I get stutter/jump when starting flac files.

kaiser_sosai

I'm also observing this problem on multiple installations (W10). Seems only on FLAC. Directsound and wrapper both seem affected.
Anything I can do to assist troubleshooting Jonas?

jonas

Can you try the latest build from here https://builds.strawberrymusicplayer.org/windows/, (currently StrawberrySetup-0.7.2.211.g22bfbab8-x64.exe). Select "Stream audio to WASAPI" in backend / output.

jonas

Does it occur only when starting playback, or does it occur when it automatically plays the next track too?

jonas

To check whether the problem is in Strawberry or GStreamer / the system itself, you can use a command line utility called gst-launch-1.0.

Download and install https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/pkg/windows/1.18.0/mingw/gstreamer-1.0-mingw-x86_64-1.18.0.msi

Open Command Prompt.
Then run:

cd \
cd gstreamer\1.0\mingw_x86_64\bin

Test a local FLAC file:

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=c:/music/flacfile.flac ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! directsoundsink

(Use / instead of \ in paths).

Test a stream:

gst-launch-1.0 souphttpsrc location=https://stream.radioparadise.com/mellow-320 ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! directsoundsink

warbaque

@jonas it occurs every time, regardless if I start playback manually or if it plays next automatically.

There's been some changes since last time I tried (I think it was 0.7.2-55). Back then stuttering happened around 1 second mark, now (0.7.2-211) it happens almost immediately and is less noticable.

warbaque

and no problems with

.\gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location='Z:/music/Queen.Discography.Flac/Queen - Greatest Hits II (1991) [FLAC]/03 - Radio Ga Ga.flac' ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! directsoundsink

warbaque

Played around with settings:
Wrapper audio sink for automatically detected audio sink
-> small stutter
Output to a sound card via Direct Sound
-> no stutter (actually, I think there might be a really small stutter but ~3 seconds after start)
Stream audio to an audio capture device through WASAPI
-> small stutter

jonas

Strangely I can't reproduce this on 2 different Windows 10 laptops tested with different soundcards and DAC's.
Can you see any spikes in CPU usage in task manager when this happens. Do you got anti-virus software, other audio software or other software installed that could possible interfere?

warbaque

No spikes in CPU usage, and no other software interfering that I could think of. I get same problems if I use either of my audio solutions (headphones + xonar essence st soundcard or hdmi to external amp)

If I use "direct sound" -setting it's very hard to notice, but there is small skip or stutter with flacs (around 3 second mark when average bitrate is still going up). I can't hear it clearly with all songs, but they definitely sound wrong (few millisecond skip, hard to estimate)

There's also short pause after pressing "Play" after "Pause".

warbaque

It seems that I got less problems when I tried to record it, but two examples can be heard at around 16 and 28 second marks: https://katiska.dy.fi/temp/music/Strawberry Music Player 2020-10-05 23-46-23.mp4

cripy

Hi, I wanted to report that I'm having the same problem not only with FLAC files but also with MP3s in 0.8.2. I'm using 64-bits Windows 10 and the two other media players I have available (Firefox and VLC) plus the gst-launch command mentioned above don't show any stuttering.

If I remember correctly, an install of 0.7.2 on the same computer and OS showed the same thing when playing music via the Tidal option built in (the only feature I tried then).

jonas

@cripy I think that is a different issue. Try increasing the buffer duration to 6000 or 8000 ms.

jonas

@warbaque
A few things to try:

Try setting the buffer duration to 0, it should disable the buffering entirely and the watermark settings won't be used.
Increase the process priority. Open task manager, right click on strawberry and select "Set priority" and "High"

cripy

@jonas Problem persists

adityasubathu

It's happening to me too. It happens on mp3, flac and m4a aac on GStreamer while listening through bluetooth (AAC & SBC). I am running the latest git version built from source on 13th Nov.

Operating System: Manjaro Linux KDE
KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.75.0
Qt Version: 5.15.1
Kernel Version: 5.9.3-1-MANJARO
Backend: Gstreamer 1.18.1-1

it's definitely a problem with Gstreamer because switching to vlc fixes the issue.

jonas

For the FLAC/Windows problem try this one:
https://files.strawberrymusicplayer.org/StrawberrySetup-0.8.3.78-FLAC-TEST-x64.exe

jonas

I actually notice a problem now with Strawberry and GStreamer 1.18 on Windows where it periodically makes a small "pop" sound (possible jump), not exactly sure what to call it, it occurs circa 4 seconds into the track, but sometimes elsewhere too, similar problem occurs when unpausing consistently each time.
I have only tested with FLAC files, but see that problem only occurs with the FLAC codec, playing the same file works fine using libav codec from within Strawberry. I can't reproduce the problem with gst-launch with either codec.
The problem is gone when downgrading GStreamer to version 1.16.2. So I tried to compile gstreamer using the latest code from git too see if the problem has already been fixed, and the problem appears to be fixed. I can definitely tell it by unpausing. So I'm going to use that until the next stable version of GStreamer is released.
So hopefully this will resolve also the issues reported to by @warbaque and @kaiser_sosai.
The buffering issues are most likely a different problem.