Windows Media Player Plugin

[spauka]

Hi,
I tried to run the plugin on windows 7 and I had a different error to the one you had, which is described here.
http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2011
I originally compiled the program on Visual Studio 2010 on Windows XP, and this seems to be a new issue, however the quick fixes, just to summarise are to place the file "LCDSmartie.exe.config" (attached) into the root of the LCD smartie directory (i.e. alongside LCD smartie), or use a version of DNBridge compiled in Visual Studio 2010, which is also attached.
Either one of these should solve your issue, assuming its the same one...

[spauka]

Hey,
Ive noticed the bug you described above (the one where WMP does not close after launch), and I can confirm I have this issue too. After looking into it some more, Ive traced the problem, although from what I can gather there is no --REAL-- solution....

The bug itself stems from the way its possible to extract the currently playing information from the file. This is done through what is called Windows Media Player Remoting. This is where a process which would like to use Windows Media Player functionality such as playing movies or music, but does not want to ACTUALLY implement a full media player can rum windows media player to play their files. This can be accomplished in several ways, from spawning a completely seperate instance of windows media player or attaching to the main windows media player process. If we attach to the main windows media player process, and then use windows media player to begin playing files, we can read out information from the files playing in windows media player.

The bug itself comes from the fact that by doing so, Windows Media Player thinks that LCDsmartie has become another instance of windows media player. And while there is another running instance of windows media player, the main process cannot close since if that instance wants to play a file, or do anything else through that connection, the main windows media player process has to be running. You will notice that if you open something like Windows Media Center, the exact same thing will occur. The windows media player process will open in the background, waiting for a file to be played through it, until you close Windows Media Center. This also means that if you play music in windows media center and open windows media player, then the song you are playing will be playing in windows media player as well.

There are a couple of solutions in so far as they will allow windows media player to unload however none of them are really ideal.
1. If there is nothing playing, close the connection for about 10 seconds, which should give windows media center time to close. This leads to increased latency if you do begin to play a new file, and is awfully hacky due to a number of assumptions that must be made.
2. Check if there is an active window attached to the windows media player process. Although, the downside of this is that minimising wmplayer down to the start menu will not work. This does not effect windows 7 since the option to minimise down to the start menu is gone thanks to the new start menu, however since users of windows XP and Vista may still use this feature, im reluctant to do it by this method.

Because of these, I'm hesitant to implement them. If however there is significant demand, then I will be more than happy to do so. So PM me, or reply to this thread if you want this feature.

Although, I have no problems with closing the main player sill showing playing. When i close the window, it shows 2 (media paused), which should allow you to implement an action...

[MaD2ko0l]

Hi,
I tried to run the plugin on windows 7 and I had a different error to the one you had, which is described here.
http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2011
I originally compiled the program on Visual Studio 2010 on Windows XP, and this seems to be a new issue, however the quick fixes, just to summarise are to place the file "LCDSmartie.exe.config" (attached) into the root of the LCD smartie directory (i.e. alongside LCD smartie), or use a version of DNBridge compiled in Visual Studio 2010, which is also attached.
Either one of these should solve your issue, assuming its the same one...

hiya,

I have tryed putting both the files in the lcd root directory and now i am getting the following error:

load of plugin failed: LoadLibrary failed with #1114: a dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed


any ideas?

[spauka]

Hi,
Im afraid I cant replicate. Is there an error message you get on your LCD screen as opposed to the one in the dialog box?
Make sure that the capitalisation of the plugin is correct. It has to be "wmpcom" not any other capitalisation.

[MaD2ko0l]

Hi,
Im afraid I cant replicate. Is there an error message you get on your LCD screen as opposed to the one in the dialog box?
Make sure that the capitalisation of the plugin is correct. It has to be "wmpcom" not any other capitalisation.

on the lcd it just says:

DLL: Cannot load plugin

[spauka]

Hi,
As a last resort, I have recompiled the plugin on Windows 7. Delete all the files related to WMPCom (including Interop.WMPLib) and replace with the new one. Let me know if it works...

[MaD2ko0l]

Hi,
As a last resort, I have recompiled the plugin on Windows 7. Delete all the files related to WMPCom (including Interop.WMPLib) and replace with the new one. Let me know if it works...

no luck, just says the same thing.

Have also just tryed this on another version of windows7 and its telling me to install .net v4.0 thats with lcdsmartie 5.4 and with smartie 5.4.1 it says the following:

The program can't start because MSVCR71.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.


have tryed this on windows7 32bit and 64bit now and getting similar results.

the 32bit version was a fresh install and i have installed .net v4 on it but stil have the same problem.

any ideas on anythign im missing?

[MaD2ko0l]

rihty...i have this working on windows7 64bit.

i have mixed and matched the files/plugin and also added that missing dll to systemWOW64 and system32.

but i still cannot get this to work on the winows7 32bit which is the fresh install which is the pc i need it to be working on.

i am now getting a "Dll: no brigde func" displayed on the lcd and also the following error pops up

load of plugin failed: plugin wmpcom.dll had an exception during init: external exception E0434F4D

does that help any further?

[MaD2ko0l]

ah..i got it working...it was .net v4.0...removed it and now its working.

will check out what files i used and where i put them and will report back.

thanks for al the help

[fuze]

Just wanted to say thanks for this plugin. It was hell getting it to work on Windows 7 64bit but somehow I figured it out. (and dont remember what i did LOL)

Is there a way to skip the screen slide in LCD Smartie when i dont have anything playing in WMP? That would be nice instead of saying "Nothing playing"