Im having a problem with emphatic where it will just randomly stop working. It will only display the lyrics for about 1 or 2 songs in a row. The dark empty line across the screen is still there in horizontal mode, indicating that it knows the song has lyrics, but it just stays dark and empty even after the vocals start. It will display lyrics for a few songs and then it just stops working. If I reboot, and turn emphatic back on, it will start displaying the lyrics again. I think I remember seeing someone else complaining of having similar problems in another thread but I couldn't find it. Is anyone else having similar problems? What is causing this?

Sounds similar to problems others have been having with all userland apps which bind to the hijack menu. Eventually, they just quit working right and lose their binding to the hijack menu. No one's figured out why yet. Some blasphemers have suggested it's a bug in Hijack (gasp).

Actually, Tony, based on kswish0's description, I'm not certain this is the Incredible Disappearing Application problem. I've had a bug reported (and reproduced it once) where emphatic itself fails to display lyrics in horizontal mode.

kswish0, try this for me. Reproduce the problem, and then do the following things:

1) Bring up the emphatic menu with a knob press. Does it come up? If not, then this might actually be the aforementioned Incredible Disappearing Application problem.
2) If not #1, then try changing tracks when you see the problem. Go to another track, then come back to the one which has lyrics but has a problem displaying them. Do you now see lyrics properly?
3) If not #1, and #2 doesn't solve your problem, switch to vertical display mode from the emphatic menu. Are lyrics visible in vertical display mode?
3a) Switch back to horizontal mode. Are the lyrics visible now?

The answers to these questions will help me figure out what's happening. Be warned that I won't be touching emphatic until late this month/early May due to other things taking up my time, but this will help me out when I open it up again.

Thanks.

okay...

for step 1: Yes, the menu comes up

step 2: No, when I changed tracks, the lyrics for the next song did not display, and when I went back to the original song it stopped working on, still no lyrics. Only the dark line.

step 3: Yes, When I switch to vertical mode, the lyrics are visible. (most of the time anyways, I tried this a few times, and one time they weren't)

3a: Nope, nothing in horizontal mode when I go back.

Hope this helps. Thanks for all the hard work on this. Its really cool when it is working anyways

Ok, I've been playing around with this a little bit more. When it wont display the lyrics, if I just let it sit there, it will sometimes start displaying them later in the song. Sometimes, 1 minute in, sometimes 4 minutes in, sometimes never. It seems completely random. This is all in horizontal mode. I dont have time right now, but I will try and experiment with vertical mode later today to see if it is doing the same thing.

Hope this helps. Thanks for all the hard work on this. Its really cool when it is working anyways

No problem, and thanks for helping out with the testing.

This is all in horizontal mode. I dont have time right now, but I will try and experiment with vertical mode later today to see if it is doing the same thing.

My suspicion is that you won't have any problems with vertical mode. This seems to be a problem unique to horizontal mode. Horizontal mode is a lot harder to make work properly... Might be a tough bug to locate, but I'll do my best once I get back to empeg hacking again.

Yep, you're right, the problem is only in horizontal mode. I used vertical mode all day today and everything worked fine.