Issues with AnyStream 1.1.3.3 (beta, 64-bit)

[hvergelmir]

Hi,

having used your products for years it took not much convincing to pull out the credit card and purchase your software. However, I immediately ran into issues.

My main system is a Linux and I run VMware Workstation on that for most "Windows needs". Alas, despite using an oh-so-well-supported AMD graphics adapter (WX 7100) I have been unable to get the 3D acceleration feature to work. Nevertheless Windows 10 guests work fine (pretty much all software, including browsers, Visual Studio, VLC etc work fine ...).

Since the website states that trial versions won't work in VMs, I quickly decided to go for a purchase so I could use AnyStream inside my VM within my usual Linux-based work environment.

Alas, when I attempted to start AnyStream inside the (Windows 10 Pro N) VM all I got was a white empty (see attached screenshot):



There's literally nothing one can do with AnyStream this way. There's not even a way to access the main menu or the settings dialog or anything else. So even if you doubt yourself and want to check the settings, there is no way to do that. I don't know what gives, but my suspicion is that you use Qt in a way that has no fallback to non-3D rendering if unavailable. The outcome is (IMO) ... sub-optimal UX.

Starting the exact same VM from VMware Workstation on Windows, the 3D acceleration feature for the VM works and so does AnyStream (as far as I tested). If this is unintentional, perhaps my description will help you figure out what's going on. If (again on Windows) I disable the 3D acceleration feature deliberately for the VM, this causes the symptom I describe above to appear:



So whichever way 3D acceleration gets deactivated, it causes AnyStream to be unusable. Fortunately this is a way for you to reproduce the issue. (I don't quite see how 3D acceleration would be relevant to its function, but I am not its developer so you may have a different view.)

This topic is mainly to report the issues, not to moan about some other encountered shortcomings (including sluggish downloads), which I'd expect to be issues of the streaming services not AnyStream. I was able to download the stuff I wanted (in my case via Amazon Prime), but the sluggish downloads are somewhat annoying since - running on Windows as a host system - I cannot get all the stuff done I want to get done while the stuff downloads. So if the inability to run AnyStream is not a deliberate choice on your part, I'd love to see a subsequent version fix the issue, so it becomes usable in a Windows VM under Linux for me (many thanks in advance and for reading).

Edit #1: I also noticed that due to this issue with the white blank UI, AnyStream sticks around as a process even after you attempt to close it. Perhaps because it's still caught in its startup or yet another assumption about its environment isn't met ... anyway, I solved this locally by having Task Manager open and being a little trigger happy on killing those "zombies".

Edit #2: Solution (found through the helpful responses inside this thread):

Set the following environment variable:

QT_OPENGL=angle

(Make sure to try out the other possible values such as desktop and software, documented on the Qt website ... looking up and setting QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM may also have an effect, but the above was all that was needed to fix it for me!)

 

[hvergelmir]

I encountered more issues with Amazon Prime, but these didn't seem related to 3D acceleration or whatever, so I am listing those separately here. For example when clicking certain links on a video entry (I tried a number of them), caused the progress bar at the top to stall at 100% with "Please wait while the page is being loaded ..." showing, the page to be grayed out and the Back and Forward buttons to become unavailable. The only way to recover from this situation was to close AnyStream and restart it.



(you can see the page grayed out although the state of the buttons isn't as clearly visible this way)

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I'm using AnyStream in Windows 10 1809 LTSC in VMWare Fusion 8.5.10 on OS X 10.9.5, and I cannot reproduce this problem when I manually disable 3D Acceleration.

 

[hvergelmir]

I'm using AnyStream in Windows 10 1809 LTSC in VMWare Fusion 8.5.10 on OS X 10.9.5, and I cannot reproduce this problem when I manually disable 3D Acceleration.

Fascinating. Thanks. So perhaps it also depends on the host (or the guest?). That's why I mentioned that this is Windows 10 Pro N. It's in all cases (host and guest) 20H2, btw. All patches applied as far as they were offered.

Edit #1: did you somehow manage to disable it while the VM was running or did you stop the VM, disable it and then start it again (that's how I did it ... and on the Linux host it would show me that 3D hardware acceleration was unavailable and thus disabled).

 

[Pegasus]

I'm running AS 1.1.3.3 (64 Bit) in a Win 10 Pro (20H2) VM (Host is ESXi 6.7) and everything is working fine with and without 3D acceleration.

I assume you are having the latest VMware tools and HW platform for the VM ?

 

[hvergelmir]

I'm running AS 1.1.3.3 (64 Bit) in a Win 10 Pro (20H2) VM (Host is ESXi 6.7) and everything is working fine with and without 3D acceleration.

I assume you are having the latest VMware tools and HW platform for the VM ?

Affirmative. However, one question comes to mind given you mention a bare-metal hypervisor: does your VM have direct access (PCI-passthrough) to the VGA or so (this would obviate the need for enabling the respective feature, I think)?

For the sake of completeness: VMware Workstation 16.1.2 on the Windows 10 Pro N host and 16.1.1 on the Linux host. VM is at virtual hardware level 18 (VMware Woks 16.x and newer).

However, keep in mind that the requirements list doesn't even list anything related to 3D. So no matter the virtual hardware level if it runs Windows 10 it should generally be fine, according to the product page (as of this writing):

System Requirements

• A Windows compatible PC with minimum 2 GHz Processor and 1 GB RAM
• Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
• Requires a valid account for each streaming provider
• Running AnyStream in a Virtual Machine requires a valid AnyStream license, trial versions will not work in VMs

 

[zero269]

So whichever way 3D acceleration gets deactivated, it causes AnyStream to be unusable. Fortunately this is a way for you to reproduce the issue. (I don't quite see how 3D acceleration would be relevant to its function, but I am not its developer so you may have a different view.)

Hi hvergelmir,

Are you positive that your 3D graphics are being disabled when you run AnyStream within the W10 Pro N on Linux? Just curious, because it's enabled by default for all of my Win10 VMs. Only my WinServers show it disabled by default. This setting can't be changed while powered on, so shut it down and ensure it's enabled. After you power it on, check the settings again once your Desktop loads to see if it's still enabled. If it is, fire up AnyStream and check again.

Does VMware show that your software version is compatible with your graphics card as it relates to 3D graphics? I found this if it helps:

Prepare a Virtual Machine to Use Accelerated 3D Graphics
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/16.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-F5186526-2382-4F4A-8009-3D07773A1404.html

Using the first link in the one above, you can see the Linux requirements.

See Prepare the Host System to Use 3D Accelerated Graphics.
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/16.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-EA588485-718A-4FD8-81F5-B6E1F04C5788.html#GUID-EA588485-718A-4FD8-81F5-B6E1F04C5788

​

I would normally suggest updating your VMware Tools, but that doesn't appear to be the case, else you would see this notification. This is from a VM that I'm deploying 21H1 to right now, so the tools haven't been installed yet.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Edit #1: did you somehow manage to disable it while the VM was running or did you stop the VM, disable it and then start it again (that's how I did it ... and on the Linux host it would show me that 3D hardware acceleration was unavailable and thus disabled).

No, I turned off the VM first, and I could tell acceleration wasn’t working; the Windows UI was considerably less responsive.

 

[dabtap]

also issues here, anystream isnt seeing newer disneyplus episodes in series.

 

[hvergelmir]

Are you positive that your 3D graphics are being disabled when you run AnyStream within the W10 Pro N on Linux?

No, 3D graphics work in general in the guest. But they aren't using the 3D hardware acceleration feature of VMware Workstation.

dxdiag confirms that with or without this feature active, the (guest) system deems 3D capabilities to be present.

Just curious, because it's enabled by default for all of my Win10 VMs. Only my WinServers show it disabled by default. This setting can't be changed while powered on, so shut it down and ensure it's enabled.

I thought so, but wasn't sure.

After you power it on, check the settings again once your Desktop loads to see if it's still enabled. If it is, fire up AnyStream and check again.

Not sure what it is you mean. In Windows terms the 3D hardware acceleration of VMware to the guest translates to availability of DirectCompute. The difference is otherwise only evident if your guest is configured to be extremely visually appealing or the guest is otherwise low on resources. Compare (left = without, right = with acceleration):



Perhaps others could verify with GPU-Z if DirectCompute is shown as active while and if there is a correlation.

Does VMware show that your software version is compatible with your graphics card as it relates to 3D graphics? I found this if it helps:

Prepare a Virtual Machine to Use Accelerated 3D Graphics
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/16.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-F5186526-2382-4F4A-8009-3D07773A1404.html

Using the first link in the one above, you can see the Linux requirements.

See Prepare the Host System to Use 3D Accelerated Graphics.
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/16.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-EA588485-718A-4FD8-81F5-B6E1F04C5788.html#GUID-EA588485-718A-4FD8-81F5-B6E1F04C5788

View attachment 57378​

I would normally suggest updating your VMware Tools, but that doesn't appear to be the case, else you would see this notification. This is from a VM that I'm deploying 21H1 to right now, so the tools haven't been installed yet.

View attachment 57377

I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do. But this topic isn't and shouldn't be about how to enable/disable features on VMware hosts for guest VMs. I have no need for 3D hardware acceleration inside my guest, but evidently AnyStream for some reason does. And since this isn't mentioned in the requirements list for the product, it means either the developers are oblivious to the fact (and so it's a software defect that should be fixed - from their POV) or they are aren't, it's a deliberate choice on their part and the requirements list is simply incomplete/wrong.

That said: yes, 3D works perfectly fine on the (Linux) host and yet VMware Workstation still isn't able to enable its 3D hardware acceleration feature (despite it being enabled for the VM) when starting it up. I have an open ticket with VMware regarding this, and it's been dragging on for about half a year now. So basically the articles you linked are geared towards the scenario in which everything works as expected. VMware Workstation has two different methods to enable said feature, it seems. Both fail (as evident from the log file). They've been trying to fix it and my next step will be to install the latest point release from them and see if that changes anything.

 

[Don922]

also issues here, anystream isnt seeing newer disneyplus episodes in series.

Post a log file. Without it the developers cannot look into the issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cartman0208]

Do you maybe have a "proper" Windows version available for that VM?
The N-versions are missing several features and I read that many software producers don't test their software on that version

 

[RedFox 1]

Even though VMs do not work in the trial period, the forum was here for you to ask your question. This is why we offer a forum, for questions relating to our product, had you asked your questions in the forum, you might have found out the issues that you are experiencing. Windows10N is a version of Windows that I doubt many users are using. That said, maybe if you post a log file the developers will look at it. Without a log file, we cannot help you.

System Requirements

• A Windows compatible PC with minimum 2 GHz Processor and 1 GB RAM
• Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
• Requires a valid account for each streaming provider
• Running AnyStream in a Virtual Machine requires a valid AnyStream license, trial versions will not work in VMs

• I do not see Linux or WindowsN supported so maybe its not a supported function.

 

[0x0x0x0x0]

The problem is that people misunderstand what Windows N actually is, and unless SlyFox* went off and implemented their own DRM, N is pretty much a show stopper, as N doesn't include any DRM nor DRM interop. Luckily, it's easily fixed by simply installing the Media Feature Pack for N editions; it's exactly what I've done when I had N Pro on a laptop and wanted to get AS to run on it. As for the life inside a VM, it's working beautifully with GVT-g, haven't tried with GPU Partitioning under Windows 10 Hyper-V, but I suspect that would be a breeze given it's easier to setup than GVT-g.


*yes we know!

 

[hvergelmir]

Do you maybe have a "proper" Windows version available for that VM?
The N-versions are missing several features and I read that many software producers don't test their software on that version

Not sure why one would deem the N editions improper, but I can certainly install the features you refer to. They're just absent by default, not entirely unavailable, though.

This doesn't make it less of a UX issue, though. Because even if the software relies on such features somehow (I think it doesn't, because running the same exact VM with and without that 3D hardware acceleration enabled does the trick), it should tell me and not present a blank window and a message box telling me to log into the respective streaming provider. Don't you think?

Even though VMs do not work in the trial period, the forum was here for you to ask your question. This is why we offer a forum, for questions relating to our product, had you asked your questions in the forum, you might have found out the issues that you are experiencing. Windows10N is a version of Windows that I doubt many users are using. That said, maybe if you post a log file the developers will look at it. Without a log file, we cannot help you.

• I do not see Linux or WindowsN supported so maybe its not a supported function.

Agreed (on the Windows part), but I equally don't see any mention of any editions, which makes the requirement list say effectively any Windows 10 edition should be supported.

I never expected it to run on Linux nor have I attempted to do so.

That said, maybe if you post a log file the developers will look at it. Without a log file, we cannot help you.

So where do I find it? Because it's not in the usual (documented) places ... so far I thought on account of the fact that the program misbehaves.

The problem is that people misunderstand what Windows N actually is, and unless SlyFox* went off and implemented their own DRM, N is pretty much a show stopper, as N doesn't include any DRM nor DRM interop. Luckily, it's easily fixed by simply installing the Media Feature Pack for N editions; it's exactly what I've done when I had N Pro on a laptop and wanted to get AS to run on it. As for the life inside a VM, it's working beautifully with GVT-g, haven't tried with GPU Partitioning under Windows 10 Hyper-V, but I suspect that would be a breeze given it's easier to setup than GVT-g.


*yes we know!

I'm well aware what the N edition is and I consciously made the choice. Still the fact remains that 1.) flipping the switch on 3D hardware acceleration for the VM does the trick (meaning the default-"missing" features in the N edition don't matter) and 2.) it's a UX issue either way.

Basically if I were to attempt and watch a video inside this VM it would fail (Widevine support etc, basically the features referred to by talking about N vs. "normal"), but that's not what I am attempting. And the Windows host on which I am starting the same VM (with 3D hardware acceleration available) is also N without those features installed and AnyStream works fine.

Last but not least I have no GVT-g because I have no Intel GPU.

 

[0x0x0x0x0]

The Prime side used plain old QT web-browser, disable the Prime provider and flix and d+ work fine (I found that out when I ran the VM without GVT-g). In all seriousness, with GPU partitioning now available in Windows, Hyper-V is the way to go

 

[Ch3vr0n]

The Prime side used plain old QT web-browser

No it doesn't. The amazon side browser is based Chromium. not QT.

 

[0x0x0x0x0]

No it doesn't. The amazon side browser is based Chromium. not QT.

Only Prime provider active:-

 

[RedFox 1]

Not sure why one would deem the N editions improper, but I can certainly install the features you refer to. They're just absent by default, not entirely unavailable, though.

This doesn't make it less of a UX issue, though. Because even if the software relies on such features somehow (I think it doesn't, because running the same exact VM with and without that 3D hardware acceleration enabled does the trick), it should tell me and not present a blank window and a message box telling me to log into the respective streaming provider. Don't you think?

Agreed (on the Windows part), but I equally don't see any mention of any editions, which makes the requirement list say effectively any Windows 10 edition should be supported.

I never expected it to run on Linux nor have I attempted to do so.

So where do I find it? Because it's not in the usual (documented) places ... so far I thought on account of the fact that the program misbehaves.

I'm well aware what the N edition is and I consciously made the choice. Still the fact remains that 1.) flipping the switch on 3D hardware acceleration for the VM does the trick (meaning the default-"missing" features in the N edition don't matter) and 2.) it's a UX issue either way.

Basically if I were to attempt and watch a video inside this VM it would fail (Widevine support etc, basically the features referred to by talking about N vs. "normal"), but that's not what I am attempting. And the Windows host on which I am starting the same VM (with 3D hardware acceleration available) is also N without those features installed and AnyStream works fine.

Last but not least I have no GVT-g because I have no Intel GPU.

To post a logfile you look at the GUI on Anystream, upper left hand corner you will see FILE, press it, then you see Create log file, create it, then upload the zip file to the forum. Thank you.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I have no need for 3D hardware acceleration inside my guest, but evidently AnyStream for some reason does.

No, it doesn't. It works for me with 3D hardware acceleration disabled, and it works for Pegasus with 3D hardware acceleration disabled. So there's something else going on with your setup.

No it doesn't. The amazon side browser is based Chromium. not QT.

The embedded QT browser is based on Chromium nowadays, so you're saying the same thing.