Having had my empeg up and running for only a few hours now, I haven't had much opportunity to run emplode, but the few times I have run it have not gone entirely well.

Of the four times I have tried to synchronise with emplode, twice emplode locked up part way through to where I had to ctrl-alt-del to exit the program. After that, emplode would not re-load until I re-booted my computer.

This sounds more like a Windows instability problem than an emplode problem, as I have not heard of other people having this problem. Each time (after rebooting) emplode loaded and ran normally. Both synchronizations were relatively small -- one of them 51 MB, the other one 32 MB.

When emplode locked up, I gave it about 10 minutes to make sure it was really locked (no error messages were displayed), and after ctrl-alt-del the Windows dialog box said the program was not responding.

Does this seem to be a problem with emplode or more likely a problem with my system?

tanstaafl.
(cc: bugs@empeg.com)

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Of the four times I have tried to synchronise with emplode, twice emplode locked up

Hi Doug, welcome on-board.
Emplode used to be unreliable, but that's a long time ago. These days it works mostly as it should, but it seems that some handshake issues have crept in again lately that cause the sync process to fail, but only after it has done all it needed to do. In all of these cases, emplode simply failed with error screens etc. I can't remember it locking up

What method do you use (USB/Serial/Ethernet)?
W98 I assume?
Any power-off settings / back ground tasks that get into the way, may be?

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Keep in mind that when windows reports that a "program is not responding", that just means the program is not responding to any requests. Although that often means the program is frozen, that is not exclusively the case (especially with apps that are not multi-threaded).

It is possible for the program to not respond, but still be performing tasks.

A good example of this is the software I am developing at the moment. It has a data import function that takes a LONG time, and windows reports that it is not responding (but it happily imports the data after 10 minutes or so).

You may just need to give emplode a lot more time.

Kureg

I've had the same. Under NT, I remember I worked out there was a DLL that wasn't unloaded after a crash, which stopped emplode loading afterwards. I killed the DLL and it would reload.

I don't think you can sort this under Win 9x; I have encountered this on my new W98 machine a couple of times in the last week.

I need to narrow it down a bit further before reporting it as a bug, though.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Keep in mind that when windows reports that a "program is not responding", that just means the program is not responding to any requests. (...) You may just need to give emplode a lot more time.

Right, except that Doug said he gave it ten minutes. That's long enough in my book.

___________
Tony Fabris

Unless it is doing a fsck, in which case 10 minutes sometimes isn't enough. Doug didn't say what point the sync had got to.

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

What method do you use (USB/Serial/Ethernet)?

I am using USB. The software installed flawlessly, the computer found and recognized the empeg on the very first try, everything set up perfectly.


Doug didn't say what point the sync had got to.

The synch usually fails somewhere in the last half of the loading process (Is that download or upload? I'm talking about the songs going into the empeg.) The first part, where my home computer queries the empeg and pulls the database out and displays my playlists always works. The adding of the new songs to the empeg is where it fails. Usually it gets more than half of them, then everything just stops. If I wait long enough, the empeg gives up on the little circle-whirley-arrows logo (Don't you just love it when I talk technical like that?) and says something like End of Playlist. a quick check of the playlists on the empeg shows that indeed, the song where it locked up, and all subsequent songs, are not there.

Last night I did another synchronize, and same thing happened: locked up most of the way through. Killed emplode, checked that it wouldn't restart, rebooted, and had no difficulty adding the last few songs with a second synch. I have not had any data corruption problems so far.

Computer is pretty much new (major upgrade couple of months ago: new motherboard, new hard drive, new RAM, new video card, new sound card, new CD-ROM, new operating system (Win 98) and the operating system should be pretty clean, as no software has been added and subsequently deleted.

So far I think I am running at exactly a 50% success rate on my emplode synchs -- every odd numbered synch has failed, every even numbered synch has succeeded, counting my first ever synch as #1. Maybe I should try every synch off of a fresh reboot, as every synch that succeeded so far was just after rebooting. There may be something "left over" from AudioCatalyst that is compromising emplode, as I always do a synch immediately after doing the rip & encode with A/C.

As I am determined to take this process of loading up my empeg very slowly, being sure every byte of music I put in is absolutely perfect, my synchs are all very small (I am trying to add one CD per night as a maximum) so these synch failures are only small inconveniences -- nothing I am upset about.

I'll keep fiddling and changing the variables and see if I can narrow it down. At this point I think it is more likely a flaw in my computer than a flaw in emplode or empeg.

tanstaafl.





"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

There may be something "left over" from AudioCatalyst that is compromising emplode, as I always do a synch immediately after doing the rip & encode with A/C.

It shouldn't be that, since many people (including myself) have done it this way without incident.

I'll keep fiddling and changing the variables and see if I can narrow it down. At this point I think it is more likely a flaw in my computer than a flaw in emplode or empeg.

Let's find out. Turn on the logging feature in Emplode and let's see what the log says when Emplode locks up.

___________
Tony Fabris

Hi,

This is *exactly* what I've been seeing as well. I posted this under bugs as 'Emplode crashes usb stack' to which there have been no posts.

I've just done some more syncs and this is still happening.

My PC is a brand (2 weeks) new Dell PIII 800 with Win98SE.

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

tanstaaf, you said:
Computer is pretty much new (major upgrade couple of months ago: new motherboard . . .etc.

is it, may be, also one of the newer speedy PCs like Paul's:?
My PC is a brand (2 weeks) new Dell PIII 800 with Win98SE.


Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Henno, are you trying to infer that the newest, fastest PCs may have a problem? Or more accurately, that Emplode has trouble on the fastest PCs?

___________
Tony Fabris

are you trying to infer that the newest, fastest PCs may have a problem? Or (..) that Emplode has trouble on the fastest PCs?

I've no reason to doubt the newest / fast PCs, or any hint for a fault in emplode that would cause it to crash during a sync (would have posted).
I just find it curious that people suddenly report problems with USB and both Doug and Paul said that they have new PCs. Am just wondering as I find USB *very* reliable (Dell too, but at only 333 and 100MHz bus)

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

As it happens, almost all of our developers use Dell PCs purchased within the last few months (last week or so in one case).

Rob

PS That's not an official endorsement for Dell of course, although they have announced one or two really cool products recently

Got it!

WIn 98, if a synch fails, then emplode closes the database window after you whack the error message. If you then try to reconnect, it fails and the connection window stays closed. If you exit from emplode, then re-start, it will not run beyond the splash screen.

Kill the process, then re-boot, then re-connect, it will work first time.
Done this twice now on 1.0.

Implication; something doesn't get cleaned up after a synch failure, and something gets left in memory (DLL?) which is not unlinked until a reboot.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

To continue the thread... my computer is not a super-fast machine. It is the last of the socket sevens, a 550 MHz AMD K6-2, 128 MB RAM, 64 MB video card.

To date, I have not had a single successful emplode synchronize. The last one I did was larger than the others - 3 CDs worth instead of the usual one, and I had to re-boot three times to get the 44 tracks loaded.

I'm still using release version 1.0, am waiting for the null modem cable to upgrade to the 1.01. Next time I synch I'll try and figure out how to turn on the logging function and see if it delivers any useful information.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I'm having the exact same problem as you guys. MK1, Latest version of Emplode and the developer's image. Running Win98SE on a pretty fast machine, Pentium III (500-600 MHz? can't remember) >= 128M ram? High speed RAID controller. USB is direct to motherboard (not through a hub).

I am syncronizing while plugged into the car sled (don't ask - hardware hacking). I guess first I'll try taking it out of the sled, if that doesn't fix it I'll try connecting to my laptop (much slower) to see if that fixes it. If I get any successful results, I'll let people know.

A little more information to add to the stew.

I have determined that my problem is temperature related. If my computer (the home PC, not the empeg) is warm, having been run for a few hours, the emplode program will fail every time. If I shut it off and let it cool down for an hour, emplode will load at least seven hours of music (that's the largest load I have tried). My best guess is that the USB is failing, causing the empeg to time out.

So, obviously a defective motherboard, right? Guess again. Replaced the motherboard (exact same model) and the behavior did not change.

I then brought the empeg and the software to work, where I have had 100% success running emplode.

This would seem to eliminate the empeg, the USB cable, the ac power brick and cable, and the emplode program as suspects.

So, I ask the question: Is anybody able to run emplode on an AMD K6-2 500Mhz computer with an Asus motherboard? Is it possible this could be some obscure socket-7 related problem, or more likely the ASUS implementation of USB just isn't sufficiently robust.

In a day or two I have made arrangements to borrow a USB hub, on the theory (hope?) that the hub will provide some buffering and keep the USB from falling over.

The guys@empeg have been helping me with this, and have offered me a modified emplode with additional error logging to see if we can track this down. I'll keep you informed.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Well, I tried taking it out of the sled, same thing. I tried re-downloading Emplode and installing it on my laptop, same thing. Laptop is a Sony Vaio 505VE. Slow, Pentium MMX 233 if I remember correctly.

Symptom (as discussed before) is: It loads about 10-20 songs (I'm using different songs each time I test it) then I look over at it and see that the Empeg has reset back to the "End of Playlist" display and Emplode thinks it's still going. Every five minutes or so it gives up trying to send a song and moves on to the next one. During this time it won't respond to mouse clicks and it only re-paints its window when it's giving up and going to the next song. The only ways to stop it are CTRL-ALT-DEL or unplug the USB cable. Either way Emplode won't recognize the Empeg again until you reboot.

I'm quickly running out of ideas.

Every five minutes or so it gives up trying to send a song and moves on to the next one.

I don't think mine is doing that... but maybe I haven't had the patience to wait, or maybe not the attention span to notice that it has changed to the next song. It seems like it just quits working -- the progress bar stops, and I don't notice any change in the name of the song that it (tries to) load. But, maybe I'm just not looking closely enough.

All the rest matches my symptoms exactly, right down to having to reboot to get emplode running again.

Sometime over the weekend I'll have that borrowed USB hub and I'll see if that changes anything.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I had an issue where a X-10 RF mouse on COM2 would show up with a yellow ! along with empeg's USB entry (also a yellow !) after a large # of songs uploaded. The player read 'end of playlist' and the emplode thought it was still going. By disabling the X-10 on COM2 I made this problem go away. Somehow USB/emplode wasn't playing nice with the other IRQ's & knocked them both down. I have all IRQ's used & some shared. Emplode runs fine since I started disabling com2 1st. FWIW YMMV

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Two things:

1) I thought USB didn't use any IRQs. I can understand how disabling COM2 would take care of an IRQ or address conflict, but it surprises me that the USB stuff would be conflicting with anything COM2 was using. But stranger things have happened at sea.

2) When speaking to someone from Microsoft, I learned the official name for those conflict icons that appear in device manager. They are called "little yellow boo-boo icons."

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, I just had emplode lock up on me on my work computer. Same symptoms as home, except that emplode would reload afterwards (but it wouldn't work). I still had to reboot the computer.

After rebooting, had no difficulty loading a complete 10-CD boxed set of Mozart classical music.

I'm confused....

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Silly question... Has anyone with a Mark 1 been having Emplode problems similar to what's been reported by a few Mark 2 users lately?

I certainly haven't, and I've uploaded several albums since these problems were reported. I had one very brief problem where Emplode wouldn't start properly, but that was after a long session at my computer without a reboot, and other apps may have been putting bad voodoo into memory, so I can't count that. Otherwise, Emplode has been fast, stable, and useful this whole time.

___________
Tony Fabris

Tony, are you running windows 2000?
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Tony, are you running windows 2000?

Nope. Win98 original retail release at home (USB) and NT4 sp6 at work (serial). I hope to switch to Win2k here at work pretty soon so I can get USB going.

___________
Tony Fabris

Has anyone with a Mark 1 been having Emplode problems similar to what's been reported by a few Mark 2 users lately?


Yes, I'm using a Mark I unit.


I've tried many things and I haven't been able to figure out what's going on. I've been loading no more than 5 albums at a time (~350MB) and that seems to be working. (though it's a real pain) When I try to do more than that I usually run into trouble. I've even gotten the "The synchronisation process failed during stage 10:
Error 0xffffff92" and "The synchronisation process failed during stage 5:
Error 0xffffff92" error messages, but usually there is no error, Empeg just drops back to "End of playlist" and Emplode keeps going. Someone mentioned problems with COM2, but I don't have any "little yellow boo boo's" in the device manager.


I noticed that Michael is also using the developer's image could that be the common thread? Anybody not using the developer's image?


Michael also said he had two drives, I also have two drives (10GB+20GB). One of them I added myself. I'm quite skilled with hardware, so I wouldn't have damaged anything, but I guess I could have done something wrong on the software side of it. Could this be the common thread? Anyone having the problem with only one drive?

I noticed that Michael is also using the developer's image could that be the common thread? Anybody not using the developer's image?

I've been using the consumer image, and haven't had trouble. Of course, I also haven't been uploading any more than 3 albums at a time.

Michael also said he had two drives, I also have two drives (10GB+20GB). One of them I added myself. Could this be the common thread? Anyone having the problem with only one drive?

I'm using two drives, one of which I installed myself. Haven't had synch trouble.

___________
Tony Fabris

Okay, I'm not sure if this is what it does every time (though I assume it does), this is the first time I was actually staring at it when it lost synchronization. It was moving along just fine, then suddenly the Empeg jumped to the "Building music databases..." screen, sat there for a while, then went through messages like "Loading visuals" and then to the "End of playlist" screen. At that point Emplode was not repainting its window as any well behaved Windows program should.

It almost seems like the problem is that the Empeg reboots half way through the synchronization. Though perhaps not a full re-boot, since I never saw the Empeg and penguin splash screen.

Maybe this behavior will be more meaningful to someone who's more familiar with the source code.


Oh, (re: a previous post) loading smaller amounts of data (such as only copying five albums or less) doesn't fix the problem, it only reduces the probability that it will happen.

Okay, I'm not sure if this is what it does every time (though I assume it does), this is the first time I was actually staring at it when it lost synchronization. It was moving along just fine, then suddenly the Empeg jumped to the "Building music databases..." screen, sat there for a while, then went through messages like "Loading visuals" and then to the "End of playlist" screen. At that point Emplode was not repainting its window as any well behaved Windows program should.

Exactly.

Except that I have a Mark II. I am running consumer 1.0. I have a single hard drive. And I definitely see an inverse correlation between how many megabytes emplode will send to the empeg and how many minutes my computer (the PC, not the empeg) has been running,

I am starting to believe that there may be a hardware conflict between emplode and certain flavors of PC.

For what its worth, I am running:

500 MHz AMD K6-2
Asus P5A Super7 Motherboard with 2 USB ports
128 MB RAM
15 GB Hard Drive
Matrox AGP video card w/64 MB
Sound Blaster Live sound card
Microsoft optical mouse, USB & PS2 capable, connected to PS2 port

Any commonalities with anybody else?

tanstaafl.


tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"