[djmcnz]

Hi there,

My Win8.1/12.2 setup has been working fine for a week or so but last night a movie just hung on me 3/4 of the way though and would not resume. It's a known good file that I've watched before. I had to use task manager to shut XBMC down.

Now I can't play any audio and any attempt to do so, or to change the audio settings results in a XBMC hang that requires the task to be killed. Nothing is reported at the end of the debug logs (i.e. the logging stops as the system hangs) however I now see this in the log at startup (edited, non-consecutive lines):

Code:

14:11:44 T:5104   ERROR: CAESinkDirectSound::CheckPlayStatus: Failed to play the DirectSound buffer: unknown
14:11:44 T:5104   ERROR: CAESinkDirectSound::CheckPlayStatus: Failed to play the DirectSound buffer: unknown
14:11:44 T:5104   ERROR: CAESinkDirectSound::CheckPlayStatus: Failed to play the DirectSound buffer: unknown
14:11:44 T:5104   ERROR: CAESinkDirectSound::CheckPlayStatus: Failed to play the DirectSound buffer: unknown

No changes have been made to my system recently so I assume the problem is local to XBMC (VLC still plays all media fine). Any tips or pointers? I've read the audio sticky in this forum but since I can't change any audio settings in XBMC it's a bit difficult to try the various approaches.

I'll reinstall XBMC later but thought I'd see if there was any existing knowledge around this error beforehand?

Thanks.

[djmcnz]

Okay, so I've isolated the problem to guisettings.xml.

After a fresh install of XBMC 12.2 (confirmed working) I added in my key backup files one-by-one and guisettings.xml is 100% the problem. I'm not sure what the problem is yet, I've not looked but here's the file that causes the subject hang every time.

GUISettings.xml Pastebin link

I'm not sure why this file should cause an audio problem, comments welcome.

[WiSo]

Compare the audiooutput sections line by line and see if there's any difference. Beside its name guisettings includes more config stuff than related to the GUI.

[djmcnz]

^ Good tip, therein lay the problem.

Here are the differences between the two sections

Code:

Broken:        <audiodevice>DirectSound:{074F6843-94D3-4729-9689-1D0D8C09C311}</audiodevice>
Broken:        <passthroughdevice>DirectSound:{074F6843-94D3-4729-9689-1D0D8C09C311}</passthroughdevice>

Working:        <audiodevice>DirectSound:{5FDCCBD7-2D32-4DA4-BBE9-88D14229CB84}</audiodevice>
Working:        <passthroughdevice>DirectSound:{5FDCCBD7-2D32-4DA4-BBE9-88D14229CB84}</passthroughdevice>

It appears to be the same device duplicated in Windows. They have identical settings in the registry and install times in the event log. It does appear as if this condition was pre-existing nevertheless - the install date for both is 22 Oct which is before I encountered this issue.



Whilst I'm no closer to understanding the root cause of my problem I'm happy to be back to normal and I'm going to delete that rogue device and see what happens.

Thanks.

[djmcnz]

So, I deleted the devices and Windows simply detected and added them both back in. I then installed the latest High Definition Audio drivers for my onboard 'card' from the RealTek site (replacing the Microsoft drivers) and this proved beneficial. After installing the RealTek drivers my two "identical" devices became two separate devices; my sound card and my receiver.

In my mind this still doesn't explain the original problem but since it no longer exists I'm happy.

Nevertheless, I think perhaps the devs could look at the opportunity to prevent this from being a hard fail of XBMC, a soft (no audio) fail with some debugging info might be a worthy consideration.

[FernetMenta]

Nevertheless, I think perhaps the devs could look at the opportunity to prevent this from being a hard fail of XBMC, a soft (no audio) fail with some debugging info might be a worthy consideration.

This may already have happened with rewrite of entire audio engine.