anewsome
Well I was really excited to get my new Dell laptop today. I couldn't wait to get it home and give it a try to see if the crashing problem was gone. This is a very nice laptop with a 3.06Ghz processor, 1GB ram, 80Gb hard drive, the works.
Installed VDJ and plugged in the XP10s. Started practicing my scratch mixing and BAMM! Not even five mintues into the session. The thing crashed. Just like with my 2.4Ghz 512MB box. So much for the idea that 1GB of ram would fix anything for me.
This is very disapointing. But what is even more disapointing is that no one from support or development has posted any acknowledgement that this bug exists or that it will be addressed in a future bug fix. As far as I know they are blaming it on my Hercules DJC or my XP10s (same problem happens with both). This is the THIRD computer I have tried, 2nd set of controllers, 2nd operating system (Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional).
Hey support! Read my previous thread. I'm not the only one having this problem. Almost anyone who scratches at the begining of the track will certainly run into this. It is really annoying and very disapointing.
I cringe when I think about switching to another software that is more stable since I've invested so much time (and money) into VDJ. If I have a gig, I will probably still use VDJ and have my iPod ready to go on line 3 of the mixer. I'd like to think that not scratching will solve the problem but the first time I got a crash was simply backspinning at the begining of the track to find the punch in spot - so it's not just scratching that causes it.
Whatever it is that is causing it is giving me a major headache. I'm not buying anymore hardware to try and make this work until I have some assurance that the problem has been acknowledged and is being addressed promptly.
I'll catch you guys later, going downstairs to reboot my brand new $2000 paperweight.
Installed VDJ and plugged in the XP10s. Started practicing my scratch mixing and BAMM! Not even five mintues into the session. The thing crashed. Just like with my 2.4Ghz 512MB box. So much for the idea that 1GB of ram would fix anything for me.
This is very disapointing. But what is even more disapointing is that no one from support or development has posted any acknowledgement that this bug exists or that it will be addressed in a future bug fix. As far as I know they are blaming it on my Hercules DJC or my XP10s (same problem happens with both). This is the THIRD computer I have tried, 2nd set of controllers, 2nd operating system (Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional).
Hey support! Read my previous thread. I'm not the only one having this problem. Almost anyone who scratches at the begining of the track will certainly run into this. It is really annoying and very disapointing.
I cringe when I think about switching to another software that is more stable since I've invested so much time (and money) into VDJ. If I have a gig, I will probably still use VDJ and have my iPod ready to go on line 3 of the mixer. I'd like to think that not scratching will solve the problem but the first time I got a crash was simply backspinning at the begining of the track to find the punch in spot - so it's not just scratching that causes it.
Whatever it is that is causing it is giving me a major headache. I'm not buying anymore hardware to try and make this work until I have some assurance that the problem has been acknowledged and is being addressed promptly.
I'll catch you guys later, going downstairs to reboot my brand new $2000 paperweight.
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 3:09 am
al0000
I think i saw a post on the Bugs forum, mentioning this bug.
If you tried 3 computers and they all crash, it is indeed a bug in the software which needs to be addressed.
Alex
If you tried 3 computers and they all crash, it is indeed a bug in the software which needs to be addressed.
Alex
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 3:29 am
anewsome
Usually tricky problems go unfixed because the developers tend to believe that the problems do not exist in the software and that the user experiencing the problem must be the cause of the problem, not the software or their programming. They usually take this position because they can not repeat the problem. But that is not the case here. The crash is so easy to reproduce it's ridiculous.
However, knowing a little bit about programming, I seriosuly doubt a quick fix is coming soon. I can't even begin to think about what kind of debugging they would have to hook into the software in order to find out what is happening to cause the crash. Any kind of debugging they attach to the running processes will slow the processes down and the crash will probably not happen. My guess is, it would have the be a VERY fast computer that would be able to run VDJ and the debug hooks at full speed. Either that or a modern PC with a dual processor and the debug processes somehow could run on the secondary processor. Not sure if that's possible though. Like I said, I know a little bit.
This is all so very depressing though. Hats off to all of you who claim you are using VDJ in a live working gig and never experiencing crashes. I wish I could say the same.
However, knowing a little bit about programming, I seriosuly doubt a quick fix is coming soon. I can't even begin to think about what kind of debugging they would have to hook into the software in order to find out what is happening to cause the crash. Any kind of debugging they attach to the running processes will slow the processes down and the crash will probably not happen. My guess is, it would have the be a VERY fast computer that would be able to run VDJ and the debug hooks at full speed. Either that or a modern PC with a dual processor and the debug processes somehow could run on the secondary processor. Not sure if that's possible though. Like I said, I know a little bit.
This is all so very depressing though. Hats off to all of you who claim you are using VDJ in a live working gig and never experiencing crashes. I wish I could say the same.
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 5:21 am
DJ Rick
I use VDJ 3-4 nights every week. I've maybe had 2 crashes in the 14-15 months that I've been using it. I used it on a sony vaio computer was an athelon xp 1300 with 512 of ram. I saw a lot of hesitation with that machine, but rarely a crash. Now I use a Toshiba 3.2 g HT with 1 gig ram. No hesitation, and NO CRASHES ever.(I admit that for the most part, I don't do mush scratching)
Sure, I'm a team member, but I'm a user first. If I was having problems with the software I'd be bitching and complaining about it too.
It's hard for the team members to acknowledge a problem that they/we aren't having. As far as I know the teamers that I ever talk with also enjoy error free opperation of this software.
Also, there have been thousands and thousands of customers for this software.
We rarely get an e-service letter about someone who is concerned about "crashing".
Sure, I'm a team member, but I'm a user first. If I was having problems with the software I'd be bitching and complaining about it too.
It's hard for the team members to acknowledge a problem that they/we aren't having. As far as I know the teamers that I ever talk with also enjoy error free opperation of this software.
Also, there have been thousands and thousands of customers for this software.
We rarely get an e-service letter about someone who is concerned about "crashing".
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 7:46 am
al0000
That does not mean you should't help this guy here who has a problem. For him, the software is useless.
You can't just say "it works on my pc so i don't know anything about it". You are the support team. Make a phone support number so you can receive support calls, go step by step to see what's causing the crash.
Why don't you make a recommended PC setup (all the hardware details, from CPU and chipset, to soundcard, OS, everything) and a recommended Laptop? So we'll know what to buy, and we'll know it will work.
Alex
You can't just say "it works on my pc so i don't know anything about it". You are the support team. Make a phone support number so you can receive support calls, go step by step to see what's causing the crash.
Why don't you make a recommended PC setup (all the hardware details, from CPU and chipset, to soundcard, OS, everything) and a recommended Laptop? So we'll know what to buy, and we'll know it will work.
Alex
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 3:57 pm
tunic
This may seem obvious but I have noticed Virtual DJ is more likely to crash with certain type of mp3s. Are the crashes always the same irrespective of bitrate, encoding type (VBR/CBR), mp3/wma etc.?
Another way around the crashing possibly, albeit not ideal is to insert a few seconds worth of blank audio in the front of each track (a pain but I'm sure there must be a way of automating it). This may help if you are scratch past the beginning of the track (I think DJ in Norway mentioned this to be a problem).
Beyond this I don't know. I have had a number of crashes on my P 1.5M 512MB / Maya44USB laptop. Sometimes the track with stick and stuff upon loading and I've even had it completely shut down. I've not exactly spent much time trying to tune the laptop but it is concerning nonetheless.
Another way around the crashing possibly, albeit not ideal is to insert a few seconds worth of blank audio in the front of each track (a pain but I'm sure there must be a way of automating it). This may help if you are scratch past the beginning of the track (I think DJ in Norway mentioned this to be a problem).
Beyond this I don't know. I have had a number of crashes on my P 1.5M 512MB / Maya44USB laptop. Sometimes the track with stick and stuff upon loading and I've even had it completely shut down. I've not exactly spent much time trying to tune the laptop but it is concerning nonetheless.
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 5:15 pm
anewsome
Funny you mention adding silence to the begining of the tracks. I had already thought about that, I'm pretty good with scripting so I could probably automate it to a certain degree - in fact I know I could using the WAVE file audio library in Perl. I've already done some scripts with this library. Couple of problems with that though, specifically:
1.) an extra 60 seconds of silence tacked on to 15,000 mp3 files would take a huge amount of space.
2.) My VDJ tracks would no longer be synced with my main collection on my server, my sync process would now have to include grabbing all the new files from the server and then adding the 60 seconds of silence to them.
3.) My sync process timeline would explode to many times what it is today, sometimes I am syncing 3, 4 or maybe 5 full cds - like days when I get the latest promo only editions.
4.) The most important problem, for all my old files I would either have to re-rip them and add silence before encoding or unencode, add silence and re-encode. The re-encode would degrade sound quality considerably and for this reason alone it's not an option. The re-rip of 15,000 tracks is also prohibitive so it's not an option either.
As far as if my mp3 file encoding is causing the problem, this is defintely a possibility. Since 100% of my files are all encoded and ripped by me, it would make sense that these problems occur on many (any) files I have. I can probably re-create this problem with any one of the files in my collection.
It should also be noted that I use these same exact files in my EMPEG (Rio) car audio player, xmms, Winamp, Windows Media Player and my generation 1 ipod. I've never had a problem with any of these files on those platforms - although admitedly, I don't do much scratching with the iPod. Matter of fact, it's not possible.
My files are all encoded in the same way using a mp3 encoding work flow that I created myself. The encoding is done by the lame encoder and the normalize program, using the following command line:
/usr/local/bin/normalize "11 - G-Unit - Smile.wav"
lame -b 192 -m s -q 0 --tt "Smile" --ta "G-Unit" --tl "Beg For Mercy" --tc "www.mp3smuggler.com" --tn "11" --tg "7" --ty "2004" --add-id3v2 "11 - G-Unit - Smile.wav" "11 - G-Unit - Smile.mp3"
Options are as follows:
-b 192: Bitrate at 192Kb/s
-m s: Mode stereo
-q 0: Quality zero, best quality possible
-t* : These are all id3tag options
--add-id3v2: This adds a tag for id3v2, v1 is already included
Input file
Output file
Pretty benign options I'd say. Nothing fancy, just high quality encoding. All of my files are encoded this way. I also maintain a database of md5 sums for my mp3 files so I can detect when a file has been corrupted. I don't use any other types of files - no wma or anything else.
I don't think it's my files causing VDJ to crash.
Maybe I need to just become the same DJ as everyone not having problems. My crashes would cease if I just knocked off all that scratching! Honestly though, I would not be scratching that much at a real gig (partly for fear of crashing),.. but when I am practicing - I HAVE TO SCRATCH A LOT. The only way to get better at it is practice, so by definition a practice session will include a whole bunch of incessant scratching. That's the only way to get better.
1.) an extra 60 seconds of silence tacked on to 15,000 mp3 files would take a huge amount of space.
2.) My VDJ tracks would no longer be synced with my main collection on my server, my sync process would now have to include grabbing all the new files from the server and then adding the 60 seconds of silence to them.
3.) My sync process timeline would explode to many times what it is today, sometimes I am syncing 3, 4 or maybe 5 full cds - like days when I get the latest promo only editions.
4.) The most important problem, for all my old files I would either have to re-rip them and add silence before encoding or unencode, add silence and re-encode. The re-encode would degrade sound quality considerably and for this reason alone it's not an option. The re-rip of 15,000 tracks is also prohibitive so it's not an option either.
As far as if my mp3 file encoding is causing the problem, this is defintely a possibility. Since 100% of my files are all encoded and ripped by me, it would make sense that these problems occur on many (any) files I have. I can probably re-create this problem with any one of the files in my collection.
It should also be noted that I use these same exact files in my EMPEG (Rio) car audio player, xmms, Winamp, Windows Media Player and my generation 1 ipod. I've never had a problem with any of these files on those platforms - although admitedly, I don't do much scratching with the iPod. Matter of fact, it's not possible.
My files are all encoded in the same way using a mp3 encoding work flow that I created myself. The encoding is done by the lame encoder and the normalize program, using the following command line:
/usr/local/bin/normalize "11 - G-Unit - Smile.wav"
lame -b 192 -m s -q 0 --tt "Smile" --ta "G-Unit" --tl "Beg For Mercy" --tc "www.mp3smuggler.com" --tn "11" --tg "7" --ty "2004" --add-id3v2 "11 - G-Unit - Smile.wav" "11 - G-Unit - Smile.mp3"
Options are as follows:
-b 192: Bitrate at 192Kb/s
-m s: Mode stereo
-q 0: Quality zero, best quality possible
-t* : These are all id3tag options
--add-id3v2: This adds a tag for id3v2, v1 is already included
Input file
Output file
Pretty benign options I'd say. Nothing fancy, just high quality encoding. All of my files are encoded this way. I also maintain a database of md5 sums for my mp3 files so I can detect when a file has been corrupted. I don't use any other types of files - no wma or anything else.
I don't think it's my files causing VDJ to crash.
Maybe I need to just become the same DJ as everyone not having problems. My crashes would cease if I just knocked off all that scratching! Honestly though, I would not be scratching that much at a real gig (partly for fear of crashing),.. but when I am practicing - I HAVE TO SCRATCH A LOT. The only way to get better at it is practice, so by definition a practice session will include a whole bunch of incessant scratching. That's the only way to get better.
Posted Thu 10 Feb 05 @ 8:09 pm
WirelessDJ
Yep! I have that same problem.
try waiting for the track to fully load then scratch, does it still crash?
try waiting for the track to fully load then scratch, does it still crash?
Posted Fri 11 Feb 05 @ 3:12 am
djjb
well guys....i think it's a wrong config in the pc.
with a litle time spending on the pc it works great. i have an old toshiba laptop with 256mb ram.
i can load tracks longer than one our and make loops of 128 and stil go's back, and loop again.
scratching olso no problem.
only when playing a long track on one player, you have to wait till the other player is loaded.
tried this severall time's with no crash.
when you wanna scratch at the beginning of a song, set a loop.
good luck
with a litle time spending on the pc it works great. i have an old toshiba laptop with 256mb ram.
i can load tracks longer than one our and make loops of 128 and stil go's back, and loop again.
scratching olso no problem.
only when playing a long track on one player, you have to wait till the other player is loaded.
tried this severall time's with no crash.
when you wanna scratch at the beginning of a song, set a loop.
good luck
Posted Fri 11 Feb 05 @ 6:41 am
Superstom
I had this same problem a couple of times. Loading a track, cueing it up and gone was my VDJ. This was in the time I used the HDJ console. After removing all the drivers and moving to a D-vinyl controller I never experienced the problem anymore.
This could be a proper test, while you are having both the HDJ console and the XP10's. Remove all Hercules software and drivers from your pc (A fresh install would even be better). Continue with the XP10's for a while.
Ewout
This could be a proper test, while you are having both the HDJ console and the XP10's. Remove all Hercules software and drivers from your pc (A fresh install would even be better). Continue with the XP10's for a while.
Ewout
Posted Fri 11 Feb 05 @ 2:52 pm
anewsome
Thanks for the tip Superstorm, but this is a BRAND NEW laptop. No hercules drivers installed on it at all. Actually, no drivers for anything installed on it, that didn't come with it.
WirelessDJ, yes I have been waiting for the track to load all the way before I start scratching cueing or doing anything. Doesn't make a difference. I have gotten really good at knowing precisely when it's about to crash, the display gets a little jumpy and starts freezing a bit then my back-cueing gets a little jumpy and then BLAM! Crash!
Oh, and I love these posts from users who think my PC config is causing the crashes. Unbelievable.
This Sunday, when I get back from vegas, I am making a proper video demonstrating how easy it is to reproduce this problem. Look for the video on Sunday. Hopefully someone from support will see the video and get some ideas about how to fix this. Everyday that goes by that it's not fixed, I get a little more steamed. Very disapointing.
WirelessDJ, yes I have been waiting for the track to load all the way before I start scratching cueing or doing anything. Doesn't make a difference. I have gotten really good at knowing precisely when it's about to crash, the display gets a little jumpy and starts freezing a bit then my back-cueing gets a little jumpy and then BLAM! Crash!
Oh, and I love these posts from users who think my PC config is causing the crashes. Unbelievable.
This Sunday, when I get back from vegas, I am making a proper video demonstrating how easy it is to reproduce this problem. Look for the video on Sunday. Hopefully someone from support will see the video and get some ideas about how to fix this. Everyday that goes by that it's not fixed, I get a little more steamed. Very disapointing.
Posted Fri 11 Feb 05 @ 9:06 pm
DJ Raz
anewsome, check out my setup guide: http://www.virtualdj.com/forum/display.html?topic=8194
The only crashes I've ever had are with the known crashes (draggin en effect off screen towards the bottom of VDJ --- backspinning inside a loop that is longer than the rest of the song)
I still get some problems with certain effects as pertaining to "clicks" in the sound and experience graphcial lag sometimes when playing with the EQ, but other than that no complaints. (and I'm pretty sure those problems are due to windows XP retarded interrupt assigning)
Good luck :)
The only crashes I've ever had are with the known crashes (draggin en effect off screen towards the bottom of VDJ --- backspinning inside a loop that is longer than the rest of the song)
I still get some problems with certain effects as pertaining to "clicks" in the sound and experience graphcial lag sometimes when playing with the EQ, but other than that no complaints. (and I'm pretty sure those problems are due to windows XP retarded interrupt assigning)
Good luck :)
Posted Fri 11 Feb 05 @ 11:58 pm
digijoc-Mele
@anewsome
Good idea of the video to demonstrate the issue !
Good idea of the video to demonstrate the issue !
Posted Sat 12 Feb 05 @ 2:42 pm