Issue with Rockit last night at wedding

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MADNESS

MADNESS

Well-Known DJ
Dec 20, 2006
2,293
49
65
Florence, AZ
www.primetimedj.net
Last night something happened to me using Rockit that I have never seen happen before. Actually I had several last night.

Well things were going OK, well I noticed a couple times Rockit was dragging loading songs. But then as I was loading a song for the cake cutting Macafee flashed on the screen for a second, at least that is what I thought it was.
Then a notice came up stating that rockit could not read the library. The library was there but not able to be read. I shut down the computer quickly and unplugged the hard drive and restarted. It still would not read the library. It took 15 minutes to rebuild it. I was able to work around it easily, but it really through me off.

What would cause this to happen, is my ghard drive going out or what. It is a Lacie 500 gig hard drive.
 
MADNESS said:
Last night something happened to me using Rockit that I have never seen happen before. Actually I had several last night.

Well things were going OK, well I noticed a couple times Rockit was dragging loading songs. But then as I was loading a song for the cake cutting Macafee flashed on the screen for a second, at least that is what I thought it was.
Then a notice came up stating that rockit could not read the library. The library was there but not able to be read. I shut down the computer quickly and unplugged the hard drive and restarted. It still would not read the library. It took 15 minutes to rebuild it. I was able to work around it easily, but it really through me off.

What would cause this to happen, is my ghard drive going out or what. It is a Lacie 500 gig hard drive.
Click to expand...

You may have simply lost your connection to the drive (or it could be worse)...

I certainly hope you are not keeping the library DB on an external drive -- that's a no-no... You can keep the songs there, but you shouldn't keep the library there.
 
Mcafee is crap and you shouldn't be running antivirus software during a show. You need to get rid of Mcafee and get AVG. Much better program and your computer will run better. I hope you have all your music files backed up too. It's also best to shut off your internet connection/wifi during a show.
 
Even if you lose your Library you can load songs directly from the hard drive and folders.

Also always put a folder with your standard party songs on your C drive or desktop (to fall back on in case of an external failure).

Show computers for KJ or DJ work should NEVER be connected to the internet period! In fact strip them down to just the basics needed to run the software for the show itself. Then you will NEVER need a virus program of any type!

If you feel the need to download songs during a show do it on a seperate computer (although for the life of me I can't think of a single reason you would need or want to!
 
MADNESS said:
I have not heard of AVG, but I am going to look it up. Why should you turn off your internet during a show, just curious. I buy music as it is needed during shows. Will that effect Rockit? It hasn't before
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Usually, internet access will not bother Rockit (in fact, Rockit accesses the internet itself, if connected). If you have a browser on a page with Flash though, it can eat up most of yer CPU, and slow down everything.


The only thing that will usually bother my child, is the ability to access the hard drive where the songs are stored. If your anti-virus is scanning that drive (or any drive) while Rockit is attempting to load or play a song -- you will get hiccups.

Most anti-virus uses "locks" on drives when they run, even in the background. This prevents other software from accessing, while it does its thing.

Rockit uses a streaming protocol for its decoder -- meaning it constantly has to read from the drive where the song exists, while playing it. It does not read the entire file when it loads it. Anything that interferes with the reading, will slow down the program.

Set yer anti-virus, so that it does not try to scan any of your music drives (or any drive), when yer playing. It should have the option to only scan incoming stuff, if you are really in need of downloading at a gig. You should also have no browsers running during a gig (especially those with Flash content) -- unless you are adventurous... ;)


BTW -- ESET is the only anti-virus software I have found, that does not interfere with other programs when running. :)
 
MADNESS said:
What did you mean by the... Or it could be worse??
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Meaning yer hard drive could be crapping out...

In my experience though, drives usually crash fast, and un-graciously!


They can easily get bogged down though -- the aforementioned anti-virus stuff; bad connections to the drive (loose USB plugs, etc.); other programs indexing the drives during idle time; fragmentation...


Because of all the aforementioned variables (plus how slow externals are), I only use them for backup -- not main source. You can build a library on yer internal drive, that will have most tracks you might use at a gig, and then use the external for odd stuff. Makes everything faster :)
 
Madness - Your primary laptop should be for playing music solely, not surfing the net, buying songs, etc. Use your back up laptop for that. I won't even plug a usb key in during a show. So many variables...that can cause glitches, crashes, etc.....I would also have my library on the laptops hard drive so you avoid disconnection problems etc....It could have been something as simple as a power drop in the venue that caused the xternal to flake out...
 
I think I agree with every one. I also think I may be having an issue with the hard drive. I have been noticing it have more and more issues loading songs at times. I do have a back drive. I may look for another primary. I also agree that I am using it for more than I should. I will rectify that right away.

Do you keep word or excel on them so you can keep planners, etc??
 
My thought is that there should be nothing on your work machine but music and the program to play it. No internet (ie: disabled), no virus protection, etc.

Make sure when using an external drive to have a USB 2.0 compliant device, port and cable. Also plug your drive into the same port each time.

Rockit is about as "stripped down" of a program as you could possibly run. I would suspect it was the victim in this case and not the culprit.
 
If you are going to use an external with a power supply I would suggest an APC UPS....$50 and it will prevent those issues where this is a momentary drop/power loss...

I would also be careful with the 3.5 " externals...I've got a WD 160 gig passport.....They supply a 6" cable with it...using any sort of extension makes the drive very susceptible to disconnecting....
 
thatmusicguy said:
If you are going to use an external with a power supply I would suggest an APC UPS....$50 and it will prevent those issues where this is a momentary drop/power loss...

I would also be careful with the 3.5 " externals...I've got a WD 160 gig passport.....They supply a 6" cable with it...using any sort of extension makes the drive very susceptible to disconnecting....
Click to expand...

With the passports just velcro them to the laptop lid and they are good to go!
 
MADNESS said:
Got a question I heard of someone having issues with VDJ after vista SP2 upgrade and his USB connect. Could this be an issue?
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Haven't seen any here (Rockit wise) -- and we did the SP2 upgrade as soon as available.


FYI though:

Since installing VDJ Console (comes with a controller), and ClubDJ Pro -- my dev machine has been having issues with sound cards. It will stop playing music (browser, YouTube stuff, WMP, Rockit, etc.). Requires a restart to function again.

My guess is one of the Codecs and/or drivers they install, although not 100% sure yet... Seems to be doing direct hardware access, which is a no-no in Vista land. Could potentially mess up the USB as well, as I've noticed my drives tend to reconnect a lot now.

The problem did not occur after the SP2 upgrade, it showed up after installing the software mentioned. Could just be a conflict between SP2, and some of the software... If I figure anything out, I'll let ya know :)
 
MADNESS said:
Hey Rick any word on windows 7 and Rockit yet?
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Works fine -- have it running on 2 machines here :)

Can't guarantee MS won't change something between now and Oct 22nd -- but I don't foresee any major issues, since it's Vista core...
 
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