you select one of the PGMusic Demo song folders and run that in the Jukebox?
Forgive if you've already mentioned that you've tried that already.
--Mac
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Might be time to start comparing programs and drivers, etc. between your two computers to see if you have a common piece of software on both, then take it from there with troubleshooting. Perhaps audio drivers, video drivers, anti-virus, background utilities, etc.. Might be a conflict somewhere that corrupts your files since your partner now has the same issues on his machine.
Good luck.
PS - I don't like surprises like hangs and stutters on stage - that is why I choose to burn my songs to a cd and/or mp3 player and play them from there. Might still have a hiccup once in a while but a lot less likely.
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Mac,
I've tried those, and they seem to be OK, even taking a parent directory and all its subdirectories to build up a long list of songs.
These are all MIDI-only, and I think all the songs that are involved in my problem have RealDrums even if they don't have RealTracks. I'm going to take a step back and review the whole set of songs, perhaps going back to earlier versions that are MIDI-only.
Last edited by foxylady; 08/09/10 07:55 AM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Might be time to start comparing programs and drivers, etc. between your two computers to see if you have a common piece of software on both, then take it from there with troubleshooting. Perhaps audio drivers, video drivers, anti-virus, background utilities, etc.. Might be a conflict somewhere that corrupts your files since your partner now has the same issues on his machine.
We each use the same anti-virus program - AVG - so that would be worth checking.
Quote:
Good luck.
PS - I don't like surprises like hangs and stutters on stage - that is why I choose to burn my songs to a cd and/or mp3 player and play them from there. Might still have a hiccup once in a while but a lot less likely.
That's probably the safest way to go, but my colleague likes the flexibility of running BIAB live to change the tempo or exclude an instrument if we've got a real musician playing it. Seeing the melody moving across the screen in big print is also handy, as is the chorus counter to know when to finish. I use printed charts (or scanned versions in MusicReader) when we're playing together.
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Quote:
Mac,
I've tried those, and they seem to be OK, even taking a parent directory and all its subdirectories to build up a long list of songs.
Well, then, if the pgmusic demos all seem to be okay, then you know where the finger points -> at something in your song directory or the songs.
*Check the Properties for each file in the folder to see if one or more somehow got changed to "Read Only" - and if you find any that are, change them back to "Archive". To check properties, just RightClick on the filename icon in the Explorer view of the folder and pick Properties down at the bottom.
*Go thru the folder playing one song at a time manually selecting instead of jukebox, inside BB of course. See if there are any problems with any of them when doing that, might point the finger at something to investigate.
*If you like, PM with your email addy from which you can then send the folder attached if it isn't overly huge in size. I'd see if it plays in the jukebox at this end, plus be able to examine files etc. and might find out what this problem is in that fashion.
--Mac
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Quote:
Well, then, if the pgmusic demos all seem to be okay, then you know where the finger points -> at something in your song directory or the songs.
*Check the Properties for each file in the folder to see if one or more somehow got changed to "Read Only" - and if you find any that are, change them back to "Archive". To check properties, just RightClick on the filename icon in the Explorer view of the folder and pick Properties down at the bottom.
I used the command prompt, changed to the directory concerned, and used the "ATTRIB" command to list the attributes - the Windows method gets a bit tedious with 186 files! Each has the "A" attribute set, and no other.
Quote:
*Go thru the folder playing one song at a time manually selecting instead of jukebox, inside BB of course. See if there are any problems with any of them when doing that, might point the finger at something to investigate.
I think we've probably done this already, as we rehearse these songs together, and they run without problems. Two things have been done to them recently, though - RealDrums (only) have been substituted for MIDI drums in all songs (by my colleague) and a number of experiments have been undertaken by me in adding more RealTracks, including solos, to existing pieces. I'll plod through them one by one, and see if I can pick anything up. Is it likely that a file Juke Box hasn't yet reached would have an influence on its behaviour? If not, I'm sure that all the songs up to and including the failed one run without trouble.
Quote:
*If you like, PM with your email addy from which you can then send the folder attached if it isn't overly huge in size. I'd see if it plays in the jukebox at this end, plus be able to examine files etc. and might find out what this problem is in that fashion.
I'd be very grateful if you'd check it out for me, I'll definitely take you up on that.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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What operating system is this again?
Have you mucked with permissions in Linux? If you dual boot can you see these files in Linux? As they are no threat (ie like my pics which are in Vista but can be viewed on the Vista partition of I boot Linux, I had to go to the su prompt and
# chmod 777 *.*
Thus giving read write and execute permissions for each file. Just 77 should work but.......it is possible that the non execute function got messed up?
Grasping at straws but.............
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Note the above problem, if Vista, Windows 7 or Linux/Ubuntu / Unix is not a function of the code in Band in a Box, it is the system behaving as expected. And, in order to have 'clean' code, anything in the file that causes the system to hang in jukebox due to a permission is something that most users would never encounter. Of course in anticipation of future file permission issues the best coding in jukebox would be an exception error to ignore the file, warn the user of an issue and move onwards not messing with the software.
On the other hand it's bad practice, and if you turned the page expecting Stars and Stripes for Ever and got the Venezuelan National Anthem then......oh well you get the painted portrait.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Quote:
What operating system is this again?
XP Professional SP 3 on both of my computers, Vista on my colleague's.
Quote:
Have you mucked with permissions in Linux? If you dual boot can you see these files in Linux? As they are no threat (ie like my pics which are in Vista but can be viewed on the Vista partition of I boot Linux, I had to go to the su prompt and
# chmod 777 *.*
Thus giving read write and execute permissions for each file. Just 77 should work but.......it is possible that the non execute function got messed up?
This all happened before I'd installed Ubuntu Linux as an experimental dual-boot on my desktop PC. I haven't touched these files from the Linux side since then, and I've checked the (Windows) file attributes are all "A" only (see Mac's post).
Quote:
Grasping at straws but.............
I prefer not to drink my Wine with straws...
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Windows XP can go weird on file permissions too.
You have to even boot in safe mode, then go to the file and fix it.
I've had files I couldn't fix in XP and took them to 2000 and back. Sounds like a movie.
Google that up, I forget the whole enchilada or at least the part with jalapenos.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Quote:
Windows XP can go weird on file permissions too.
You have to even boot in safe mode, then go to the file and fix it.
I've had files I couldn't fix in XP and took them to 2000 and back. Sounds like a movie.
Google that up, I forget the whole enchilada or at least the part with jalapenos.
How would I know that a file secretly had the wrong permissions (ie I wouldn't be able to detect them with the ATTRIB command)?
Do files sent by email carry their permissions with them? (I emailed the files that revealed the problem to my colleague who has Vista).
Why should Juke Box need to have different permissions from BIAB itself - I can play the files in full without any problem in BIAB, and I can't imagine that Juke Box would have a need to write back to a file. There's also the odd finding that if I remove a few files from the head of the list BIAB plays a file it previously got hung up on, and hangs on a later one.
Let's see if Mac suffers in the same way when he tries my files.
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Have you actually tried to play the whole song through in Juke Box or are you just playing a few bars of each? I noticed in re-reading your post that you had a few check-boxes selected for Juke Box options. Maybe deselecting one at a time and trying again would be helpful. Also saw that you are running build 304. If you have maybe old builds like 301 or 303 you could install them and see if it is build 304 adding some issues.
Good luck.
PS - also noticed that Mac hadn't advised trying the Return to Factory settings option (I couldn't believe it - that is often his first suggestion and a darn good one at that). Might be something to try as well.
Last edited by BarryKJ; 08/10/10 08:45 AM.
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Quote:
Have you actually tried to play the whole song through in Juke Box or are you just playing a few bars of each?
I had Juke Box set to play only one bar of each, the idea being that my colleague could run through the whole repertoire quickly, making sure each file could be loaded and (if necessary) re-generated after I'd sent him some revised or new songs. I have more RealTracks than he has, and this would ensure that he could play back all the songs on his laptop (which we use for gigs).
Quote:
I noticed in re-reading your post that you had a few check-boxes selected for Juke Box options. Maybe deselecting one at a time and trying again would be helpful. Also saw that you are running build 304. If you have maybe old builds like 301 or 303 you could install them and see if it is build 304 adding some issues.
I've started this process by unticking the "Preview" box and running Juke Box on the whole of each song - this is going to take a long time as there are 186 songs in the folder, but I've already got further than I did with the Preview setting of 1 bar.
Quote:
Good luck.
Sounds as if I'm going to need it!
Quote:
PS - also noticed that Mac hadn't advised trying the Return to Factory settings option (I couldn't believe it - that is often his first suggestion and a darn good one at that). Might be something to try as well.
I'll keep that one up my sleeve...
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I've left Juke Box playing all night on my 186 songs, with Preview off (i.e. it plays the whole of each song before moving on to the next). It hasn't quite got through to the end, but it looks as though the Preview feature is the villain of the piece.
I've now started my laptop on the Juke Box with a Preview of 2 bars, and it's already misbehaving on the eighth song (as before). This time it played the first two bars of the first seven songs, then played the whole of the eighth before hanging, by which I mean that the mouse pointer was an hourglass when I tried to click anything but the "X" button to close the program, and Windows then reported "This program is not responding."
Last edited by foxylady; 08/10/10 11:30 PM.
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Good job narrowing it down.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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It's possible that the system, due to the short duration of each piece, starts processing a file and of necessity moves on to the next piece and eventually runs out of resources. That's my bet and if so it's a function of RealTracks/Drums. I'd wager (if I'm right) that all midi files don't bring about that scenario. On the other hand, who runs all midi files all the time, (except for Notes?). I almost always have at least realdrums and usually a bass part too.
Good find, send your results to pgmusic and they will fix it one way or the other.....
John Conley
Musica est vita
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This one isn't that simple, I'm afraid.
foxylady emailed that folder to me and last night I discovered a few things.
The folder was set to Read Only. (RightClick on folder icon, select Properties)
When I changed it, BiaB would play the Jukebox preview without freezing like it did before I changed that parameter.
Thought I had it when the folder, in jukebox mode had played about twenty or thirty previews in a row -- and then it froze bb.
That folder had reverted to Read Only again.
And -- it keeps on reverting to Read Only.
Over and over again.
Last thing I tried last night was to use the cmd prompt to change folder attributes:
attrib -r -s c:\bb\foldername
This did not work.
Havta go earn money, will get back at this one later.
Smells funny.
--Mac
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This is a Windows problem that's annoyed me in the past - Windows (or at least XP) seems to think all folders are Read-Only, but allows them to be written to nonetheless. There's an explanation of this here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549note: Quote:
"Unlike the Read-only attribute for a file, the Read-only attribute for a folder is typically ignored by Windows, Windows components and accessories, and other programs. For example, you can delete, rename, and change a folder with the Read-only attribute by using Windows Explorer. "
I don't think this can be the cause of the problem.
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Well we are, to a degree, comparing apples and oranges. Both systems would have to have the same o/s, the same memory arrangement, the same available resources etc. Tough to duplicate the error then.
Is it possible the jukebox sets the folder to be read by the jukebox alone, and something it writes there stops itself? Not likely. But on exit it might not work properly, leaving the folder 'corrupt'.
I still like my possible explanation.
Normally I write down the song times, make a folder, and stick in 50 minutes worth with the less desired tunes at the end in case I get weary. That means 11 or 12 songs at the most. Never had a problem with that........
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Quote:
Well we are, to a degree, comparing apples and oranges. Both systems would have to have the same o/s, the same memory arrangement, the same available resources etc. Tough to duplicate the error then.
But the error has been duplicated on my two computers (XP) and on a Vista laptop, which suggests that it's not a simple resources problem.
Quote:
Is it possible the jukebox sets the folder to be read by the jukebox alone, and something it writes there stops itself? Not likely. But on exit it might not work properly, leaving the folder 'corrupt'.
This is a red herring - Windows misuses the read-only bit in the folder for its own purposes, and allows you to think you've changed it from read-only to read-write when nothing has really changed. If the folder were left 'corrupt', you wouldn't be able to write anything to it next time round, and the fault would be evident at an earlier stage of the Juke Box sequence.
Quote:
I still like my possible explanation.
I did think a memory leak was the likely cause at first, but I wouldn't expect this to happen at the same point in the Juke Box sequence for several different computers. Remember also that there appears to have been some corruption of the Windows system, in that other programs misbehave after these BIAB hangs. That sound more like a pointer being set to an address it shouldn't be touching. BIAB 2010 tended to throw up a lot of access violation errors, 2010-5 seems to be better in this regard.
Quote:
Normally I write down the song times, make a folder, and stick in 50 minutes worth with the less desired tunes at the end in case I get weary. That means 11 or 12 songs at the most. Never had a problem with that........
When the two of us are playing without our keyboard player we tend to choose alternately from a sub-set of the trio repertoire which is suitable for clarinet, guitar and BIAB.
But if we all did things the same way, life would be so dull...
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