Karaoke Forums

Waiting for tried and true is always the way to go when it comes to production. I just can't see where there are enough units out there for any of these programs to get there, but I am sure they can get close if the developers are sending out regular updates.

I use Acronis at home on all our PCs. It is a back up\imaging solution. I highly suggest having an image you can go back to if a new version is installed but doesn't work well for you.

As these programs seem to be pronged to freezing\closing, I suggest asking for a feature where the audio\video engines are loaded is a second executable with it's own threading. That way, if a song is playing and you have a main screen crash, the song keeps playing to the end and the singer doesn't know what happened. I only had a few times where things went wrong (Usually a KJ issue), but that was always a nice "feature" to rely on with the Winamp engine on the first version so I wrote the new one with that same feature. At least then you can just restart the program after a crash and pick right back up where you left off.

The freezing/closing issues have long been resolved (Jan 2012) and Karma had the feature of continuing to play until the end of the song, in the event of a freeze up. But I have not seen it in action because I have never had a freeze/close since then Dec 31, 2011.

The host who uses karma on his setup pretty much has to reboot karma every other show it seems like.

i wonder if he has updated recently. *ponder*

That's what their archive is for...

http://www.karaosoft.com/Archive.aspx

so you can always go back to a previous version if you have a problem.

The only time I typically have to reboot is if I run across a corrupt .ZIP file. Not saying it never happens, but it is pretty infrequent these days. We run over 100 Shows a month with very few issues with Karma. I am one who upgrades to the current version within a week of release as well. All of our system are running the most recent release of Karma as of last night.

_________________
-Chris

I would bet that he has not, because those days are long over. Updates are free forever. I run an old Toshiba AMD dual core with 2 gig ram, and a embedded video chip, using XP Pro 32 bit. I have no problems running a flawless show week after week. I have 2 other laptops that have way more power with newer OS and I don't find it necessary to use them.

Duplicate Post... Please Delete

You're brave for updating all your systems at once. I downloaded the 2015.0.1 last night and within an hour there was an update for 2015.0.2. I've been playing with it on my backup system and it seems very stable so far. I think you're even braver for still keeping your files zipped. I unzipped all my files a few years ago and haven't looked back. I did it mainly because it really speeded up using KJ File Manager, but noticed files seemed more responsive to play quickly, not just in Karma, but other players too.

Since you have multiple rigs, you should at least try it on one of them. I think you'll notice an improvement.

I too have all my files unzipped for KJ File Manager processing reasons as well. You can accomplish much more unzipped, and with storage being so cheap why not?

Storage on 1 machine is cheap. Storage on 14 is costly no matter what kind of deals I get.

I have played around with zipped/unzipped. Zipped files are much easy to work with. Unzipping them across all of our machines would consume a large amount of time (that I don't have a lot of these days) for no improvement in the operations of the show.

I think every laptop we have is 4 gigs or more of RAM and quad core now so they handle ZIPs just fine.

_________________
-Chris

HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR SINGER'S HISTORY TO YOU AS A KJ?

Karma 2015.X.X.XX

With the change in the 2015 version from stored xml to a full Access DB I believe Bob has made a fundamental database design error in the treatment of Singer's Histories.

His approach with the new database is that a song in a singer's history should be automatically deleted when or if the song file is deleted. This keeps the tables in sync and you will never get a file not found error when you click on a song in the singer history.

My view is that Singer History is valuable data that should NEVER be deleted unless I choose to delete it on purpose.
Just because a song file no longer exists does NOT mean that the singer never sang that song.
The singer's preferences for any particular song ie DiscID, Pitch and Tempo settings are IMPORTANT!

Bob's current table design deletes that information with absolutely no warning to the KJ.

A properly designed database should not do that. It should instead have an error handling routine that presents the KJ with options to address the issue of the file not found.

I would like to get your opinions on this problem here in this forum.
HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR SINGER'S HISTORY TO YOU AS A KJ?

Even worse, If you decide to move a bunch of song files from one location to another or you use a 3rd party program to rename a bunch of files, ANY of those files in ANY of your singer's histories will ALL be immediately deleted from their respective singer's histories when you rebuild your media database.

This is totally unacceptable behavior for me.

As of version 2015.0.12 here is the problem in detail . . .

**** VERY IMPORTANT! First Make a copy of your KarmaDB.mdb file in your Documents\Karma Data folderbefore you try this.
You will need it to get back all the singer histories you are going to destroy!

Open Karma
Click Menu
Click media
Highlight any folder that you know contains a lot of songs that have been sung and are in singer histories.
Click remove folder
As soon as you click remove folder, Karma Nicely removes All of those songs from your media database AND merrily continues on and deletes All of those songs from any singers history that had them in them.
At this point you could browse and reselect the folder you just removed and/or browse to the new folder if you had moved the files to a different location.
Click rebuild Database
You now have ALL of your songs back in your media database list but if you check your singer histories you will see that you have lost ANY songs that were in the folder you removed earlier.
Close Karma

To get your singer history back just delete KarmaDB.mdb from your Documents\Karma Data folder.
Find the copy you saved earlier in your Documents\Karma Data folder and rename it KarmaDB.mdb

KARMA works pretty well, but it is so woefully limited as to what a hosting program could and should do.

Mr. Bob makes more damned excuses for suggestions sent to him...

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DJ Don

I agree with you completely. I ended up losing my entire singer history, and the only way I can access it is by stripping all the xml code from the main.xml file and cross-referencing the singers' names to their id numbers in the singer history folder. Irritating as all get-out, especially when a customer wants to see their history to decide what to sing on the fly, or when they ask if there was a key change assigned to a particular song they sing. Grr.

_________________
~Cindy
Karaoke. Because it's a lot cheaper than therapy.

Bob gave a detailed notice on FB as to what to do to prevent these problems and here it is:September 28

Another heads up for the upcoming Karma 2015. Yes, it's still on track to be done by Tuesday, but I want to limit the onslaught of questions and comments on release day due to all the changes. Due to the data format switch from XML files to a fully relational Access database, there are some fundamental changes in the way you will treat your media files and database. The old XML format was great for it's speed, so in switching, there will be some trade offs. With the old model, if you deleted or changed the name of a file outside of Karma, the file would still reside in the singer's history, and usually cause you a "file not found error" when attempting to access it. With the new relational model database, the moment you update the database, if the file is no longer there or changed name, it's record is deleted just like before, but in a relational database, that record is now RELATED to the history record of that file, so all history associated with that file will also be deleted automatically. With the old format, when you updated the database, it simply would read all the files and build a completely new media database and wipe out the old one, but leave the histories intact. If we kept this method, all histories would be wiped every time you update the database. That being said, the new update database code has more phases, including the first phase which now scans the media database and flags every file that still exists to make sure those records DON'T get deleted along with their histories. Now before you get upset at the thought that editing records outside of Karma will now take more time to update the database when you're done, I've decided to add the ability to edit any given media record from within Karma itself, and that feature will be in the new Karma before the initial release. So, if you see a file in your media database with a misspelling, you can edit it right there, without going through the hassle of editing it separately and updating the database each time. This new database format will enable ALL KINDS of new features and I plan to have most of them done by the end of the year. One of which will be the ability to manually add single files to the media database without the need for a complete rescan. Once again, I need to remind you that Karma's single license price will increase by $20 to $119. As always, this is a FREE upgrade for existing users, so again, if you want to purchase any additional licenses, now would be the time. Also, and THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. PLEASE DO NOT UPGRADE MOMENTS BEFORE A SHOW. This is a MAJOR change in Karma's data and underlying code, and although I test things thoroughly before releasing it, I HIGHLY recommend not upgrading until you have time to play with it at home and check everything out before running it at a live show. I'm still amazed at the amount of messages we get from people that always contain the phrase "I have a show in an hour help!". If you tinker with your machine just before a show and have a problem, well, you may not want to hear this, but that isn't exactly the brightest thing to do. This new release is just the start of some really exciting features coming down the road, but please be smart, especially with this first release of the Quick note. IF you should have ANY problems with the new release and want to switch back to the 2014 version, there's a copy of the latest 2014 version in the archive on our web site, AND, when the new Karma converts your old XML data files, it WILL leave them in place and enable you to downgrade to a previous version quickly. The old XML files will NOT be updated by the new Karma, so if you switch back, your data will be the way it was the moment you first upgraded, so keep that in mind.

Cindy -

The only thing you can do is notify Bob of the problem (be prepared to be called an idiot, moron, or clueless) and ask him to please find a way to fix the issue (which he believes is not an issue).

Do a forum search here on my username dsm2000 to read the other threads concerning this issue.


There is an easier way to get back all of your singer history up to the time you converted but you will still lose any new singers and singer history you have added since the conversion as well as any songs and singer history that Karma does not see during the conversion that have been moved or renamed.

Find the KarmaDB.mdb file in your Documents/Karma Data folder. rename it to KarmaDBOld.mdb.

Run Karma and it will do the conversion process all over again bringing in your XML singer history files again.

dsm2000, I feel I have more than covered this topic so good luck.

I did follow all of that, and you are free to feel however you want.
@dsm2000: Yes, I've been in contact with Bob about this. My issues began with an update I allowed to install at home, after which I got errors popping up. When I attempted to rename a folder location (for my DJ music) in the media database, it wouldn't let me rename it; instead I had to delete the folder reference and re-add it with my desired specifications. After I did that, my entire Karma history disappeared for my SINGERS and karaoke, leaving only my DJ files. Bob is aware of this, said he will check into it, but I'm not holding my breath.

_________________
~Cindy
Karaoke. Because it's a lot cheaper than therapy.

Cindy - Do you have Microsoft Access installed on your computer?

If so, you can open the Database in Access and remove the cascade delete checkbox in the table relationship between the media folder and the Singer History table.

That will stop Karma from automatically force cascading any folder deletions from the media table upward to the singer history table.

Karma will still not show any singer history for songs that do not currently match up with a file in the media list but the history for those files is still in the table and can be viewed in Access.

Not a great solution but at least it protects your history.

Thanks! I used Access when I moved the location of my karaoke files by going into the MediaFolders table and adjusting the path accordingly. That was the only way I found to move them without losing my singers' history.

_________________
~Cindy
Karaoke. Because it's a lot cheaper than therapy.