[johncarm]

It's pretty obvious right away when using JRiver on Mac that it's awful software.
 
It sounds good and is the only thing that does what I need, such as play FLAC and DSD files, and provide a good way of browsing files at the same time.
 
However, the user interface is an overcomplicated mess. Things weren't too bad until I tried to use JRiver to update some tags. First it hung, and I had to force-quit it. Then I discovered my external drive, the one holding my music library, wouldn't mount. I tried to run Disk Repair and it wouldn't complete. The drive file structure was seriously damaged. I was eventually able to repair the drive... only to find that 99% of my files were gone.
 
Fortunately I had a backup. It's not completely up to date but I can get back most of my library.
 
I just moved to Mac from Windows, and I never expected this much trouble. Not only is JRiver a piece of ****, most audiophile-oriented programs on the Mac are expensive and generally badly designed.
 
On Windows, all you have to do is download Foobar2000 for free and never look back.
 
I thought Macs were the cool computers for audio/video guys!

 

[StudioSound]

It's far more likely that the drive failed than JRiver somehow damaging it by tagging files.

 

[Cinder]

Well, it could be a combination of the two, honestly. It seems unlikely that the drive would just nuke itself randomly when JRiver was running on it, and it also seems unlikely that JRiver could cause a failure on a perfectly good drive.
 
My theory is that JRiver put an already shaky drive on its knees by putting it under a ton of read/write stress at once. Either way, it's ****ty design on JRiver's design team's part.

 

[haywood]

Well, it could be a combination of the two, honestly. It seems unlikely that the drive would just nuke itself randomly when JRiver was running on it, and it also seems unlikely that JRiver could cause a failure on a perfectly good drive.

My theory is that JRiver put an already shaky drive on its knees by putting it under a ton of read/write stress at once. Either way, it's ****ty design on JRiver's design team's part.

You can blame jriver for ****ty ui design but you can't blame them for making file system calls.

My guess is the directory structure was corrupted somehow and then jriver hung when trying to manipulate the many files. The thing I'd be concerned about is that it could reoccur because we don't really know how it happened. As an external the likelihood of it getting improperly dismounted increases. If the drive passes s.m.a.r.t. then I'd make sure it's using a journaled file system, check the system diagnostics to rule out hardware / memory failure (cmd + d when restarting I think) and maybe run periodic checks with disk utility to verify the directory structure until you feel comfortable it isn't happening again. And of course always dismount that drive before powering down, etc.

 

[Cinder]

Well, you are correct. There is no way to do what it needs to do without making file system calls. However, it should be done so in a "polite" manner, not in gigantic bunches, which is how I suspect it tries to do it normally.

 

[jherbert]

Communication between the drive and jriver is handled by the operating system, which should take care of balancing a load in case this has to be balanced. Which should not be the case if an application reads or writes files. > drive failure -or- > invalid file structure, which might be due to killing jriver and the operating system not handling this properly. 
 
Also, there is no "polite way" to make calls to the file system. 

 

[ExtremeGamerBR]

Your drive was probably broke. Only write/read (even a lot of) on a drive by a media player don't cause this per se.

 

[Cinder]

I see. That does make sense.

 

[514077]

  It's pretty obvious right away when using JRiver on Mac that it's awful software.
 
It sounds good and is the only thing that does what I need, such as play FLAC and DSD files, and provide a good way of browsing files at the same time.
 
However, the user interface is an overcomplicated mess. Things weren't too bad until I tried to use JRiver to update some tags. First it hung, and I had to force-quit it. Then I discovered my external drive, the one holding my music library, wouldn't mount. I tried to run Disk Repair and it wouldn't complete. The drive file structure was seriously damaged. I was eventually able to repair the drive... only to find that 99% of my files were gone.
 
Fortunately I had a backup. It's not completely up to date but I can get back most of my library.
 
I just moved to Mac from Windows, and I never expected this much trouble. Not only is JRiver a piece of ****, most audiophile-oriented programs on the Mac are expensive and generally badly designed.
 
On Windows, all you have to do is download Foobar2000 for free and never look back.
 
I thought Macs were the cool computers for audio/video guys!

Well, I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, but, I'm pleased as pie to learn that someone hates JRiver as much as I.  In my old age, I'm tired of finding more and more unusable pages and programs on the internet.
All hail Foobar.
 
Mod Edit - Removed section that is against ToS / posting gudielines  

 

[Brooko]

Whilst I feel for the OP, I would be cautious saying this is solely a JRiver issue - the OS and even the hardware "could" also be at issue.  If OP hasn't already, it might pay to discuss what happened with JRiver, and see if they can investigate further.  It may assist them with making their software better (if it is at fault).
 
FTR - I use Linux as my main OS at home now, and JRiver has a paid Linux version available.  It's not as polished as their Windows version but it works really well - and best bit is the ability to manage sample rates without having to dip into the vagaries of the Linux audio system.
 
Foobar is also excellent - but I can't say I'm having the same issues as some of you gentlemen on my choice of hardware and OS. 

 

[Cinder]

I agree. I slapped an Linux dsitro on my laptop for university and run Foobar on it too. So smooth.

 

[Thenazgul]

Well, I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, but, I'm pleased as pie to learn that someone hates JRiver as much as I.  In my old age, I'm tired of finding more and more unusable pages and programs on the internet.
All hail Foobar.

Mod Edit - Removed section that is against ToS / posting gudielines  

HQplayer + Roon.

 

[514077]

Whilst I feel for the OP, I would be cautious saying this is solely a JRiver issue - the OS and even the hardware "could" also be at issue.  If OP hasn't already, it might pay to discuss what happened with JRiver, and see if they can investigate further.  It may assist them with making their software better (if it is at fault).

FTR - I use Linux as my main OS at home now, and JRiver has a paid Linux version available.  It's not as polished as their Windows version but it works really well - and best bit is the ability to manage sample rates without having to dip into the vagaries of the Linux audio system.

Foobar is also excellent - but I can't say I'm having the same issues as some of you gentlemen on my choice of hardware and OS. 

My post was an uncalled-for meltdown for which I apologize. JRiver, for economic reasons, decided that it was unproffitable to add code to the UI that would have made it accessable by blind users running a screen-reading (talking) program. While I can understand the reasons, sometimes, it gets me right here from time to time.
But, this forum was not the place for me to stamp my foot and whine. Whoever flagged my post also gets my apologies for disrupting his/her enjoyment of this site.
Thanks:
Kevin