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Xion unusable after RDP session

PostPosted: December 1st, 2010, 3:05 pm
by mooty
A minor issue, but thought I'd mention it... I often connect to my desktop PC from my laptop via Remote Desktop. Windows does some kind of wild voodoo magic during RDP sessions to allow the client PC to playback audio generated on the host PC -- I believe it actually disables the host PC's "real" audio device, and sets up a virtual audio device on the host PC which pipes the audio stream down to the client PC.

Anyway, if I have Xion running (playback stopped) on my desktop machine, and I connect to the desktop PC via RDP, then eventually disconnect, then the next time I sit down (physically) at my desktop PC and click "Play" in Xion, things go pear-shaped. First, Xion displays an error message stating that it can't open the audio device (sorry, I don't have the exact message handy but it's easily and consistently reproducible after an RDP session) and then it goes crazy jumping through the playlist, trying to play each file, being unable to do so, jumping to the next entry, and so-on until you close it.

Upon restarting Xion, it works fine. I don't believe it's specific to a particular Windows version (I assume it's due to Windows yanking the audio device out from under Xion), but I've reproduced it under Windows Vista and 7.

BTW, thanks so much for the new release -- great to see Xion is still being actively maintained!!

Re: Xion unusable after RDP session

PostPosted: December 13th, 2010, 10:32 pm
by Cliff Cawley
mooty Wrote:A minor issue, but thought I'd mention it... I often connect to my desktop PC from my laptop via Remote Desktop. Windows does some kind of wild voodoo magic during RDP sessions to allow the client PC to playback audio generated on the host PC -- I believe it actually disables the host PC's "real" audio device, and sets up a virtual audio device on the host PC which pipes the audio stream down to the client PC.

Anyway, if I have Xion running (playback stopped) on my desktop machine, and I connect to the desktop PC via RDP, then eventually disconnect, then the next time I sit down (physically) at my desktop PC and click "Play" in Xion, things go pear-shaped. First, Xion displays an error message stating that it can't open the audio device (sorry, I don't have the exact message handy but it's easily and consistently reproducible after an RDP session) and then it goes crazy jumping through the playlist, trying to play each file, being unable to do so, jumping to the next entry, and so-on until you close it.

Upon restarting Xion, it works fine. I don't believe it's specific to a particular Windows version (I assume it's due to Windows yanking the audio device out from under Xion), but I've reproduced it under Windows Vista and 7.

BTW, thanks so much for the new release -- great to see Xion is still being actively maintained!!


Hi mooty!

Yes I've experienced this same issue. I've managed to 'fix' Xion when I return to my desktop by opening the config, switching to the Output and selecting the non-virtual driver once again, but its far from optimal.

Hopefully there's a way I can detect this sleight of hand that windows does, and then when I detect the device is gone, switch back to the default device.

Cliff :)

Re: Xion unusable after RDP session

PostPosted: December 17th, 2010, 10:00 pm
by logokas
This bug can be produced in other ways aswell. It's all related to the output device detecting, and you could probably squash it easily.

I should also mention, that Xion used to know when i switched Windows audio settings from Stereo to Surround 7.1, and expanded the output to all the speakers, but no longer does so.