Potato Burned me, Can't trust it

[MartyATS]

I've been using Potato for more than two years, finding it enormously helpful for webstreaming.
However it burned me on a show this week, damaging my professional reputation and my show's reputation.

The error message was the ASIO audio driver had an installation problem. That wasn't true, since my audio interface (a Behringer XR18) and driver was indeed working.

The system was working just an hour earlier, but when I opened the green room to let my panelists in 30 min before showtime, I had no audio through Potato. I tried reinstalling the audio driver, reinstalling Potato, with the requisite number of reboots, and still no audio. Meanwhile I missed the scheduled start time, and my panelists and attendees were on their own, wondering what's going on. I finally had to route the interface around Voicemeeter, to Zoom directly.

The inability of Voicemeeter to negotiate the latest Windows updates is documented in the Community Forum, but it should be prominently posted on the Support page until it is resolved.

Critical software that can't be trusted to work and requires extensive research to recover cannot be used in a video production environment when time is money and the show must start on time.

[Vincent Burel]

well, we are not responsible of that. we also work in audio pro domain (TV, Radio, Live show...)
and when we integrate our application in a PC, the PC is validated with a fixed setup (no update allowed - no new application). otherwise one day it won't work anymore. (this was true under win7, it is unfortunately more true again with WIN10 & 11).

With Win10 and automatic update, you cannot say if your computer will be ready to work from a day to another. this is not specific to Voicemeeter and any component can be impacted.

You must know that Microsoft decided to make automatic update able to reinstall audio driver, knowing that they are not able to re-install non-pnp audio driver by design. And this is still not fixed. more info: https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=442

Today Voicemeeter is more reliable than ever, but Windows is creating new problems on each update.
If you want to complain, send your request to Microsoft...

Where The Error message about ASIO driver was coming from ?

[xRYANx555]

Windows updates do indeed sometimes break third-party desktop programs running under it. That's why industrial PCs often have automatic Windows updates turned off by IT staff until an update can be tested in a controlled environment before being applied to crucial equipment such as the broadcast PC described here. If you would like to disable automatic Windows updates so that you have more control over when they are applied (perhaps at a time when you can comfortably test them and have downtime to address any issues or roll back the update if necessary) then here is a guide to help you set that up:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-stop ... windows-10

[MartyATS]

What is VB_Audio doing to get Microsoft to pay attention?

Since Windows updates are an almost daily necessity to address new security threats and other issues, and because diagnosing and fixing the problem can get too technical for many users, this seems like an existential issue for VB-Audio.

Since this has been a known problem for many years, what is VB_Audio doing to get Microsoft to pay attention?

Is simply advising people to "complain to Microsoft" sufficient, as there are so many places to shout into a void that no one will ever hear? If you can identify a product manager or specific department email, then you can organize an email and social media customer campaign. Numbers have power.

Voicemeeter is an essential modern-day communications tool.
Thank you

[Vincent Burel]

Well, we are in regular contact with Microsoft guys, through official support tickets (we pay for that) or the wdmaudiodev mailing list:
https://www.freelists.org/post/wdmaudio ... pdate-2004

But they usually do not take seriously the problem I report and even if for example Matthew van Eerde is "in charge of gathering data from the field to measure the reliability and performance of the Windows audio system" he is usually never aware about what i'm talking about...
I made an article about that here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/3576445779102835/

A good example is the famous memory management bug in win10 in 2018:
https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=519
hopefully this bug was not related to the audio department, otherwise it will never has been fixed...

You must understand that Microsoft decided to re-install audio driver in Windows 10 Update procedure (why re-installing audio driver ?), knowing the fact that non-pnp audio driver cannot be re-installed correctly (since the beginning). they was knowing it cannot work.

In last January (2022), Gary Daniels (Senior SDE, Microsoft Windows Audio) said to Microsoft support that the Windows Update now fixes the non-pnp audio driver installation bug, since Windows 19H1... Ok! So we made the test with a Windows 10 20H2 with Voicemeeter and VB-Cable well installed and follow the upgrade to Win11 21H2... and audio driver were merged together, like usual... meaning they did not validate anything or they just like to say what the support wants to hear.

So i've sent all report files and log and i'm waiting for a reply... since 1995 in fact

[MartyATS]

Hi Vincent,
The difference between hearing and listening....

Might I suggest a tactic I've seen successfully used elsewhere, marshaling the power of your community.
Reach out to your user base and organize a complaint campaign. Identify an email address or a particular support forum that you know will reach people high enough in the company, and have everyone send a similar (but not identical) message that describes the problem.

I realize that since Voicemeeter has no Plug, it can't be a PnP application. I'm curious as to why Dante wouldn't have a similar problem?

Thanks,
Marty

BTW, I have been recommending your products on my weekly web show "Hybrid Minisitries Tech Forum" ever since I discovered it a year ago.
I discovered it as a member of Alex Lindsay's Office Hours community. Are you familiar with it?

[Vincent Burel]

This is what we already suggest in our famous topic about this problem:
https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=442
or on twitter too:
https://twitter.com/VB_Audio/status/1323553098250543105

There is surely workaround inside driver we could implement in a future update too but Voicemeeter being expected to manage every kind of audio devices, it would make more sense to fix the problem on Windows side.

i don't think i know the web show you mention, but i will take a look, thanks anyway for your interest.

[MartyATS]

That's okay, but I see three problems with this method of reporting that minimizes it's effectiveness to resolve your problem (after 4-1/2 years):

1. It's not an organized campaign. You're leaving it up to chance that people will report it and at random times. Also, you have no analytics that you can cite to Microsoft.
2. the article doesn't say where to find the Feedback Hub, leaving it up to readers to look for it. Many won't bother.
3. The Feedback Hub is an installed app that requires being logged into a Windows account. Many people will be rightly suspicious of what this app will otherwise do within their computers because as an app it can grant itself many privileges and hooks. And it is not run by MS staff. Look at the comments and reviews. I won't install it, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

Do you know if the person at the email address mateer@microsoft.com is still valid, responding to it, and still in a position to address the problem?

Thanks

[Vincent Burel]

any Microsoft contact will ask you to send your bug report to feedback hub or windows support forum... and they will ask you to provide pnp log file or/and audio log file... which is anyway complicated to do for a common user.

anyway i will think about your proposition... but such campaign is very far from the developer job...

[MartyATS]

Feedback Hub is not a Microsoft product, and is not managed by Microsoft staff. Therefore it is an unreliable communications channel to them. And it is impossible to reach a support person unless you are paying for a support plan.

Not only would it be complicated for the common user to create these logs, since these problems only occur during Windows updates, they cannot be predictable or recreated. A log would have to be running continuously to catch it. Even with auto-updates turned off, updates can happen in the background during any reboot. That's what happened to me.

However you as the developer can definitively describe the problem.