Report Hoster 5.00 Problems

[stublack]

I only stated "That I thought this was a site to mention problem" because someone stated to read the manual. The problem and it's resolution is one thing and I will offer as much detail as I can regarding that.

But please don't think the problem occurred because I did or did not read the manual.

Also, I may not know much about Technical things but I am not stupid, I know that information solves problems, so if you want information I will give it to you. If I don't understand what you want then I need clarification (maybe that's why you think I'm stupid).

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by stublack

I only stated "That I thought this was a site to mention problem" because someone stated to read the manual. The problem and it's resolution is one thing and I will offer as much detail as I can regarding that.

But please don't think the problem occurred because I did or did not read the manual.

Also, I may not know much about Technical things but I am not stupid, I know that information solves problems, so if you want information I will give it to you. If I don't understand what you want then I need clarification (maybe that's why you think I'm stupid).

Stublack please don't be offended. Roy and myself were only trying to find out which way you went into the Singer's database. There are two different ways and we wanted to get more detail in which way you used, so MTU could look at te correct one. The one from within search does not have any editting included, but just gives a list of their songs and allows choosing songs for addition to the playlist.

[admin]

Originally Posted by stublack

I ran 5.0 for a second time last night.

It my be unique to me, but the singers database is without a doubt the cause for my not responding shutdowns.

I had my first shutdown an hour and a half into the show (better than the night before). I closed the singers database no problems.

I opened the singers database for one (begging) singer and as soon as I added her song from the singers database to the playlist Hoster crashed a second time.

I apologized to everyone that I could not show them there list for the rest of the night. I never reopened the singers database and there were no problems the rest of the night

Originally Posted by admin

Stublack, good job!

Thank you for giving us the details you did. We'll look into this today. I'll post back here what we find.

If we can't duplicate and fix it right now, I'm sure there will be more reports, or even details from you that will allow us to eventually pinpoint the cause.

Our Staff Programmer spent several hours testing every way we could to duplicate your problem, but never crashed.

We'll keep this in our specs to see if others can add their different facts. Eventually, someone will make a post that will reveal the problem so we can duplicate it.

[admin]

Originally Posted by KenKelley

I have discovered what may be a few bugs

Audio only selections in the play list:

Selecting .WMA file leaves Dur field at 00:00 and does not increase the “Show Time” field. When the file is selected to play, Dur field populates with time and does not increase the “Show Time” field.

My guess is your WMA files have some DRM applied to them, such as happens if you use WMP to import them from an Audio CD.

Originally Posted by KenKelley

“Show Time” field does not count down as track plays, however it does update after a track is finished (except for .WMA files). I’m not sure if this is by design or a bug as the manual does not reflect one way or the other. The Dur field does countdown as usual.

Show Time is designed to update when the song ends. Too much going on computationally otherwise.

Originally Posted by KenKelley

Importing CD Tracks (CD-G’s):

Having the Scrolling Marquee active while importing CD Tracks (CD-G’s) seems to slow the import process by about 15%. Turning off (hiding) the Marquee definitely speeds up the process. Test was accomplished by importing the same disk 3 times: 2nd import Marquee scrolling, 17 tracks 6 min 15 seconds. 3rd import Marquee not scrolling, 17 tracks 5 min 20 seconds. Times will probably vary depending on processor speed, number of processor cores, and ram in use.

What are you using to import the CDG Discs? "Singers Disc" button, or "Import CD Tracks" screen?

Originally Posted by KenKelley

[color=black][size=3][font=Times New Roman]While attempting to import CD Tracks (CD-G’s) and editing the song title, I attempted to input “Tough” by Morgan, Craig, Hoster auto complete would only allow “Tough Enough” unless I placed a character at the end of the word. Example “Tough-

I don't think importing CDG tracks has anything to do with the Title auto-naming from our list. Try it again while not importing.

Title is a combo-box with a drop down list behind it to aid your naming. I'm surprised you can't highlight and delete the "Enough" and have it accepted. We have reworked this field several times (also Artist is the same), and I think this is an artifact of the combo-box "tool".

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by admin

I don't think importing CDG tracks has anything to do with the Title auto-naming from our list. Try it again while not importing.

Title is a combo-box with a drop down list behind it to aid your naming. I'm surprised you can't highlight and delete the "Enough" and have it accepted. We have reworked this field several times (also Artist is the same), and I think this is an artifact of the combo-box "tool".

I have the same problem only in the import from cd or HD. I try to eliminate ",The" at the end of all titles, but the auto fill in does not allow it, even if I highlight & delete it, when I tab to the next field, it automatically comes back.

[stublack]

I wasn't offended by what Roy said I did try to answer his question, but at that point I did not understand it.

I had no knowledge about the second way to get the singers songs nor did I care.

I now understand what he wanted me to try and I will try it tomorrow night I will let you know how it worked.

I hope I did not offend anyone else.

If this work around works for me then I will use it, it will take a little time to get used to. But if it doesn't I'll have to go back to a previous version, my singers are lost without there lists.

Thanks, Stu

[admin]

Originally Posted by tkelley3

I am having audio dropout's with both of my machines (that would be the regular and backup). I was running 5.0 on my Vista 64 machine but 5.0 was much too unstable to keep using it with Vista 64. I uninstalled it and reinstalled 4.32 and things are working a bit better. My backup computer is running Windows 7 and the audio dropout's are very noticeable. I have good sound cards Vista 64 uses Realtek High Def Audio (NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS) and the Win7 (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6500)

Three other issues: 1. please, please, please remove the " border="0" alt="" />

2. I also had trouble with the singers dialog box and I see you fixed it today. Thank you.
I do not want to install 5.01 unless you believe it will not crash during a show and I am going to keep 4.32 on my main computer until I see more positive feedback. I enjoy all the changes and do not use Hoster to its fullest but I do use it 10 to 12 times a month. I do ton's of nursing homes, assisted living, and senior homes. The "old folks" love my shows but it gets a bit embarrassing when Hoster does not play nice.

3. Songs still go “negative” with the remove silence. I know you said you fixed this but I still see negative numbers tick by. Again, this is better but not fixed unless I need to do something with Vista 64 (no you do not get to comment on that).

All in all I am just a bit upset and I realize that there will be a few problems before it is perfect. Keep up the good work and together we will enjoy KJ for years to come.

tkelly3, thank you for your report. I have added 2 of your items to our Task Assigments spec.

As to your crashing, if you edit the Singers field in the Playlist, this causes crashing and 5.01 finally fixed this.

As to audio dropouts, you may have an outdated Device Driver for your audio card. Also, NVidia has ALWAYS given us grief, no matter what we do. We know there is currently a problem with NVidia and we are working on it. That card along with Vista is a bad combination for Hoster. Oops... sorry about the Vista, but Microsoft DID replace it VERY FAST with Windows 7....

Make sure you have done the MTU Recommended Changes to windows Vista at: http://www.mtu.com/upgrades/hoster/v...de-hoster4.htm.

As to your #1 above, as you can see it simply isn't there. WHY? Because you use some other XML based editor to prepare your post, and then copy-paste it into the Forum Edit Window. Some of the XML code is not being handled.

PLEASE... PLEASE... PLEASE... in the future, just type in the text you want us to read. DO NOT copy/paste from some other editor.

Thank you.

[kenpattx]

When we finally were able to get the 5.01 loaded into our laptop that we have been using, something was wrong....we hooked up the singer's monitor with the laptop....the dj screen has no lyrics when playing a song, and only a one half of the extended monitor has words on it..... when you click on it to move it back to the main screen, you no longer get any lyrics...blank.....yes, we do know how to do this, we have had MTU since 2003....we're stumped.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by kenpattx

When we finally were able to get the 5.01 loaded into our laptop that we have been using, something was wrong....we hooked up the singer's monitor with the laptop....the dj screen has no lyrics when playing a song, and only a one half of the extended monitor has words on it..... when you click on it to move it back to the main screen, you no longer get any lyrics...blank.....yes, we do know how to do this, we have had MTU since 2003....we're stumped.

Ken I moved your post to the correct thread for errors in version 5.
WHen you moved it back to the main monitor, did you restart the song? Also did you try double clicking it to move it back to singers monitor?
Also try resetting the displays to default location. This is located in Tools/options.

[Roy Dennis]

First of you don't say which computer you finally loaded this on ?
I seem to recall in a previous post you bought a Toshiba Windows 7 computer, if this is the case how are you hooking up to your extended monitor ? HDMI port or through a VGA converter or other means ?
If you play these tracks without hooking up to the extended monitor does it still not display the lyrics on the Preview window and the singers window ?

I take it you have done all the recommended changes to Windows 7 for Hoster to run correctly.

Other info that may help to solve your problems what graphics card do you have ?

[Telecaster]

I dont know if im in the right place for this so move it if you must...
I just purchased an Alienware MX11 Netbook with an I 7 Processor,a 500 gig hard drive,and 8 Gigs of ram ,running Windows 7.
I downloaded the Demo version of Hoster to see how it would work.
IT DOESN'T work.As soon as I go to play a zip file it will let me start the song ....it plays .....there is no video...and the program freezes but the song still plays...then when I try to control the program it locks up totally.The Alienware netbook also has the NVIDIA card in it but I dont know what to use in its place for drivers.
Please help if someone can as if I cant get the progam working right i will be sending the Alienware MX 11 back *:(
Hoster Lite works on my other netbook.
Thanks
Dan

[EmilioM]

A couple of things to start off with. I had a problem where Hoster would freeze a while ago. What I found was power problems. If you have multiple power strips, make sure your computer is isolated. The best thing is to use 1 power strip for your computer on one outlet. I know you have to have more than the one. Plug in all other peripherals, (amp, mixer, mics ect.) on different power strips. Keep your computer isolated, and you may find that it'll work to your satisfaction.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Telecaster

I dont know if im in the right place for this so move it if you must...
I just purchased an Alienware MX11 Netbook with an I 7 Processor,a 500 gig hard drive,and 8 Gigs of ram ,running Windows 7.
I downloaded the Demo version of Hoster to see how it would work.
IT DOESN'T work.As soon as I go to play a zip file it will let me start the song ....it plays .....there is no video...and the program freezes but the song still plays...then when I try to control the program it locks up totally.The Alienware netbook also has the NVIDIA card in it but I dont know what to use in its place for drivers.
Please help if someone can as if I cant get the progam working right i will be sending the Alienware MX 11 back *:(
Hoster Lite works on my other netbook.
Thanks
Dan

Don't know if this will help but on some Alienware netbooks you can switch graphics buy: Press the Blue FN+F6 to enable or disable hybrid graphics mode.
The user can switch between the discrete and integrated graphic modes for performance and power savings respectively.

I don't know if this is the same with the I 7 processor.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Telecaster

I dont know if im in the right place for this so move it if you must...
I just purchased an Alienware MX11 Netbook with an I 7 Processor,a 500 gig hard drive,and 8 Gigs of ram ,running Windows 7.
I downloaded the Demo version of Hoster to see how it would work.
IT DOESN'T work.As soon as I go to play a zip file it will let me start the song ....it plays .....there is no video...and the program freezes but the song still plays...then when I try to control the program it locks up totally.The Alienware netbook also has the NVIDIA card in it but I dont know what to use in its place for drivers.
Please help if someone can as if I cant get the progam working right i will be sending the Alienware MX 11 back *:(
Hoster Lite works on my other netbook.
Thanks

Dan, we are having a problem with NVidia new cards, and I expect that is the problem here.

For the past week, we have been updating our Microsoft Development Studio to version 2010, the latest. It's a bear and they offer no help at all!

We are closing in on the last problem (I hope!) and should be re-compiling Hoster to see if the NVidia problems disappear. We "believe" they will. We'll probably add a few other tweaks and bug fixes and release this as 5.02, but I'll say if NVidia works, we'll speed things up to get it out to everyone.

As to the ZIP file, can you play that same file on your Hoster Lite system that, I assume, is running correctly? If not, there may be a problem with the ZIP we aren't handling yet.

If you find the ZIP is bad, please fill out a Support Ticket and attach it to it, describing the problem you experienced. We'll dissect the ZIP and find out what other "error trap" we need to add. We already have 11 error traps to capture all sorts of problems reported to us over the years.

[Telecaster]

The files (ZIP) are fine......Hoster 5.01 works fine on my other netbook.The 5.01 demo of Hoster Lite Just will not work at all on the Alienware system other than when I mouse click to start the song the AUDIO will start .I have been trying everything for the last 2 days for hours at a time.Can the video card cause all the issues I am having???........the no video I can see if its the NVIDIA but if i try to mouse click any features at all on Hoster Lite it freezes and I have to close it using the task manager.
I only have a few weeks to get it working on the Alienware system or I will have to send it back.I know you guys are hard at correcting this issue and I undersrtand the frustration.I bought the Alienware system for the power to run Hoster.I will not use it for anything else if I get it working.I knoow this by no means your fault but the Problem is $1500.00 is a lot to pay for a system I cant use.So I will hold out hope for a week or so and see what happens......

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Telecaster

The files (ZIP) are fine......Hoster 5.01 works fine on my other netbook.The 5.01 demo of Hoster Lite Just will not work at all on the Alienware system other than when I mouse click to start the song the AUDIO will start .I have been trying everything for the last 2 days for hours at a time.Can the video card cause all the issues I am having???........the no video I can see if its the NVIDIA but if i try to mouse click any features at all on Hoster Lite it freezes and I have to close it using the task manager.
I only have a few weeks to get it working on the Alienware system or I will have to send it back.I know you guys are hard at correcting this issue and I undersrtand the frustration.I bought the Alienware system for the power to run Hoster.I will not use it for anything else if I get it working.I knoow this by no means your fault but the Problem is $1500.00 is a lot to pay for a system I cant use.So I will hold out hope for a week or so and see what happens......

I wonder if you had a bad download ?
Try un-instaling it, re-download again then install.

Other than that unless you really need it on your other net book at the moment. Unistal from the net book over the Internet (Providing your version Allows this) then reinstall the full program to the new computer.

If it still acts up the same then you will know there is something amiss with the new computer, then you will have to uninstall again from new computer and reinstall on your old net book.

Might seem a lot of bother but it would rule out any problem with the demo.

Whatever you do make sure to be on line while you do this and don't do it if you have a show in the next few days just in case there is a problem.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Telecaster

The files (ZIP) are fine......Hoster 5.01 works fine on my other netbook.The 5.01 demo of Hoster Lite Just will not work at all on the Alienware system other than when I mouse click to start the song the AUDIO will start .I have been trying everything for the last 2 days for hours at a time.Can the video card cause all the issues I am having???........the no video I can see if its the NVIDIA but if i try to mouse click any features at all on Hoster Lite it freezes and I have to close it using the task manager.
I only have a few weeks to get it working on the Alienware system or I will have to send it back.I know you guys are hard at correcting this issue and I undersrtand the frustration.I bought the Alienware system for the power to run Hoster.I will not use it for anything else if I get it working.I knoow this by no means your fault but the Problem is $1500.00 is a lot to pay for a system I cant use.So I will hold out hope for a week or so and see what happens......

Did you make sure and go through the required changes for Windows 7? Just wondering because you haven't said anything about that. Link to those changes are here:
http://www.mtu.com/upgrades/hoster/windows7-changes.htm
May not help but can't hurt to try.

[Telecaster]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Did you make sure and go through the required changes for Windows 7? Just wondering because you haven't said anything about that. Link to those changes are here:
http://www.mtu.com/upgrades/hoster/windows7-changes.htm
May not help but can't hurt to try.

Thanks for your interest and input ddouglas
I tried it all ...and in some case more than once......Hoster Lite will not work on the Alienware system I have.Admin says it is likely a problem with the NVIDIA card.I even considered loading Win XP on the Alienware system but changed my mind on that.I think the technology in the Alienware system is playing havoc with the program.....NVIDIA card or whatever.Sadly if something doesn't develop in the next week or so to correct this I will have to send the Alienware system back.Currently Im waithing for MTU to enable my REG code......