Dancer.exe Application Prevents Your Computer from Entering Standby or Hibernate (822765)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, when used with:
    • the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
    • the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP SP1

SYMPTOMS

When the Dancer.exe application that is included with Plus! Digital Media Edition is active, your computer cannot enter Standby or Hibernate as specified in Power Options in Control Panel. You can manually put your computer in Hibernate by using the Shut Down option on the Start menu.

CAUSE

Microsoft Plus! Dancer monitors a particular audio line on the recording mixer device to do music detection. Plus! Dancer monitors this audio line so that it knows when to start dancing and when to stop dancing when the application is configured to Dance Only When Music Plays. This detection on the audio line is also used for beat matching. The operating system creates a thread that runs at the highest priority to perform this real-time audio task. This thread runs continuously and supplies the data to a subroutine to determine if there is sound or if there is noise on that audio line. The high priority and the constant execution of this thread prevent the system from entering Standby or Hibernate because of the CPU usage.

WORKAROUND

  1. To work around this problem, click the Dancer icon that is located in the System Notification area.
  2. Click Exit to close the application.
  3. Alternatively, you can put the system in Hibernate. To do this, click Start and then click Shut Down. Select Hibernate in the drop-down list box. Click OK.

STATUS

This behavior is by design. The Dancer.exe application requires a mechanism to know when to start dancing.

You would expect the active listening thread to quit when the Dancer.exe application is configured to Stop Dancing to permit the operating system to enter Standby or to enter Hibernate as specified in Power Options. However, as long as Dancer.exe is active, the computer cannot enter Standby or Hibernate. Microsoft is investigating this issue. More information will be released as it becomes available.

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:12/27/2003
Keywords:kbprb KB822765