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Musical Sequence Question


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Posted

Trying to setup a musical sequence. I have the newest/advanced LOR software.

 

When I select an mp3 file for my musical sequence, my computer freezes durring the analyzing faze. Any ideas?

Posted

It has been our experience that the issue is going to be outside of S3 - typically it is due to a bad audio/video codec. The bad codec (or direct show filter) is causing a crash in Windows that is locking us up. The best we've been able to tell people is to uninstall all other media players/etc (with the exception of Audacity and Lame), and attempt a re-install of S3. 

 

The codec or filter that is blowing up (typically during initialization) may not be one that your media uses. Unfortunately, that is the nature of how DirectX works (of which DirectShow is a part of). Converting your media to a new format probably won't help, although you can try. You can also try to change the 'Use Internal Media' option, but again I don't think that will help.  We can set a registry key that will completely bypass all the media handling code, however you will also lose access to things like the beat wizard, vu wizard, and waveform display.

 

It may also be that Windows has become confused about what is, and what is not, installed. The underlying issue is typically not directly related to LOR (i.e. it may be something entirely different that has caused Windows to become confused). 

 

Unfortunately this is a difficult issue, because Windows itself is confused. There's a whole thread about it here:

http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/7728-installer-problem-the-feature-you-are-trying-to-use-is-on-a-network-resource-that-is-unavailable/

Note that there are many suggestions in that thread, not just in the top post of the thread but also in the comments. All of these suggestions have worked for various people in the past. They also have failed for various people in the past. 

Besides the suggestions in that thread, things to try would be anything that might get force Windows to reconsider what's installed, and perhaps thereby jolt it out of its confusion (perhaps even accidentally). For example, trying a repair, or an uninstall/reinstall, or Windows Update, or an uninstall or repair of any other program (even unrelated to LOR) that may have been recently installed or updated, or a rollback to a Windows system restore point, or a repair of Windows itself, or in a worst case scenario a hard drive wipe and reinstall of Windows itself.

One thing to note is that a lot of customers seem to try one thing from that thread, and then come back and say "I tried it and it didn't work". Remember, the thread contains many suggestions, and all of them have (and have not) worked for various people in the past.

Posted

Trying to setup a musical sequence. I have the newest/advanced LOR software.

 

When I select an mp3 file for my musical sequence, my computer freezes durring the analyzing faze. Any ideas?

Codec problems are very difficult to diagnose. I am and manage other computer techs. We always have angst when faced with these kinds of issues. 

We support 500 employees and over 500 computers and that is just our internal workforce.

Be advise that Windows 7 has a codec "update" package available from Microsoft. We have fixed some video codec issues with it. It does have this annoying feature of checking for updates and the don't do this again check box appears to be ignored. 

Try using Audacity on some files to convert them to CBR. You have to import the file and then export it. 

DirectX problems are also a pain. No advice here due to the complexity. 

Often, at least in a corporate setting, it is easier to rebuild the box instead of hunting down a problem. This frequently gives you relief though you never know what the root cause of the error is.  

Oh yea, consider using Process Explorer from Microsoft to check out the actual processes that are running. 

You might be able to see the culprit thread... This is also dependent on how technical you are. 

Here is a link to the MS Tools....

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb795533.aspx

 

One important thing to keep in mind that if you resolve a problem without a specific known cause, it may rear its ugly head again and if you resolve a problem with a specific cause there may be others not to far behind it. Example: a codec change fixes the use of MP3s and then you try a WAV and you have failure again.... 

 

If you fix this problem, please send me a PM of how you did so if you don't mind. 

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