usb sound getting winamp stuck

**skywise** · 06-10-2006, 08:44 AM

I have a Sony headend which has a USB audio input that I use with my carputer.
This works great except for when the headend is turned off or switched to another input. When this happens the USB device is switched off which causes no end of problems to winamp.
Winamp tends to get quite annoyed and locks up, requiring a forced kill to get rid of it. (or a reboot)
Normally I'd be a good boy and stop my music, but this doesn't work, winamp will still get annoyed, even if it's not playing anything.
It sometimes doesn't even help if I exit Roadrunner, winamp will often just hang out in the background (and get stuck when the USB audio leaves)

I'm not sure of a good solution for this.
Could RR kill off winamp more firmly when it exits?
Maybe a little program/script that kills/restarts winamp? (and even better, tied to the exit/return of the USB soundcard)
Anyone happen to know of a way to make winamp be not quite so needy of the sound card? (the video player in RR works just fine, all I have to do is leave it's screen before a planned outtage of the headend and it'll come back perfectly)

Sky

**guino** · 06-10-2006, 11:23 AM

When you're handling with Adding/removing audio devices, you're basically screwing with the windows mixer. It's not unusual for applications that depend upon the mixer to act up when you're doind such things.. think about it, it's like you're playing music (or prepared to play music), then you go and yank the sound card out or add another one in (or one of it's components).. talking about that a few years ago would be just nonsense. Anyway, there're commands to close/open winamp, just look them up in skin commands.txt, but to be honest, I think even if you do that, RR's mixer will be screwed up and it may not work after that either.

**skywise** · 06-11-2006, 01:50 AM

I managed to find two solutions to the problem.
The first was to add a STOP button to the audio playing screen.
This would let winamp let go of the USB device and not mind if it vanished/returned.
This works fine if know ahead of time that the stereo's switching away from the carputer. If it happens by accident, I wrote a little bat file which kills winamp and restarts it. I tied that bat file to a button on roadrunner so I can restart winamp anytime I need to.

Thanks Guino for the great program, it's the perfect solution for my carputer.

**liquid_smoke** · 06-11-2006, 02:17 AM

which sony hu do you have?
i have this same problem sometimes, but only when i disable my internal bluetooth on my laptop, but winamp dosent hang it just stops playing the music. Its weird cause its not using bluetooth audio at all, its just prob confused cause there were 3 audio devices and now only 2. Normally i just click next track or restart the current track and everything is fine. Maybe you have a dsp plugin for winamp thats also freaking out when you remove the usb audio and thus hanging winamp.

**skywise** · 06-12-2006, 01:06 AM

Liquid:
The HU itself isn't anything too special, a CDX-M8805x.
The cool bit is the xa-300 aux input box. It links via unilink and has 2 RCA inputs and one USB input which shows up as a stockstandard USB sound card to XP and doesn't need drivers at all.
As for winamp, I'm sure winamp itself is ****ed off when the audio device it's playing out of vanishes while it's using it. Stopping playback before turning off the stereo works perfect, the laptop can sit for a 1/2 hour with everything else turned off and when I turn on the HU and hit the play button, off it goes.

**liquid_smoke** · 06-12-2006, 03:42 PM

ah, ok thats why it sounds familiar, i remember looking at that aux box a while ago but never got it cuz i replaced the HU (with another sony no less). But thinking about it now, i still kind of need one.

Do you only have this problem with winamp? Does wmp also freak out?