Sound Movie Player getting stuck

jrhooker

I'm experiencing something very strange that I haven't seen before.

I have a couple of very simple patches using sound movie players...really basic sound cueing stuff. But for some reason a couple of my sound cues are getting stuck on and nothing I do takes them out...clicking into a blank scene, clicking out of scenes altogether, even taking out EVERYTHING in that scene doesn't take out that cue. It plays indefinitely and no scenes are activated. It's like a ghost.

Has anybody experienced anything like this? I'm on OSX Mavericks with the new Izzy pre-release (so maybe that's it).

Also, the strange thing is that this started happening ages after I built the cues...out of nowhere.

Skulpture

That is strange. Could you share one of the audio files so we/I can try?

What version of isadora are you using also?

jrhooker

I'm using the latest pre-release that Mark sent me because I was having crashes when using Core Audio.

I've attached the dopey sound file that was the most trouble, but I've had the issues with others as well. Actually, it wouldn't let me upload an mp4...or does that mean the file is somehow corrupted (although it works in other applications). Maybe I shouldn't be using mp4s with Isadora. Honestly, audio isn't my forte, so please advise If it's my issue. I just prefer the Sound Movie Player over the Sound Player so I use mp4s. I use avis for video files.

And last night I had an issue where a sound player wasn't stopping a file from looping even with loop enable off. Attaches is a screen recording showing that. Yeah, that was too big and I've got to run to work.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Jake

Same thing happened to me last year, an hour before the show. I was working with user actors. Quick and dirty solution for me was to open up the user actor, cut all nodes, exit the user actor, paste the contents directly into the scene file and delete the user actor. This was on .6 and Snow Leopard. Never saw that behaviour again though

Michel

@jrhooker

please .zip the file, then an upload is possible. Not all file types are allowed to upload.

Best
Michel

mark

Dear jrhooker,

I've sent you a mail regarding your bug report. Have been coding all day and so haven't checked my mail yet, but will do so first thing tomorrow. I most definitely want to get to the bottom of this.

Best Wishes,
Mark

jrhooker

Thank you all. Full day of work and headed to rehearsals now. I zipped this really fast to get started.

Mark, thanks for your email. I'll have time to respond to it more fully when I get home tonight. For now, here is the zipped sound file causing trouble. I'll send you the full .izz file when I get back.

29c531-cell-phone-vibrate.mp4.zip

mark

Dear jrhooker + All,

JR discovered a subtle bug in Isadora, which I will fix. But I want to give everyone the explanation here so, should you come upon this problem, you can work around it.

Below is the mail I sent to JR.

------

OK, you've found an honest to goodness bug in Isadora -- and quite a subtle one at that. But I can help you work around this until I get a fix.

In case you care to understand the gory details, read on. Otherwise skip to WORKAROUND below.

This is your logic to start playing the sound file 5 seconds after entering the scene "Crazy All Things." (Which is, by the way, totally reasonable.)

![](http://troikatronix.com/troikatronixforum/uploads/FileUpload/16/524934-toggle-actor-logic.png)

In the file you gave me, the last time you exited the scene "Crazy All Things" the on/off property of the Sound Movie Player was on. (Isadora always remembers the last value for any input when you exit a Scene.) So, the next time you're about to enter the "Crazy All Things" scene, Isadora will see the on/off input as on. So, that means Isadora will expect to play that movie as soon as you jump into the scene.

2) You trigger a jump into the scene. Because the **on/off** input is currently **on**, this causes the sound file -- **Cell Phone Vibrate.mp4** to preload -- this is a process to bring the movie into memory so it can start playing instantly.

Once the movie is ready, Isadora starts to play it. As soon as the first frame of video is received, the jump to the next scene is executed.
You go into "Crazy All Things" scene, where have the Toggle actor's init input set to off. Because of this setting, this actor sends an off (a zero) to the on/off input. This tells the movie to stop playing. But because of the instantaneous nature of this sequence -- a "start playing" command followed immediately by "stop playing" command -- Isadora doesn't actually stop playing the file. (That's the bug.)
You've got a sound file playing when it shouldn't

WORKAROUND

Don't use the Toggle actor to turn the movie on and off. Instead...
Go into the scene. Click the word 'on/off' in the Sound Movie Player. You'll get an inspector box like this.

Check the "Initialize" checkbox. Ensure the value to the right is off.

Use Trigger Value actors to turn the sound on and off.

This solves the problem, because the when the "Initialize" checkbox is checked, it forces the on/off input to the Sound Movie Player to off before Isadora makes its decision to preload or not preload the movie. Since on/off says off at that time, it does not preload the movie.
When the Trigger Value sends a 1 (an on) to the on/off input, the movie is preloaded and starts to play. All is well from that point on.

jrhooker

Thanks, Mark!

This is enormously helpful. Thank you, as always, for your diligence. I'll try the workaround later today (working on different scenes at the moment).

j