Report Hoster 5.02 Problems - CLOSED - See 5.03

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Chad Slater

Also I tried to upgrade to 5.02.08 and got the following error when trying to install... error number 0X80040702 Description: Failed to load DLL: _ismtu

Any ideas?

Originally Posted by mgrowolski

we will have to wait till mtu come back into the office or submit a support message. Glad the other thing worked for you though

I just installed 5.02.08 on both XP and Windows 7 without any problem. Maybe you didn't get a complete download. Your best bet is to download and Save instead of Run from the download. That way you can make sure you got a complete copy, then run it from your saved file.

[Chad Slater]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

I just installed 5.02.08 on both XP and Windows 7 without any problem. Maybe you didn't get a complete download. Your best bet is to download and Save instead of Run from the download. That way you can make sure you got a complete copy, then run it from your saved file.

I have downloaded it 3 times and always save the file then run it. I noticed someone else posting the same thing as well.

[mgrowolski]

Tried tthat saved it to the comp and then ran it and still the same problem its strange because i have downloaded it to my laptop and it worked but my desktop has just had the hard drive formatted and all software reinstalled and seems to be fine with all other software except hoster

[ddouglass]

What operating systems are you guys using? Could be a factor and will help MTU see if they can reproduce.

[mgrowolski]

I am using windows 7 ultimate my laptop had the same os as well and it installed on there ok going to try version 5.02.07 see if that installs

[mgrowolski]

ok version 5.02.07 installed fine but .08 still has the same problem and the same **** error message arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Roy Dennis]

I just tried it myself and had no trouble. If you go to the downloaded Hoster setup.exe file, right click it and select properties mine shows 24.3MB, if yours is less it has not downloaded the complete file in which case I would delete it and download again.
There is something mentioned in the instalation procedure about an error message, can't remember now though what is say's but I think basically ignore.

[Chad Slater]

It seems to have worked. Thanks again. I do have a question though. When running 5.02.07 (before I upgraded) I noticed that after searching for a song and then hitting the add button the extended desktop karaoke screen would go black (not the entire screen, just the words). They then would highlight accordingly with the music from black to say.. yellow. Once the words finished to the bottom and the screen was refreshed with new words it went back to normal. This has never happened to me before and I wasn't sure what would cause this. It also does it when playing videos, but is black until the video ends. Any help would be appreciated

MTU I do have to say that your support is unparalleled to any support I have ever encountered. Thanks again!

[admin]

Originally Posted by mgrowolski

Thanks guys installed with no problems

Originally Posted by Chad Slater

It seems to have worked. Thanks again.

Gents, thank you for replying so quickly. As with any complex bug related to Windows, it always helps to have confirmation that we fixed it.

Originally Posted by Chad Slater

MTU I do have to say that your support is unparalleled to any support I have ever encountered. Thanks again!

Thank you Chad for working with us, AND... for reporting the problem!

Originally Posted by Chad Slater

I do have a question though. When running 5.02.07 (before I upgraded) I noticed that after searching for a song and then hitting the add button the extended desktop karaoke screen would go black (not the entire screen, just the words). They then would highlight accordingly with the music from black to say.. yellow. Once the words finished to the bottom and the screen was refreshed with new words it went back to normal. This has never happened to me before and I wasn't sure what would cause this. It also does it when playing videos, but is black until the video ends. Any help would be appreciated

Whenever "black" is appearing on the Show Display or Preview Display, we "usually" find there is an NVidia graphics card/chip being used.

Does your computer have an NVideo card/chip?

More importantly, does this blacking out still happen with Hoster 502.08?

[jcsings]

I know you guys are working on the fix for the skipping and stalling, I was so frustrated last night because it seemed like every other song had to be restarted because it would skip right at the beginning of the song and then the lyrics would be off. I just want you to know I anxiously await your fixes!

[admin]

I wanted to update you on our latest directions to fix Hoster's problems.

1. It appears that Microsoft has turned Windows 7 64-bit into a VIRTUAL MACHINE. They call it WOW (Windows on Windows). Hoster is a 32-bit app, so it would be run in WOW mode, not 64-bit mode or the Vista "32-bit emulation mode" on a 64-bit OS.

Virtual machines give each Application a limited amount of system resources (which would explain why Search dialog is choking), and may also prevent the App from getting to hardware resources as we could do in the past. WOW may run Hoster in the equivalent of a fractional GigaByte of RAM, and the CPU power "your guess is as good as mine" a fraction of the processor speed. This is now starting to make sense why Hoster runs fine on a good 'ole XP or even a (gag) Vista system, or Windows 7 32-bit.

What the heck! Why didn't Microsoft warn everyone that if you buy a Windows 7 64-bit system (the standard shipped today), you would see performance of ALL your "old programs" equal to some shamefully slow system, WAY INFERIOR to XP?

So, you may want to wait for 5.03 to come out, but if we can't find a way to programmatically allocate RAM/CPU power to the Hoster WOW, we will suggest you install Win7 32-bit. May God have mercy on us all!



2. Over the years of development, all Indices in the Hoster Songs.mdb and Singers.mdb were removed.

This probably happened when we spent 22 man-months to gain compatibility with Vista that allowed Hoster to also run on Win7.

This means that every search was executed as a "string" search, traversing the entire database. TheMusicGeek reported when using the Search button dialog on his 24MB Songs.mdb, the system could "sleep" for 30-60 seconds. That seriously got my personal attention.



3. In 5.03 we are re-engineering the Singer database.
This database has a Singer Table with SingerID and SingerName fields, and a Song Table with SingerID and BookID fields. The Singers button dialog shows columns with Title, Artist, Brand, and DiscID. It doesn't store these fields, but uses the BookID to "string search" the Songs.mdb, then read these fields and populate the dialog columns. It's no wonder why using the Singers database in any way is slow.

You may wonder why the heck we did that? Well, when the Singers database was "conceived", we expected maybe 100 "repeat singers" (a lot of "followers") with maybe 50 songs (an extravagant set we thought). Uhh... some of you folks are reporting way more Singers/Songs.

In 5.03, when you add a BookID for a Singer, we will copy the Title, Artist, Brand and DiscID AT THAT TIME from the Songs Database and store them in the Song Table as new fields. Then, we won't need to query the Songs database for them. Changes made in Edit Songs will NOT update your Song Table records, but we'll add a "Refresh" button to re-synchronize the Songs Table when you want.

We also are adding "indexing" on these fields:

1. Songs.mdb - Songs Table BookID, Title and Artist. The "BookID" button to add songs to the Playlist will be lightening fast. In the Search button dialog, searching on BookID, Title or Artist will be MUCH faster, but searching Brand, DiscID, Language, Genre, Karaoke, Audio, Video (versus all) will be as slow as you have now.

2. Singers.mdb - Singer Table SingerName, Song Table SingerID and possible Title.

It is not feasible to index all fields as you would not have enough RAM to hold these "in-memory" index tables. Title and Artist are each 64-Bytes long. A 50,000 record (files) Songs.mdb database would require 50K x (64 B+64 B) = 6.4MB just for these two indices. Given that Win7 64-bit WOW mode seems to STARVE Hoster for RAM,this could drastically affect performance, versus improve it.

Also, the more indices we require, the longer it will take to "Index HD Files" or "Build Database". We are making reasonable tradeoffs.

So, that's where we are this weekend.