Web Player Hesitation

[jeffcavicchi]

Recently I have been getting a very slight hesitation when using the web player - usually right at the beginning of a song, but not always. It is very slight - less than a second - but it seems to have started when I updated to 4.4. Anyone else experiencing this? Any soutions?

[3R3]

noticed this too after upgrading to 4.4. My thought was it might be something to do with all the video features now active by default in the JWplayer. But I couldnt fix it yet, nor know how.

[jeffcavicchi]

Yeah - definitely seems related to the upgrade. I've played several albums that did not hesitate with previous versions, and they now pause very briefly after 2-3 seconds of playback. No errors in the log, and doesn't happen all the time...

Be nice to get it fixed, though.

[jeffcavicchi]

Tried running MP3 Diags to clean up my files - program works great, but it did not solve the hesitation problem...

I still think this problem is related to the 4.4 update.

[jeffcavicchi]

Looks like it is caused by downsampling - I figured it out because I noticed that tracks that needed to be downsampled hesitated, while those that did not did not hesitate. So, I created a new user with no max bitrate, and even on dsl 320kbps tracks loaded and played no problem. I have been playing now for 2 hours with no hesitations...

And this is definitely related to 4.4 - downsampling worked fine in the previous version.

[jeffcavicchi]

OK, disregard my last post - the hesitation is back this morning, even when downsampling is not being used. Weirdly, the pause seems to correspond EXACTLY with when the "Now Playing" field at screen right changes to show the new track - almost like playback is interrupted by the title changing. I know this is a stretch, but it is all I have right now.

[jeffcavicchi]

OK - this is driving me crazy. I am using SS at home right now on my local network. It is taking less than 20 seconds to download a 10 minute song - but I am still getting a slight hesitation right at the beginning. This is not a network issue/speed issue. Something is not right in the way the web player initiates playback...I really hope this gets resolved in the next version of SS!

[sindre_mehus]

Hi,

Yeah, I will look into this. I have upgraded the JW Player used for playback, maybe that's related.

Sindre

[jeffcavicchi]

Thanks Sindre!

I am pretty sure this is not a network issue - my upload speeds at the server are better than 1MB/second, and the hesitation happens even when I am on the local network and a 10 minute 320kbps song takes less than 20 seconds to fully load...

It appears to me that the download somehow gets interrupted briefly right after it starts...

A key to this might be the fact that, if playback starts right away once a new track starts to load, it almost always hesitates...but if there is a slight delay between the end of the last track and playback of the next track (~1-2 seconds) there is never a hesitation. It's as if the web player is just a little too eager to start playback...

If you need any specifics about my setup, please let me know!

[jeffcavicchi]

BTW, I use Subsonic 8-10 hours per day, nonstop (it is the only media player I use now, and I have it running continuously at work), so I am a decent troubleshooting guinea pig!

[jeffcavicchi]

Another interesting element to this-

I can't swear to this, but I am pretty sure that MP3 files I have purchased from Amazon never hesitate - only the ones where I have converted CDs to MP3s (most using FreeRip into vbr files).

Almost makes me think it is some kind of file info problem...?

[jeffcavicchi]

I'm pretty sure this is some kind of read/transcode problem - some albums do it consistently, while others (including all those bought from Amazon) never do it.

All of my files are MP3s, the ones not bought from Amazon were ripped using FreeRip as vbr files - and I have analyzed them using MP3Diags. I don't think the files are bad - they played fine on versions of SS other than 4.3/4.4 - and they play fine off the hard drive using Winamp. For some reason JWPlayer is hesitating right at the beginning when reading these files...

[jeffcavicchi]

Update:

I have been using Winamp as an external player for the past two days, and the hesitation has not occurred a single time. If I go back to using JW Player the hesitation immediately reappears. Looks like this is a problem with JW Player...