This evening we had a bug blatt at empeg towers. I promised a bottle of rather good wine to the developer who blatted the most evil bug, but it's hard to judge such a thing. Therefore I am throwing it open to the BBS - please vote for your favourite bug fix of the day!

This is a new poll - I missed out the RDS AF fix from my first attempt! Please vote again if you already voted in the first one.



Voting will end at 9am GMT on Friday 17th January 2003.

Thanks!

I sure hope this one already died a horrible death, just like my player did when I stupidly left the time setting in "clock" mode?

I didn't even know about most of those I will have to go try them before the next release

To clarify, these are the bugs we fixed tonight. There are 38 bug fixes in v2.00-rc1 which will be announced real soon now.

Rob

Woot!

Seriously, the only bug that bothers me is the one I mentioned in the other thread and apparently has been heretofore unknown. Well, that and the crashes from running the clock.

It is great that you've fixed all these bugs. Nice job to the team.

-Biscuits

Ok, since you are polling I have voted for the bug I guess took the most work hours to fix.

I recon the forum should collectively figure out how to collaboratively buy you guys an Indian takeaway for your next bug-blatt/feature-creep evening (to encourage you all to do this more often!).

Who added the previous visual button? He deserves the wine!

In fact it is a button code, which you can map to a physical button or stalk controller with Hijack. Mark Lord requested this feature, but I'm not saying who implemented what until after the poll

Rob

RDS AF should scan and re-tune in the background

I wonder if the timing of this fix is connected in any way to PCAs impending tuner kit readiness?

Patrick doesn't have that much influence - he hasn't bought anyone pizza in ages!

Rob

I just wanted to drop a hearty THANK YOU to you guys for once again going the extra mile and working on a discontinued product for all us blokes (i KNOW you are just doing it because you use the players too....=).

Best Purchase Ever. PERIOD.

WOW! Thanks for taking the time to work on the empeg software, especially since SB keeps you guys so busy!

hey, i'm voting for the USB/XP bug, even though i don't use either. i'm tired of seeing those posts in the Bug Reports forum!

--dan.

oh, and by the way, you guys rock!

--dan.

Even though I never have a problem with my empegs (a true testament to the quality of this product) I'd like to say thankyou for all effort you're putting in for 2.0rc1. Just have to unpack all my boxes of crud to find a null modem cable now!

Just a tuner and then my life is complete!

Ooo, you should wait for 3.0 then...

Hugo

i dance for you.

Aw, don't taunt me like that

I sure hope this one already died a horrible death, just like my player did when I stupidly left the time setting in "clock" mode?

Yes, it's fixed, as I mentioned in the other thread about it over in Technical. But because I fixed it last week it isn't eligible for a bottle of wine.

Peter

Hmm, I'm seeing a bit of a "Ralph Nader effect" here. Because there are more choices on the player side, the player vote is being split up.

Wow, 83 votes. That has to be a record for this BBS. I smell fraud!

Woop! Woop! I don't know anything about wine, so I can't even really send you one without possibly sending you something nasty....

I don't know anything about wine, so I can't even really send you one without possibly sending you something nasty...

I wouldn't worry about it! We all got plenty of pizza anyway.

Peter

RDS AF should scan and re-tune in the background

So who spent their time sitting at the end of the runway at Stansted making sure all the RDS AF stuff works well in the presence of large radar signals then...

We haven't yet. The alpha team can do that

Rob

We haven't yet. The alpha team can do that

Great, more delays!

(tongue planted firmly in cheek)

So if the bug fixed by the winner of the bottle of wine turns out to not be fixed, will his prize be revoked, and, if so, will reverse peristalsis be involved?

Empeg Mk3 or emplode v 3?

The only thing that bugs me (although it's not really a bug) is that it sometimes takes the player a few seconds before it actually starts playing a track. This happens especially when skipping tracks, but also frequently enough during normal play. This problem was introduced with the 2.x version of the software, so I believe (hope) it's fixable.

This started happening to me after I installed my 2nd HDD. I was so certain that the skip-track delay was due to the additional drive spinup time that I've never bothered searching the Faq for confirmation but I'm sure I saw references to this problem here before.

This is one of the reasons to get 2.0 out of the way - so we can move on to 3.0 and the all new all singing all dancing audio filter network. It should never glitch, short of hitting the player with a sledge hammer.

Rob

I would prefer that it left the singing to the recording artists. Feel free to let the Flancedoor people continue dancing, though.

Feel free to let the Flancedoor people continue dancing, though.

And hopefully in a future release, dancing in sync with the beat of the songs, as has been suggested in the past.

I'd vote, but I hadn't noticed *any* of those bugs.

I'd vote, but I hadn't noticed *any* of those bugs.

Me neitha! Sniff!

When I insert a song with jemplode I do get a stutter, which I assume is close enough to the visuals glitch that I voted for that one. Honestly, none on the list seemed to be any that I had.

You can vote for the one that sounds hardest to fix.

Voting is now closed, and the results are:

Emplode: emplode consumes 100% CPU during download/synchronise
28 (26%)
Roger Lipscombe

Emplode: USB connection under Win XP
19 (18%)
Mike Crowe

Player: RDS AF should scan and re-tune in the background
17 (16%)
Toby Duckworth

Player: Volume Ramp doesn't work after power fail
12 (11%)
Toby Duckworth

Player: Need a "button code" for "Prev Visual"
8 (07%)
Toby Duckworth

Player: No pause icon after reboot
7 (06%)
Peter Hartley

Player: Distortion in EQ with certain settings
6 (05%)
John Graley

Player: Settings not retained between menu invocations
3 (02%)
John Graley

Player: Player screen flickers when inserting/enqueing tracks from emplode
3 (02%)
Mike Crowe

Emplode: Plays MP3 hyperlink is broken
1 (00%)
Roger Lipscombe

Player: Clock visual still truncated in 2.0b11
1 (00%)
Toby Duckworth

Congratulations Roger, you get a bottle of wine for your services to synchronisation.

Rob

I'd vote, but I hadn't noticed *any* of those bugs.

Me neitha! Sniff!

really? you've never noticed a missing pause icon on reboot, or that the volume ramp was jerky at best in the car? not exactly earth-shaking bugs, but it's hard to imagine missing them if you use your player much.

--dan.

I feel for Toby - beaten by the British "First past the post" voting system...

I use mine every day in the car to and from work and at home in the evening and have never noticed a missing pause icon - I guess I never turn the empeg off when paused.


And I never thought of the volume step as a bug, it gives me enough time to kill it if it is going to be too loud, or it just launches as I get out of my driveway, thus making the loud pedal work better

The voting seems rather unfair to me. I understand the contest rules. If however, you look at the number of votes per bug fixer rather than per bug, Toby Duckworth should have won. Will you consider at least a beer or a really cheap bottle of wine for him?

Duckworth should demand a recount.

Yeah, besides, who uses Emplode?

The only think that causes me any problems, is the sony stalk interface. I get quite a long delay sometimes when using it. It seems to be ok when im using the tuner (although i havnt used it much so cant confirm that). Also seems to do it whether i have HiJack installed or not.

Do many other people have this problem?

Yep, can confirm that problem.
I use the Stalk interface almost exclusively and its a bit erratic at times in terms of responding to my requests, sometimes its really fast and others really slow/misses button preses.


.

I have leanred to live with the button response delay since getting my tuner.

If this is a software issue, then its the #1 bug for me.

I have a feeling its a hardware / signal translation issue, but I have absolutley no evidence to support this theory

long delay between what and what? pressing a button and having the event acted on?

the stalk interface plugs into the tuner, right? perhaps the data being passed when you're in tuner mode from the tuner to the empeg has to flush or something before events from the stalk get flushed, and that's what you're waiting for?

In reply to:

---

long delay between what and what? pressing a button and having the event acted on?

---

Yep, thats it in a nutshell, happens in player mode almost exclusively - when I'm in tuner mode the buttons work fine I think.

And thats whether you're on AM or FM band.
I use AM occasionally when the cricket is one as thats the band they broadcast on - and also where the BBC World Service Radio is, otherwise its moslly FM.

The buttons I use most are next and prev track (inner ring on Stalk), and I skip through songs I don't like.

I have considered the possibility that the empeg is trying to cache the new song you just skipped to - but the buttons seem to run slow even when the song you're playing is well and truly cached from disk as you've been listening to it for half its length without touching any buttons.
[and I have the disk icon active on my player so I know when its accessing the disk and when its not].

I also considered that the stalk buttons may be wearing out or something, but I find that other buttons go slow too [like mute] which I use once or twice a day (max), the "source switching" button (on the end of the stalk) hardly gets used either and its also slow, so I doubt its the particular mechanism wearing out in the stalk and getting sloppy or not switching properly.

I do notice that it tends to be most erratic when the car is warm - so maybe the temperature is making the resistors go "off value" more than is expected, thus causing the tuner to read the wrong resistor values - this would however result in the odd "wrong button" - and that happens very rarely in my case.
But we are not talking major heat here - player says 30-45 degrees C and my car is air conditioned so if the stalk was getting to hot, the cold air from the vent would cool it down within minutes and make it work "better" - but I don't see that either.

The whole stalk control feels sluggish sometimes, and not at other times.

When you use the front panel buttons they respond pretty quickly so its something to do with stalk processing.

I run Hijack on 2.0B13 - with no IR mappings and my Hijack is fairly recent (about 4 behind the current I think).

I think it was better on 2.0B7.

Im pretty sure its a software issue. I remember when i first got my tuner (as soon as it was released). I cant remember which version of the software i was running but it worked perfectly for quite a while.

>Player: RDS AF should scan and re-tune in the background
>17 (16%)
>Toby Duckworth

Toby you're my hero!

The voting seems rather unfair to me. I understand the contest rules. If however, you look at the number of votes per bug fixer rather than per bug, Toby Duckworth should have won.

He'll get over it.

Rob

Not often we see the cold, heartless, managerial side of Rob's personality...

What´s the contact info for your favorite pub again? I might want to sent some money over for a pint or two (who might be receiving it/those is up to me exclusively, of course).

cu,
sven.

Try This Link for "The Wrestlers" Pub
(where the Empeg chaps seem to practise their product design,drinking and curry eating sessions).

I vote for fixing the seek tool pointer on tracks more than 4hr 39 min. Here.

"The Wrestlers" Pub

No Shepherd Neames: God's own beer, not my idea of a pub!

Oh no! Now I want a curry because of you!

- Trevor