Monday 30 October 2017

Avoid High Sierra

Too many problems are now emerging with macOS High Sierra, and I must strongly recommend that BitPerfect Users do not make this update.  Sorry if this has come along to late ....  my bad.

In order of importance:
  • High Sierra has totally broken AirPlay under BitPerfect
  • High Sierra causes iTunes to crash unexpectedly 
  • High Sierra can cause BitPerfect to skip on some computers
I will post any updates in dues course

Tuesday 10 October 2017

iTunes 12.7.0 crashing

I am getting several reports of iTunes 12.7.0 crashing.  This crash only seems to happen when BitPerfect is running, and also seems to be associated with the new macOS 10.13 (High Sierra).  Although the crash seems to happen only when BitPerfect is running, the reports seems to be consistent that it only happens after a listening session is over, and not while music is actually playing.  In my own case, when I see this problem it is usually when I look at the system first thing in the morning and find that it has crashed overnight.  Also, it is both infrequent and intermittent - my own system has not crashed in nearly a week.

The iTunes crash reports do not provide any indication (at least not to us) of how the interaction with BitPerfect is causing this crash.  BitPerfect's communications with iTunes has not changed across several generations of BitPerfect, and is performed consistently with Apple's meager documentation on the subject.  However, one this that has changed with macOS High Sierra is that a new message is now flooding the console log, but that seems to be an irrelevant warning rather than an error per se, so it is hard to see how that can be the culprit.  But is seems reasonably likely that it is probably a symptom of the same issue.

A related issue is that after a period of inactivity, BitPerfect seems to "lose its connection" with iTunes.  It is as though somewhere inside macOS and/or iTunes a "handle" to the communication channel between BitPerfect and iTunes has been reset, and nobody has seen fit to advise BitPerfect and/or iTunes.  When this happens, it is necessary to quit BitPerfect and then separately quit iTunes.  Sometimes iTunes refuses to quit completely (the 'dot' remains below its task bar icon), and it has to be "force quit" via Activity Monitor.

Any information BitPerfect users can provide that helps to shed light on this issue would be most welcome.  Please e-mail us at support@bitperfectsound.com.