CSA & ENH

[MourningStar]

My current display setup is the Main window, Album Art & Video (both same size and one on top of the other), Playlist Editor, Classic Spectrum Analyzer and Enhancer Wrapper v1_01. (image attached)

1.1 - Currently the Classic Spectrum Analyzer (or any other visualizer I assume) activates when playback begins if the box is checked. Since it does not close when playback stops is it possible for it be there, i.e. 'activated' without playback starting it at the next session? All other windows (art, video, playlist etc.) are there at next startup. Why not visualizers?  I do notice that if I 'pause' any media that is playing and then exit the app, at the next session the visualizer will appear. It also always appears on next startup if I shutdown the app with a streaming, online radio station playing, stopped or paused. For now, doing this is an acceptable work-around if a mod of the app for this is too cumbersome.

1.2 - Not always but often enough to be annoying, when I exit the session (ALT-F4 or via the Main Menu exit) only the visualizer closes. I then have to Task Manager > End Process on the 'Not Running' Wacup task.


2 - Enhancer will not appear in new session after close of previous session. I always have to manually clik Menu > Options > Preferences  > Plug-In > DSP ... and the weird thing is  the only way I can get it to appear is to first tap the 'Streaming Source' dsp then tap Enhancer then it appears. Again, not really a show-stopper, but inconvenient nonetheless. (image attached)

The one good thing is that all settings are saved
.
Note: I do not have issue number 2 with oem Winamp 5.666

-Marc.

[dro]

Visualisation (and dsp) plug-ins are a bit of an oddity as until they're started, they're not loaded most of the time which is why CSA isn't visible until you've checked that option / manually started it & the Winamp core loads it. You're not the only one to mention it & I've something in mind but I need to do some deeper changes to do it.

As for it hanging on closing, that would indicate something has gone wrong but we'd need to try & track it down & replicate it (which is easier said that done).
Enhancer not running correctly would make me wonder if its the reason for the on-closing issue especially if it's selection as the current DSP isn't being maintained (I do try & manually set that but there's still a lot of Winamp's own preferences handling code that's running which can at times override / fail to notice my changes which leads to me having to do some workarounds).

I also think there might be an issue with the Enhancer wrapper and running it under the WACUP portable mode as I believe you're doing which could be a likely cause of the on close issue. I'll need to find out the code for that plug-in & check it over & see if it's acting up as I suspect its doing. As I've previously had it installed but only under a normal install & not a portable one (it's not a plug-in I actively use so is not surprising I might have missed it having issues).

-dro

[MourningStar]

dro - thank you for your reply. I will try the non-portable install and hope that resolves these issues. However, I do plan on installing it in it's own directory, see what happens and report back

[MourningStar]

I have done a full non-portable install to C:\WACUP\

The issue (2) with Enhancer does not exist any longer with this install. I have used this plugin ever since it's release and was super-jazzed when someone created the wrapper. To be perfectly honest, I must confess that this plugin is the sole reason I use Winamp. That is how great and important it is to me.

I will leave issue 1.1 in you/your team's skilled hands.

There is no change with Issue 1.2, the anomaly remains. fwiw, I have attached a screen cut of the task manager displaying the processes. Are they correct?

[dro]

It seems like I'd started on a v1.1 update for the wrapper but I'll need to finish those changes off which I think should help with the portable mode issue (I can see some issue with the older build of the plug-in but I've yet to try & debug it fully).

With the hang on close, does it happen if enhancer is not present / has been disabled from being loaded?

-dro

[MourningStar]

... With the hang on close, does it happen if enhancer is not present / has been disabled from being loaded?

-dro

hmmmm, ... I have NEVER run Winamp without Enhancer. In fact I installed Enhancer immediately after WACUP, before even playing the first tune. As stated in 1.2 the issue is random, so, I suppose I could give it a go. I will let you know.

(also, I found it startling that when I installed Enhancer the installer automatically populated the install path with my newly created C:\WACUP\ folder! ... spooky.)

[dro]

The install folder thing is to be expected since the aim is to behave like Winamp so there's a commonality in what is used in the registry re: uninstall information - because plug-ins use that to work out where to try to install & so I've made use of that detail.

I've attached a test build of the v1.1 update of the wrapper plug-in which just needs to go into the WACUP\Plugins folder. It will only work in a WACUP install due to leveraging it to reduce code duplication & ensure that the paths it's trying to use & a few other things are the current version of them compared to ~6 yr older versions of some of my common code.

-dro

[MourningStar]

OK - it appears the crash issue is not present if Enhancer is not present. I don' think CSA & ENH want to get along with each other. I will try your test build and report back.

[MourningStar]

No change in behavior, issue remains. Issue exists in Winamp as well. I think in Winamp it is 5.666 because prior to that all my visualizers got along well with Enhancer. Another thing I notice is that the issue does not appear if I do not make Enhancer active. I noticed it first when I went to change some presets. Now I notice that if I merely tap it to make it active the issue surfaces. Hope this helps.

[MourningStar]

(ability to modify above post is disabled)

I forgot to mention another odd Enhancer behavior that I all but ignored until we began this topic (It also behaves this way with Winamp) -  it is that when I close Enhancer via the 'X' in the upper-right of Enhancer the window disappears but I notice that it is still running because the 'enhanced' sound continues. AND if I close/exit Winamp in this state the next session has the 'enhancer'-sound but no Enhancer window displayed. I also do not know what other way to terminate Ehancer as there is no 'quit/close' option that I know of. This was never an issue to me because, as I indicated, I never play Winamp without Enhancer, so was never a big deal until now, when I want a visualizer  to run.

[dro]

I'll keep trying to see what I can replicate on my side but it's likely its something about how they're interacting from just being loaded & what they & Winamp tries to do on closing (if you're seeing it with a plain 5.666 install then that points to the plug-ins &/or Winamp core than necessarily anything I've done directly). At least the test build didn't cause other issues from the looks of it.

With the second post, it's just a matter of it being loaded then it's something about how the plug-in works. Sadly there's no code for it & is why I had to do the wrapper unless it's something with the wrapper that's then also leading to the issue. Plug-ins are a blessing & a curse at times & that they mostly work is often luck at times

The closing action of the window whilst it still working is what the native Enhancer plug-in code was built to do & the only way is to deselect it as the active DSP. It might be possible to do a bit more hacking so if the window is hidden (as that's all the close does) then the method that does the processing gets skipped but I don't know if that's a good default behavioural change to make by default.

-dro

[MourningStar]

...  it's likely its something about how they're interacting from just being loaded & what they & Winamp tries to do on closing ...

yeah, as I said they do not want to play nice with each other (like my grandsons when they spend too much time with each other).

-thank you

[dro]

I can replicate the issue with Milkdrop & it appears to be a thread deadlock when the Winamp core attempts to request stopping the plug-in. This is going to take some more digging to work out if I can a) also replicate with CSA and b) determine a solution that can work (I need to take over vis handling at some point but wasn't planning on doing it just now but maybe now is as best a time as any).

-dro

[MourningStar]

thank you dro. For me it is not a show-stopper. This issue has led me to several different procedural steps I can take to avoid the issue all together. Your attention to this is most appreciated and I am not disappointed if you decide to shelf this at this time.

[MourningStar]

...  (I need to take over vis handling at some point but wasn't planning on doing it just now but maybe now is as best a time as any).

-dro

I don't know if this helps but I forgot to mention that I DO NOT disable the built-in visualization.